I see that this fallacy (to remain polite) is taken from the credits as they appear in the DVD booklet... Yet ANOTHER thing to be hated about this release!... Ruth Underwood (born Komanoff) is credited by Zappa in the soundtrack album as the player of the ORCHESTRA DRUM SET, and she can be seen playing it and reading her parts on a photo of the album's booklet! So every time you hear a drummer playing along in the highly complex orchestra-only pieces (and not with The Mothers' electric combo), it is she, the highly accomplished virtuoso percussionist!Yes, it is a poor film, regardless of the format, print and transfer, and I agree with most of the recent reviews here. However, the live music (band, orchestra and virtuoso soprano and bass singers) remains fantastic, even deeply moving in parts, and includes one or two major pieces otherwise unavailable so far on any official recording.

While not truly horrible, this movie is still a nearly unwatchable mess which is only barely saved by Zappa's music.This movie could only have been made in the post-psychedelic, highly experimental climate of the early 70s. It feels like a first year film school project gone horribly wrong. Every "trippy" video and editing trick is employed. It's truly an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to film making, however, it only serves to compound the fact that there's no substance to this mess. There's no plot to speak of, rather it's more of a series of skits. The trouble is, for the most part they're unfunny and only barely entertaining. Even cameos by such luminaries as Ringo Starr and Keith Moon fail to deliver much beyond the cheap thrill of recognition.As I mentioned, this movie is only barely saved by the musical performances. That's because some of them are horrible, some are just OK, and only a select few are actually really good. This is the kind of movie you need to see on DVD so you can skip straight to the performances, because there's really no other reason to watch this movie.I guarantee you won't be able to get through this movie in one sitting. It's basically garbage, and is interesting mainly as a historical curiosity.

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.

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 Frank 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". It's a post-"Laugh In" series of sketches which might've been personally felt out, but they fail to grab hold because, technically, they look terrible. Grungy, and undermined by druggy influences, the movie 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.