Head Summary
MPAA Rating: G
Director: Bob Rafelson
Genres: Comedy
Rating:
The Monkees -- Micky_Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Davy_Jones and Peter_Tork -- didn't really enjoy being labelled the Prefab Four back when their TV series was all the rage in 1966. With the help and support of Bob Rafaelson (co-producer, co-writer and director) and Jack_Nicholson (co-producer, co-writer, and, if you look closely, bit player), the Monkees expressed their displeasure over being packaged for popular consumption in the non sequitur masterpiece Head. At least, it seems that the film is an indictment of the merchandising of pop stars. It's hard to tell at times, because Head literally has no plot; it is instead a patchwork of loopy sight gags, instant parodies, "camp" cutups, musical numbers and wry inside jokes. Clips of such old movies as the 1934 Karloff-Lugosi epic The_Black_Cat pop up every so often, as does an impressive lineup of pop-culture icons: Victor_Mature, Annette_Funicello, Sonny_Liston, Frank_Zappa (he's the one leading a cow) and Ray_Nitschke, as well as such movie-trivia "answers" as Timothy_Carey, Vito_Scotti, Teri_Garr, Percy_Helton, Logan_Ramsey, Carol_Doda, and pre-Divine cross-dresser T.C. Jones. The best bits include a lengthy Golden_Boy parody which does double duty as a lampoon of the network's efforts to create "personalities" for the individual Monkees, and a psychedelic buck-and-wing performed by Davy_Jones. One gag, in which Micky_Dolenz blows up a Coca Cola machine, is usually excised from TV showings. Head did zero business when it first came out thanks to poor distribution, but it has since become a fixture of midnight-movie showings and campus cinema classes. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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