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.
Review of 200 Motels
