ChanBot
i must have seen a different film!!
Steineded
How sad is this?
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
alienbx-1
I saw this movie on opening day in NYC in 1971. I wish I could get a DVD copy of it. It was beautiful then and I bet it is still beautiful. Yes, I still have the double album and the poster that I bought at that time. Long live Zappa! And also yes, Johnny Depp should play Zappa in the biopic!!! It is truly a great example of the rock opera that The Who tried to do a few years previous. This is it... a bit different, but still as great a rock film as "A Hard Days Night!! Zappa was a consummate politician, philosopher, musician and theoretician. This movie shows him pull it all together. And dig that amazing animation stuck there in the middle. True genius!
Bill S.
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.
ajstewart_2000
I've been a fan since 1974 and had the fortune of obtaining the original Mothers albums CHEAP -as MGM/Verve was deleting them from its catalog. Then I caught up on the Warner Brothers albums and was never enamoured with the 'Flo & Eddie' period. Still I caught 200 Motels at one of those 99 cent midnight movies that were popular back then. Everyone in the audience looked a lot like the people up on the screen and when it was over it made me think that "Flower Power" may have been a myth after all; in a way I think the experience made me appreciate and/or pity those Mothers working under such grueling conditions. The 'story'appears to make the members of the Mothers look like sexist pigs in the pre-feminist era of 1971. Mostly they behave pathetic and predatory. As Frank stated in "The True Story of 200 Motels" its easier to get guys to essentially play themselves, which makes it remarkable that they all go along with it. Some of you may recall Jeff Simmons quit the group when he saw the lines he was supposed to deliver, which turned out to be self-fulfilling prophesy!
moonspinner55
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.
