Powerful

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Apparently a lot of people think that this movie shows what it is like to take LSD. If so, I'm sure glad I never dropped any acid, because then I would have been bored.Alternatively, some people say that this is the movie to watch while you are tripping out on acid. Well, if you have to watch a movie like this to enjoy being on LSD, it's not worth it.Speaking of drugs, if you have ever been around some people who are drunk or on drugs and think that everything they say or do is just hilarious, then you know what it is like to watch this movie. The problem is not that the potty-mouth humor is not funny, which would be bad enough, but that the people in the movie obviously think they are being so cute and clever and witty, and that makes the movie especially irritating.

I'm giving this a "9" not because it's a great, well-crafted, well- scripted movie, like I think most people would agree "Chinatown" or "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is. I think it deserves a 9 because it's just an unfiltered extension of Frank Zappa's music, which I love already: weird, unique, often rambling, with astonishing gems here and there. "Mystery Roach" and "Magic Fingers" stand out as favorites. But Zappa was better at music than he was at filmmaking. 200 Motels is an annoyingly opaque in-joke, a surreal jumble of skits with psychedelic video filters, weird-looking people in funny costumes, and cheap sets. They're not really funny or interesting, either, they're just weird. It pulls off a lighthearted vibe like Sesame Street, only the characters talk about the "penis dimension," how depressing it is for whores to sleep with traveling musicians, and people taking too much acid. That may sound dark, even offensive, but the tone of 200 Motels is just so silly that it's hard to take any of it seriously.I think there are deeper meanings woven into this thing, but they're odd, half-baked and just not interesting. For instance, there's a recurring theme of nuns doing dirty and undignified things like having sex with Alladin's Lamp (wtf?) and taking pills. I would actually rather NOT take that seriously because even though it comes from the mind of the great Frank Zappa, it's... stupid. Juvenile. Hurrr you don't like religion, let's flick a booger on a nun. Without going deeper into why he wants to depict nuns in such an undignified way, it's just more tacky and nonsensical stage-dressing.It's kind of like the Monkees' "Head". It's stupid, pointless, and self- indulgent, but it's also a feature-length music video for a popular band, if you're into them anyways. And the over-the-top psychedelia is interesting at times.

Tony Palmer Films has reissued 200 MOTELS on DVD in "restored" form, with an interesting audio commentary from Tony that expands on how the film was produced and dispels some of the film's long standing rumors (ex: "the master tapes were destroyed" - Tony claims he still has them intact.).Unfortunately, the film print used, while having decent color, suffers from restoration artifacts and is often dirty and scratched (why the video tapes themselves were not used to make a new print is unknown). The 2 channel mono audio's muddy and occasionally drops out on one side or the other. Occasional splices obliterate short sections of the film, including Ringo Starr's description of how he, as "Larry the Dwarf", attracts women.Definitely worthwhile for Frank's fans who will again have access to this relatively obscure work.

Subtracting the obvious musical superiority Zappa has over the Monkeys, I think that the film "Head" is a better representation of the psychedelic era than "200 Motels". Maybe it's due to the fact that "200 Motels" is less of a total experience than "Head". It's essentially some nice, but barely connected videos, a few good gags and a few too many lame skits thrown in between. It doesn't seem to work as a feature length production. Personally, I'd like to see it re-edited for brevity and greater impact. It has potential.By the way, does the dry but off-kilter humor remind any of you of Beck's series of videos for "The Information"?