200 Motels (1971)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

200 Motels (1971) *** (out of 4) If you've heard any of Frank Zappa's music then you should know what to expect in this semi-documentary and that's originality and strangeness. The film follows Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on a tour but don't expect your typical Don't Look Back type of scenery. Instead we get all sorts of short stories including an animated sequence with an acid taking Donald Duck wannabe, two groupies and Ringo Starr playing both Zappa and a dwarf. This film also has the distinction of being shot on videotape, which allowed Zappa to finish the movie in ten days. It's really hard to recommend this film to anyone because I'm sure most won't know what to make of it and in fact as a Zappa fan I wasn't sure what to make of it but that there is what makes the film work. Another movie like this can't pop up in my mind and for my money that originality is what makes this film special. Zappa himself is scene throughout the movie but never heard. That's an odd thing to do but what's even odder is having Ringo play Zappa and it's shocking how close they look to one another. Keith Moon shows up as a "sexy nun" so that there should tell you how nuts this film is. If you're looking for an actual documentary on Zappa or his tour then you're going to be out of luck here but if you want pure strange images then give this a try. There's plenty of music throughout the film as well, which is another big bonus.

I saw this film for the first time in the 70's in a funky little theater in Manhattan on a double bill with Joe Cocker/Leon Russell's "Mad Dogs And Englishman". I was stone cold sober. Now, TCM just broad casted it and I watched it again. This film is full of little vignettes about life on the road, but the images are deliberately blurred, the camera goes here and there, and everyone seems to be partaking in something that they bought from a dealer. This, of course, is ironic, since Frank Zappa did not do drugs. Some of the music is, of course, wonderful, and its great to see people like Flo and Eddie, Ian Underwood and Jimmy Carl Black on screen, but the film is solely for Zappa fans. I don't think you need to get stoned to watch it, but for some of this, if you are sober you feel like you were invited to a party only to be the resident wallflower. If you like Zappa, who of course left us too soon, you owe it to yourself to watch it, but if you do not care for his music, its not your film. The rating is based on the cohesiveness of the film, which is barely there. I was stone cold sober when I watched it on television this time also. I'll never learn.

I stumbled across a pay-per-view showing of "200 Motels" a couple of months ago (for some reason my TV picks up other peoples' in-demand movie signals). I've never seen anything even remotely like this movie. The visuals, the music and sound effects, the plot line: in a sense that no other movie could achieve, Zappa (a non-drug user by all accounts) somehow managed to create the perfect simulation of the most bizarre kind of LSD experience. Movies like "The Trip" may scratch the surface, but "200 Motels" plunges us in headfirst. I'm not sure that this movie would make anyone want to try hallucinogenic drugs, but for anyone who likes their movies to take them outside the box, this is a must-see.

I guess most people would probably absolutely loathe this movie, but I'm not most people. If you're looking for plot, intricately drawn characters, thoughtful shot composition, look elsewhere.Now, if you like to have the video and audio input channels into your cerebrum overloaded from the start, you'll definitely love it. This movie does not relent. I guarantee, if you drop acid first, your brain will be bleeding by the end of it.I never thought the Flo & Eddie version of the Mothers was the best, but I do think they translated pretty well to the super-color-saturated multi-layered shot-and-mixed-entirely-on-videotape visual paradigm here. Kaylan & Volman are such atypical-looking pop stars (and yes, children, they were indeed pop stars once upon a time, in a band called The Turtles), the sets so purposefully fake & cheesy, the dada knob turned up so far past eleven, that any aficionado of TOO MUCH! really owes it to themselves to let this movie burn a hole in their brain.