MM42 - Hippie Satire ‘68 (Patreon)

Producer Chris programs two counter-cultural oddities from 1968: HEAD written by Jack Nicholson and starring the Monkees, and the American International Pictures dystopian “hippie-sploitation” flick Wild In The Streets. 

HEAD depicts the Monkees as a group of talented performers well-aware of their “manufactured” nature, trapped in an endless maze of bad genre pictures, Hollywood backlots, and musicians and celebrities repulsed by their very presence. It’s a genuinely hilarious and groundbreaking meta-romp through the world of 60’s celebrity with some killer tunes and all-time gags, all culminating in the Monkees committing both figurative and literal career suicide.

Wild in the Streets examines the horrifying possibility of young people gaining actual power in the American political system: 30 set as a “mandatory retirement” age, old people carted off to LSD free-love camps, and an aimless and self-interested youth running, well, wild in the streets. But while it’s most interesting in how confused its grasp on ‘60’s culture might be, the film does offer amazingly prescient portrayal of where the boomer generation ends up in 15 or so years.