August 19 2009

200 MOTELS & BABY SNAKES - Together At Last

Presented by American Cinematheque

Aero Theatre 1328 Montana Avenue at 14th Street in Santa Monica
Thursday, August 27, 2009
$10 Box office opens at 6:30pm
Screening at 7:30pm

This, from American Cinematheque online:

Frank Zappa Double Feature:

New 35mm Print! 200 MOTELS, 1971, MGM Repertory, 98 min. Dir. Tony Palmer & Frank Zappa. "Touring can make you crazy, that's what 200 Motels is all about."- Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa was a mad scientist constantly pushing the boundaries of music, film, and video. 200 MOTELS is no exception; Zappa combined The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with The Mothers of Invention and filmed the bulk of the soundtrack live. Zappa's favorite topics -- groupies, mundane Americana and inside jokes -- are the themes of this film. Musical interludes provide a transcending break, where things like place, time and plot are forgotten. With Theodore Bikel, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr as Frank Zappa.

BABY SNAKES, 1979, Intercontinental Absurdities, 164 min. Dir. Frank Zappa. In 1977, Frank Zappa gave a major concert in New York that gave full rein to the astonishing range of his talents as a composer, musician, band-leader, conductor, satirist and ringmaster. Orchestrating the band, the event and the audience – the concert was a triumphant celebration of the breadth of his uniquely idiosyncratic vision. Zappa filmed the concert and spent the next two years editing, polishing and adding sequences to the film including ground-breaking claymation. As usual, Zappa was far ahead of his time – and the film did not enjoy wide distribution on release.

And we have this to say: It's Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf disguised as Frank Zappa and furthermore we all know that Baby Snakes (which stars the New York audience) is about "people who do stuff that is not normal."

See you there.