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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Watched it this past weekend on free on demand cable. i finally loved it. Seeing FREAKS first on the double bill made it real difficult to enjoy. Watching just about ANYTHING after Freaks would be anti-climactic to say the least.

thought i heard it before
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21958&p=509294

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

That's funny. When I saw 200 Motels for the first time when I was a senior in high school at the local theater it was also a double bill with Freaks. I like it more now too.

Yea, that was the standard pairing that made the rounds across the country, I guess (?).
I had long wanted to see Freaks so I was there for that as much as for Motels. Freaks is nearly perfect at just over an hour. Motels seemed to go on forever, and I always liked the record but it was hard to sit through. I for one don't find Don Preston's acting skills tolerable. I don't find it amusing in the least. Gotta blame Freaks. It's colored my opinion for some 30 years.

I wrote on another topic that the film would be much easier to swallow today, than it was yesterday ... maybe it was that we're not impressed by the glut of television, music, news and crap, and we will watch it ... for what it is ... a nice trip down ... Frank Zappa boulevard! With lots of music!

I was actually thinking that one of the things that Dweezil could/should try and do, is a production of 200 Motels, but I'm not sure that the kid wants to go past his rock gawd thing ... and the fear of this falling apart on him, is not something that he can enjoy right now. You can not have fear when doing this stuff ... as simple as that!

I would love to be a part of this, but my staging would be so psycedelic that most people would wonder ... what's going on ... but it will be another wonderful slice of surrealistic psychedelia ... having fun, instead of being politically, or socially serious. 200 Motels is much easier to handle than that, since there really is not that much serious stuff ... you're too "stoned" for it to be serious, and this is, by far, the one album where Frank just let the fun hang around, even if it was getting weird and some folks (dialogue) were wondering what it all meant. The fact that there were no "conclusions" should tell you everything you need to know.

Today, the weird stuff, or the paranoia stuff, or the sexy stuff, is so mild that the whole thing ... seems ludicrous and silly. Watching Keith in a nun's outfit ... is fun ... and stupid at the same time, but Keith didn't care ... he just wanted to have fun ... and a lot of the things in there, are quite ad-lib and not likely to have been scripted, and some of them may have been accidentally caught ... albeit we all think that everything was "scripted" which is likely, but not always possible ... film, above all, always has an extra minute or two that ... you can't leave behind! It is the part that helps make its magic come alive!

Like some of the best weirdo's and strange film makers of the day, those being Federico Fellini and Jean Luc Godard, the fun thing about this film is that Frank made them look like ... Fellini is just a silly boy still playing the kid taking the pee on the river that gets punished by his mom ... for a very different reason! ... and Jean Luc is just ... wishy washy and sometimes plain weird ... as an excuse to do something different. Frank didn't have to try ... it was already there, right in front of him. Fellini needed costumes and color ... and Godard needed backwards sequences, camera playing the pendulum sequences ... and words over it to throw you off ... Frank just turned it on and let it fly! The results? Far superior to the master film makers ... but because it was so ahead of its time in design, concept and in the making, the film ended up being trashed senseless and did not get the promotion and support that it deserved and even today this film is still in hawk, and I believe that the trust is not in control of it.

Movies, btw, have been the insdustry that stole the most from people and still control the copyrights out there ... you just get your nickel and goodbye! The music business has grown to stop most of that, but the film business is still in control of the Copyrights definitions and decisions today. And for this reason they still deny a lot of the digital stuff and my only hope is that they will lose all their rights when things get all digital and they want to save a film!

At any rate, it is a great film, just not the usualy fare out there and rather tough to get the top ten folks that love those hero things to enjoy a film like this ... but someday they will ahve to grow up beyond the bum kissing social regime that wants you to worship heros so they can continue taking money from your wallet ... as an excuse to entertain you!

Well, to each his own. I would say to be fun it would have to be, um, funny. Maybe it's much better when drugs of some type are used in its viewing. Me, I think it's a colossal bore. But I guess I don't have much "insight" into the "sheer genius" of this movie.

BTW, it's been 41 years (!) since it's been released.....its status is unchanged, as far as I know.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Well, I guess you can count me in the "grey area" between moshkito and calvin. It's pretty weird and by no means a great movie, but if you're a hard core Zappa Fan (and maybe even an open minded classic rock fan that likes cult movies) you'll probably find enough to recommend it at this late date. Easily better than Uncle Meat (the Movie), far worse than Baby Snakes (the movie).

No it's not EPIC but it's a great visual experience to see while listening to some pretty good music. I think it showcases that band very well. I owned the LP before I saw the movie and couldn't get into it, other than Magic Fingers. Once I saw the movie the LP clicked. I give it a whirl every couple of years and generally enjoy it. I only wish the movie had better quality sound.
The first time I saw it, at a midnight movie of course, my gf & I double dated with her slightly older brother and his gal. He is now my brother-in-law and to this day remarks that he has no clue what it was about. Lost soul.

"Touring can make you crazy". Its said within the first 5 minutes!!

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Come visit my Progressive Rock forum at: http://zombyprog.proboards.com/index.cgi? ... its good for your health, national and otherwise!

"Who tortured you and made you listen to Yes?" - Roger Dean

This is the part that is hard for many folks to get into and perhaps spend a little more time trying to make sense of a longer novel, or piece of music, or a work of art that is 10 ft by 10 ft ... it might have great value and it might not.

There are folks that still wonder what that big thing in Chicago in front of the Institute is ... and who? Even sitting there and staring at it is not going to help you deliver yourself from your predicament of "not knowing" ... sometimes there is no "knowing", but at other times there is.

In Pablo's case, you could easily associate "Guernica" with a young boy looking out the window in Madrid during their Civil War, and that is what you saw outside the window of your house. You could easily say that the sculpture in Chicago was a nice "vision" of the younger generation with its colors, clothing and individuality ... but ... generally ... empty the rest of the time! I look at it that way ... all the time, and I guess my greatest fear is feeling empty inside ... and not in a way that means I have to speak out and opine on everything including the kitchen sink!

In so many ways, this film is just a camera turned on and shooting ... and if you watch this for some meaning, you will drive yourself nuts ... but if this is just like a newsreel ... and even the sound is not necessary at times ... because you already know the world around him is nuts. I find this no different than "Revolution #9", when you walk down the street with a microphone turned on, and you record all you hear ... no edits ... just a 9 minute walk.

But Frank is not always empty and not necessarily given to not saying something ... you and I know that ... but I do think that he wanted to show a side of "his mind" with everything that was going on around him, and let's say that ... this movie is as close to it as possible ... with some ideas for a song or insanity coming and going all the time!

Is it great or not?

That is a hard question. It is great in that no one else has even come close to doing anything so off the wall and different in film, with or without music! You will never see anything like it again ... but the fact that you do not know what it is about, or the lyrics don't tell you this is about this bitch or that bitch or something else ... makes it difficult.

As a "representation" of what an acid trip is all about? ... pretty darn good if you ask me ... non-stop, right down to the imaginary excesses and weirdness ...

Now let's check one other ... trip ... Steppenwolf ... is this so different than the Magic Theater? ... nope!

It's a stream of consciousness ... and yours is no better or worse than mine or Frank's ... but Frank was able to film it, and you and I have not been able to.

This is the greatest side of the artistry in Frank's creativity ... his ability to continuosly create new things, and sometimes an experiment here and there helps ... and I always thought that this was the end of his "Freak Out" material and that his music was going to change some ... he was done with that period!