200 Motels

An unforgettable viewing experience...
First of all, the one thing that a lot of people miss about Zappa was that he was a master "resource" utilizer. - - He knew what he wanted his projects to look and sound like, and was great enough of an artist/producer to find/discipline people capable of delivering his vision - - So the big question : Despite his notorious reputation for his mixture of music and oddball stage antics, given a REAL big budget to make a real big motion picture, could he pull something off ? - - The answer... UNBELIEVABLY FRIGGIN' YES ! ! ! - - The film captures the MOTHERS in their prime circa the antics of FLO & EDDIE... the bizarre stage routines of his group are MELTED together by a great theme... that TOURING can make you crazy... though surreal, beyond the paranoia and psychadelic wierdness, the backstage politics of a band touring on the road, the stresses between the leader and bandmembers... and yes, the neverending quest for the ultimate BJ come through in the form of a BRILLIANT opera,...

touring can make you crazy [apparently]
Frank Zappa himself does not say/sing a word in 200 Motels, though he is often seen on screen. The starring roles are taken by Flo & Eddie, Jimmy Carl Black, Ringo Starr, Miss Lucy & Miss Pamela, & more Mothers & their friends. If you expecting a straightforward plot or a 'proper' film this isn't it, but if you want pioneering experimentalism, many subplots, a lot of bizarre humour & music, this is the place. Set in the typical American town of Centerville [despite being filmed mostly live to videotape in England], on a seemingly endless tour, the title referring to approximately how many places the real life Mothers of Invention had stayed over the previous 6 years, complete w/ "vile foamy liquids" & groupies galore [listen to the Fillmore East lp of the same year as this film as that is about 1/2 of the lyrical content]. Reality & fiction merge, cameras are openly visible, breaking all the rules of Hollywood which we don't really need anyway...

Cult Classic that preaches to the choir
If you know nothing about this movie, there are a few facts you should be aware of before watching that help mitigate the usual hatred this movie elicits:

1) It had a budget of $700,000. Of that, $400,000 went directly to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, so effectively this movie had a budget of $300,000.

2) It had a shooting schedule of five 8-hour days.

Given these two tourniquet-like limitations, it is amazing that Zappa got ANYTHING done, let alone this final product. A good companion piece to this film is "The True Story of 200 Motels" which documents these (and numerous other) obsticles Zappa encountered while making this beast. If Gail Zappa ever gets around to issuing a DVD of 200 Motels, hopefully she will be precient enough to include The Making OF as a bonus feature... but I digress.

Yes, this film is technically "bad," but it's so bad it's good, and it has much self-effacing humor within it about how bad it is. Admittedly,...

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