The Monkees - Head (1968)

Childish "Art"

I remember when the Monkees show was on Saturday morning reruns, and my siblings were surpised that I enjoyed it despite my very young age. In the age of "MASH" (actually 1-2 years before) there were indeed a great many persons who conflated mere juxtapositions and semi-random non-sequiters with the sense of anomie they felt at the time, and were desperate to see expressed in some way.

Funny, but my 4 OR 5-year old self (although purely in terms of chronological age!) seemed to be the ideal audience for this kind of writing. As a child, I could delight in pure zaniness for its own sake, quite unconcerned about the lack of moral convictions betrayed by the writers (the perfect example is when the film has a woman being punched out, purely for the supposed comedic value of doing so [in a typically childish delight in norm violations and unsupressed instincts], but then that person starts questioning what kind of role model he is in having engaged in such behavior. Like, no kidding! You can't have it both ways - you can't have scenes with "Indians" casually shot and stabbed by the protagonists and yet claim that these are persons who represent Flower Power simply because they have their mouths agape whenever they see a tank or military vehicle. This is cinema of the absurd for those who have no clue what the absurd was supposed to be about (e.g. La Fantome de Liberte), a cheap spin-off on Dadaism. The most informative thing about this film may be how it reveals that despite the pleasing sounds that this band sometimes produced, there is no way that they should ever be confused with the Beatles, or the many other worthy bands of the time (as seen at Woodstock and Monterey, both filmed and available on DVD for viewing).

Here, viewers should be prepared for 90 minutes of silly scenes, lacking any substantial connection, but loaded with pretentiousness. A slightly adjusted version of the Vietnam newsreel footage of a brutal gun execution is the perfect example... such footage is inserted more than once into this "children's film" (so-designated by the dialogue of one of the Monkees himself!) to pretend to give it gravity and broader political significance. But in actuality the film offers pure sensationalism with no binding theme except an extended expression of abstracted anomie, devoting much more time to the gyrations of belly dancers than to any actual political statement. And of course, this was the awkward historical period in which supposedly liberated women simply served as eye-candy, with role sets purely limited to stereotyped coquetry (this film was released at the same time, for example, as the ridiculous Elvis Presley vehicle "Live A Little, Love A Little," and is actually of weaker quality). For a better sense of what the late 60s counterculture was actually about, viewers should instead check out "In the Year of the Pig" and leave this commercialized fluff as a mere footnote in the annals of spin-off marketing. August 20, 2008

husband likes

Bought for my husband for Xmas he has always wanted it for his collection of off beat movies December 28, 2007

The Widescreen argument.

I've just watched this film again for the first time since owning a widescreen TV. I believe, from Andrew Sandoval's comments quoted in an earlier review that not only was this film shot 1:33:1 but it was also shot with "open matte" in mind.

"I sat for a week while they did the transfer and color correction and was told that was all that was on the neg (as far as info). Nothing was cropped in any direction. In one of the early scenes you can see the black mat slide up when Micky is falling (they were going to blow this up to take away the mat, but I told them to leave it as proof this was the full screen)."

The fact that there is the black mat showing tells me that it was definitely shot with cropping the top and bottom in mind. Putting this theory to the test by watching the full screen film blown up on my widescreen TV (not stretched, but enlarged) I found that the film was framed perfectly, without cutting off anyone's head.

OK, you lose a little bit of information, BIG DEAL; the filmmakers didn't intend you to see that little part of the screen anyway. The big tell tale sign is during the "Ditty Diego - wall-of-screenshots scene". Ever notice the space difference between the top/bottom to the side of the screens? Well in cropped mode it all fits in evenly! The same goes for the brief windowboxed, b&w, silent movie scene.

Why did they shoot open matte? I don't know, maybe to cut costs or to reuse the film as a telemovie if all else failed (I'm not a Monkees expert). But with this in mind, it would be good to see an animorphic DVD with a 16:9 version and a 4:3 version for those diehards who want to see Davy Jones' belt buckle. As for not being able to do a 5.1 remix - I'm sure with all the studio outtakes that Rhino keep pumping out, the multitracks of these songs still exists: at least have the songs in 5.1.
December 8, 2007

I saw it in a theater...

The discussion about framing ratio confuses me. I saw this film in a theater, and it wasn't wide-screen. I have a copy of the VHS release, and it reproduced what I saw in the theater, in 1.33:1 ratio. November 1, 2007

1.85:1 LBX, BABY!

RE: J. Rosenberg "Pop Culturalist"

Guess what? It's on TCM right now (Oct. 20th, 2007 @2:00am) and it's properly framed in it's soft matted 1.85:1 ratio, AS IT WAS INTENDED! The compositions make more sense now and everything looks better.

I've spoken at length with Andrew Sandoval (back in 1998) and, although he may know everything there is to know about the Monkees, he knows little to nothing about film and proper aspect ratios. I even told him before the release that I had in my possession a rare US TV trailer for HEAD that I never saw before. He raised his nose and sniffed, "Everything that's out there will be on the DVD". Of course, the little snot was wrong. He also said that a Stereo remix wasn't possible. I say it is. Comme si, comme sa. October 19, 2007

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