I like to think of it as a good sign that even NPR is taking the Monkees seriously.
They posted a story a few days ago, reviewing HEAD, as if it were a REAL movie, and not just a drug fueled FU to the teenyboppers. It's not even seen as a confection created for the cult and fringe movie goers to appreciate at drug-enhanced midnight showings.
The article is written from the POV of a former "teenage fangirl", the reporter Petra Meyer takes another look at it as a grownup, to realize how it starts and ends with a suicide (of the image? of the characters? of what, exactly?) and exactly "how bitter, how cynical, how teeth-grittingly furious" it is.
The thing that struck me was that the movie, and the TV show for that matter, have seldom been properly analyzed. And that most of the commentary was provided by people who had little to no perspective on the phenomena as a whole. Pauline Kael, the film critic of the New Yorker, famously said about the movie at the time: "The doubling up of greed and pretentious-to-depth is enough to make even a pinhead walk out" It had a budget of $750,000 and made back $16k of that. Sounds almost impossible now, right?
Even Micky Dolenz gets much mileage out of the challenge of interpretation. At screenings, he turns to the audience and asks if THEY know what the movie is about. And if so, could somebody please explain it to him? It gets a laugh everytime.
But this reporter takes it beyond just a joke. My favorite quote:
Without particularly meaning to be, and without resorting to cliches about acid or flower power, HEAD is an almost perfect snapshot of the state of the counter-culture in 1968. Angry, questioning, willing to tear down the old niceties to make way for something more complicated, sitting uneasily in the doorway to a darker world.
You can read/hear the full article here: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/29/676852011/the-monkees-tried-to-cut-their-strings-with-head
Also note, as good a songster that Carole King is, she generally writes the music. If anyone loves the lyrics of the Porpoise Song, you can thank Gerry Goffin.
They posted a story a few days ago, reviewing HEAD, as if it were a REAL movie, and not just a drug fueled FU to the teenyboppers. It's not even seen as a confection created for the cult and fringe movie goers to appreciate at drug-enhanced midnight showings.
The article is written from the POV of a former "teenage fangirl", the reporter Petra Meyer takes another look at it as a grownup, to realize how it starts and ends with a suicide (of the image? of the characters? of what, exactly?) and exactly "how bitter, how cynical, how teeth-grittingly furious" it is.
The thing that struck me was that the movie, and the TV show for that matter, have seldom been properly analyzed. And that most of the commentary was provided by people who had little to no perspective on the phenomena as a whole. Pauline Kael, the film critic of the New Yorker, famously said about the movie at the time: "The doubling up of greed and pretentious-to-depth is enough to make even a pinhead walk out" It had a budget of $750,000 and made back $16k of that. Sounds almost impossible now, right?
Even Micky Dolenz gets much mileage out of the challenge of interpretation. At screenings, he turns to the audience and asks if THEY know what the movie is about. And if so, could somebody please explain it to him? It gets a laugh everytime.
But this reporter takes it beyond just a joke. My favorite quote:
Without particularly meaning to be, and without resorting to cliches about acid or flower power, HEAD is an almost perfect snapshot of the state of the counter-culture in 1968. Angry, questioning, willing to tear down the old niceties to make way for something more complicated, sitting uneasily in the doorway to a darker world.
You can read/hear the full article here: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/29/676852011/the-monkees-tried-to-cut-their-strings-with-head
Also note, as good a songster that Carole King is, she generally writes the music. If anyone loves the lyrics of the Porpoise Song, you can thank Gerry Goffin.