200 Motels

This is not a movie to see in a normal human state of mind. Zappa didn't do drugs, so if you can achieve a state of Zappa-Zen you might really get off on this film. Because of, or in spite of, my being on nothing, it's had the weirdest effect on me. I can hardly remember anything about it. I saw it in '74. I saw it again just recently. But there's nothing I can tell you. It's like a dream, disjointed and bizarre. A dream you know you had but can't remember. No other movie has ever done that to me. Is that good or bad?

As a long term Frank Zappa fan, I was really excited when this movie came out. I admit it's kind of hard to watch - it isn't the movie Frank planned. He had big problems with the director, he ended up in a protracted lawsuit with Royal Albert Hall (This conflict raised his costs for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and much of what was supposed to be shot wasn't, requiring an entirely "different movie" to be made in editing.

It was a joy to see Ringo Starr playing Frank's part, Keith Moon as a nun and of course the music was great. The music was written while Frank was on tour, hence the title.

It was shot entirely on video tape and transferred to film after the special effects were added. I think this was the first feature film done on video tape. The video effects were psychedelic which was a bit odd since Frank was vehemently against drug use.

It is a long time since I saw this film, so am really going off memory - however I am certain that if I say this is one of the most off-the-wall movies ever made, few who have seen it would disagree!

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were an excellent bunch of musicians who had evolved into a bit of send-up on the side by the time '200 Motels' was released. This means it falls rather heavily between being a rock musical or a comedy tour film a la Spinal Tap. Ringo Starr appears as Larry the Dwarf. Keith Moon appears as a nun (now, that's scary!); while, for reasons unknown, Theodore Bikel is there throughout as the spaced out Dave (Bikel was in 'My Fair Lady' as the star pupil amongst other mainstream features).

In good company amongst features such as 'Head' (The Monkees) and 'Born to Boogie' (T-Rex) I suppose '200 Motels' is very much of its time but looks silly and dated all these years on.

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 Mr. 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". A post-"Laugh-In" series of sketches, "200 Motels" might've been personally felt out, but it fails to grab us because, technically, the movie looks terrible. Grungy with druggy influences, it simply 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. *1/2 from ****

I watch this remarkable visual document every 5 or 6 months to remind me of the visionary powers of this great composer and musician. Frank Zappa attempts to weld together several totally different worlds of artistic behaviour. There's the nice, successful middle of the road stuff, personalized by Starr and Moon. The traditional Classic music is shown and half-ridiculed. The almost always invisible groupie scene plays it's part (no actresses here, only the real girls)like it did as a short lived musical group the GTO's (the true meaning is lost; some say Girls together only or outrageously) Frank even took one of the groupies ( Miss Lucy ?) into his home to play nanny to his children. Last, but not at all least, are the Mothers. I omit the of invention part as this was the idea of the record company to soften the blow to the female part of America's silent majority. It was the beginning of the Flo and Eddie period, which Frank sometimes explained on stage as the result of a famous DJ saying that he could make the Mothers as big as the Turtles. Well, Frank used to say: If you wanna be as big as the Turtles, have a few Turtles in your band. The movies shows in a half hidden and symbolic way the craziness of the world, the moral dilemma's and the influence of religion on the psychological development of mankind. This is the first big step into Zappa's conceptual continuity idea, which sadly ended with his death. The movie is a monument to his genius.