Search - The Monkees - Head on DVD

"Wait--Wait! Wait! Don't move--I want to forget you just as

Matthew G. Sherwin | last seen screaming at Amazon customer service | 10/06/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Head is an interesting type of pop art film starring The Monkees as their group career was waning; but make no mistake about it: there is plenty of fine acting here and the cameos are great. Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz and Michael Nesmith turn in solid performances, some of them somewhat serious and others very amusing; some scenes have an order to them and others are merely fantasy scenes that give the film a very surrealistic quality. The action moves along at a good pace and I wasn't bored for a single moment.

The movie begins with Mickey Dolenz and others interrupting a bridge dedication; Mickey jumps off the bridge in an apparent suicide attempt but of course he lives on as, of course, there wouldn't be much of a Monkees movie without him! After this episode there is a string of scenes which stand on their own sequences strung in order or nearly in order; and it's all very well done.

There are some real highlights in this movie. Davy Jones does an outstanding song and dance scene which really impressed me--and his partner for some of the dancing, Toni Basil, is certainly a fine dancer as well. The Monkees clearly show a disdain for the futility and the horrors of war (especially the war in Vietnam that was going on at the time), and they also skewer show business as they fumble their way through (and become very aggravated by) life on movie sets and studio lots. Terry Garr makes a nice cameo on one of the movie sets; and it all works very well. Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello, Jack Nicholson (who co-wrote the script along with director Bob Rafelson), boxer Sonny Liston, Victor Mature and others also do great cameos.

The DVD comes with the cameo features highlighted as a bonus but then it becomes impossible to go back into the cameos screen and choose another cameo--I had to wade through the movie by fast-forwarding several times to get another look at three or four of the cameos. This could be improved.

Of course I could tell you more but then I would risk spoiling it for you. Suffice it to say that this is quite a creative movie that will hold your attention if you like cult comedies with their endearing idiosyncrasies; and fans of The Monkees will definitely want to get this for their collections if they don't have this already."