Movie-A-Day #355: 200 Motels (1971).

Frank Zappa, one of the great creative minds of the 20th century, would have been 71 years old today. He was more than just a fringe, novelty rock star. His work gleefully subverted the paradigms of jazz, classical and popular music, and blurred the lines between the sublime and the profane. Plus he was a strong social and political voice who wasn’t afraid to face down power and debunk idiocy. He was like Igor Stravinsky, Christopher Hitchens and Chuck Barris crammed into the same body. Zappa took special delight in tweaking his peers in the peace and love generation, which is one of the driving forces in his anarchic farce “200 Motels,” about a band of free-lovin’ rock star freaks on a trek across Middle America.