200 Motels (1971)

I'm giving this a "9" not because it's a great, well-crafted, well- scripted movie, like I think most people would agree "Chinatown" or "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is. I think it deserves a 9 because it's just an unfiltered extension of Frank Zappa's music, which I love already: weird, unique, often rambling, with astonishing gems here and there. "Mystery Roach" and "Magic Fingers" stand out as favorites. But Zappa was better at music than he was at filmmaking. 200 Motels is an annoyingly opaque in-joke, a surreal jumble of skits with psychedelic video filters, weird-looking people in funny costumes, and cheap sets. They're not really funny or interesting, either, they're just weird. It pulls off a lighthearted vibe like Sesame Street, only the characters talk about the "penis dimension," how depressing it is for whores to sleep with traveling musicians, and people taking too much acid. That may sound dark, even offensive, but the tone of 200 Motels is just so silly that it's hard to take any of it seriously.I think there are deeper meanings woven into this thing, but they're odd, half-baked and just not interesting. For instance, there's a recurring theme of nuns doing dirty and undignified things like having sex with Alladin's Lamp (wtf?) and taking pills. I would actually rather NOT take that seriously because even though it comes from the mind of the great Frank Zappa, it's... stupid. Juvenile. Hurrr you don't like religion, let's flick a booger on a nun. Without going deeper into why he wants to depict nuns in such an undignified way, it's just more tacky and nonsensical stage-dressing.It's kind of like the Monkees' "Head". It's stupid, pointless, and self- indulgent, but it's also a feature-length music video for a popular band, if you're into them anyways. And the over-the-top psychedelia is interesting at times.

I see that this fallacy (to remain polite) is taken from the credits as they appear in the DVD booklet... Yet ANOTHER thing to be hated about this release!... Ruth Underwood (born Komanoff) is credited by Zappa in the soundtrack album as the player of the ORCHESTRA DRUM SET, and she can be seen playing it and reading her parts on a photo of the album's booklet! So every time you hear a drummer playing along in the highly complex orchestra-only pieces (and not with The Mothers' electric combo), it is she, the highly accomplished virtuoso percussionist!Yes, it is a poor film, regardless of the format, print and transfer, and I agree with most of the recent reviews here. However, the live music (band, orchestra and virtuoso soprano and bass singers) remains fantastic, even deeply moving in parts, and includes one or two major pieces otherwise unavailable so far on any official recording.

Yes. I voted 10 out of 10. Not only because I am a huge Zappa fan, but because this is a fantastic example of "guerrilla art" - that's a term that would make more sense after seeing this flick; I wouldn't do it justice writing about it ('dancing about architecture', anyone?). Zappa wasn't just a musician - he was avidly creating films, too. And as far as midnight cult movies go, this is easily one of the best ever made. Shot on a minuscule budget, you see the production as part of the feature, and virtually-unrehearsed experimentation being recorded in one-off ways. To contrast, there are some high-value musical compositions performed in this. The absurdities that peppered Zappa's mind, body and spirit made it into this movie; probably as well as it ever possibly could.You know the "it's so bad, it's good" cliché? If you really get that, you'll get 200 motels. If you're unfamiliar with Zappa's work and are looking for a primer, well, this isn't it unless you can handle a lot. This isn't a rock video - this is a psychedelically soaked piece of fiction based on true life of a touring rock band. There are strained parts and explosive parts, hard left turns and perversion. I know many people with wide minds who to this day don't make it through 200 Motels in one sitting. It's a lot to consume.Oh, and Ringo as Zappa - if you know the history of Zappa and the Beatles, that's a treat.

To many people, musician Frank Zappa's counterculture rants were dangerous, to some sexually charged and stimulating, and still to others tired and boring. Somehow, he managed to cut a deal with United Artists and filmed what emerged as a free-form musical diatribe on drugs, sex, the gap between generations (musicians vs. the common businessman) and post-psychedelic expression. With MTV some 10 years off, this was the only way Zappa and his Mothers (of Invention) could bring their ideas together, but unfortunately it's too messy to involve anyone beyond Zappa's core audience. Ringo Starr, in Frank Zappa garb, has some curious speeches that attempt to clarify Zappa's concepts of society, and some of the rock music is indeed exciting, but Frank Z. is far too defensive to be much fun. Surely some of these directionless scenes are meant to be satiric, but his sense of humor is always undermined by a draggy, self-serious need to "teach us something". It's a post-"Laugh In" series of sketches which might've been personally felt out, but they fail to grab hold because, technically, they look terrible. Grungy, and undermined by druggy influences, the movie doesn't take shape. Besides, Bob Rafelson and the Monkees did this kind of thing first (and more slickly, to involve a wider audience) with "Head" in 1968.