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That's the weirdest movie I've ever seen!! Man, I didn't find it with portuguese subtitles (I'm Brazilian), only with french!! And I don't speak french!!! Anyway, weird stuff, still couldn't watch the whole of it...

Check around on this board ... I have a review of it.

Do remember that it was just an experiment for Frank and his work, and he got through it. All in all, it is massively important and creative, and the first to actually use video technology in the filming of the work which is now, 40 years later, the de-facto standard, since film is too expensive and the number of labs that can process it are dwindling downeven more, specially as Kodak and other film makers are cutting down the amount of this stuff that is being made.

Video is more versatile than film ever was, and it was just a matter of time, before video had enough resolution to make the crystals on the film itself, not look as good, or as true.

The time, the place, the ability ... you simply do not have, anywhere, today, the freedom and ability to be so explosive and exploratory as what Frank did ... a record company would kill you over night today and make sure all the newspapers know that you burn x-number of dollars and did not do anything with it, excpet waste it. And the public would believe it! ... but in those days, there was a much more open viewpoint about the spirit of innovation and creativity ... which is almost non-existent today and with folks such ass-kissers to corporate music and works.

We need more Frank's!

Hi,

More for you ... from another post:

Gio. Shanger wrote:
Nack Blapkin wrote:
I still find it hard to believe that Zappa wanted to be known primarily as a filmmaker. I'd be interested to read your book though.
...
FL: (reading) Are these film treatments a conscious effort to break away from music?

FZ: No. I do music all the time. I like films.
...

And I wrote:
...
This is actually not surprising ... if you check out the music, it is actually quite visual, and sometimes, the lyrics are not the only visual idea in it. Somehow we have this idea that "visual" means that the lyrics tell you what the music is supposedly about ... and I've always thought that quite a bit of the music was actually a movie ... and that is why some of the titles make so much sense ... but we only treat it all as rock music, or worse ... not an art! Even film has done better than that!

Hi,

More for you again from the Film-makers postings on this board:

Quilt wrote:
...
15 or so years ago I bought Uncle Meat on VHS. Probably the worst film I ever saw on that medium. I love the music on UM, the album, but the dialogue(!) excerpts are also utterly dire.
Only my opinion, and probably shaped by my complete disappointment at shelling out a lot of money (at the time) on something that I wanted to like (It was FZ after all!).

I wrote:
It's not film as you know it, and are used to it ... it was, and probably is, an experiment and some things worked and some didn't ... but that's like saying that half the Picasso stuff is shit!

The biggest problem with experimental stuff ... is one's perception of the medium ... and guess what you just got caught on? ... I'm not sure that the details that you offered were even descriptive of the experience of watching that film ... I have that video ... and am trying to find someone to transfer it to DVD for me ... because I don't have a TV or a video player!

Experiments are experiments, and I agree that not all of them work ... but I suppose that you could at least agree that more than half of them worked, or Frank would not be worth the discussion!

UNCLE MEAT
one of the greatest albums of all time.
UNCLE MEAT
one of the worst movies of all time.

How's that for conceptual continuity?




God I miss Frank!!!

I don't know if this has been discussed somewhere else on this forum (it probably has), and God knows I don't have the time to look, but I would love to see a DVD reissue of The True Story of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels that wasn't a VHS transfer and was <$20. If I thought it was worth my time, I would petition Gail and/or MGM for its release.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Frank_Zappa's_200_Motels

That is all.

My understanding is the MGM is going to wait for Gail and the rest of the Zappa family to die, so no one will ever make a penny of it, except them!

About the only way to get this viewed right about now, would be for Gail to get together with Toni Palmer and release that version in an agreed ... this and that ... (and please get rid of that uglu blue) ... with a proviso that if MGm finally gives it up, that both get to clean up and remaster the original and then release it ... and both can gain from it. Sadly, the movie studios are the biggest thieves in the past 75 years, and no one is going to do anything about it ... because they are owned by the biggest corporations in America ... that run the country! And they know they can make millions off garbage that you "love" to watch on TV or in the cinema ... and the majority of folks here don't give a shit, because all they want is the Roxy ... and Frank be damned for anything else he did!