bigshot
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2008
- Messages
- 2,933
- Real Name
- Stephen
If you're familiar with this film, you know how messed up it's been on home video... wrong aspect ratio, wrong speed, bad color, muffled sound, dialogue missing, fuzzy picture... just about everything that could go wrong with a film happened to this one. I just screened the brand new DVD transfer (Aug 2018) and finally there is a home video version of this film that looks and sounds the way it's supposed to.
The movie features bizarre skits depicting life of a rock band on the road, along with live footage of the reconstituted Mothers of Invention featuring Flo and Eddie. The host is Ringo Starr dressed up as Zappa- Zappa himself barely appears in the film- along with Keith Moon, Theodore Bikel, Pamela des Barres and the Royal Philharmonic orchestra. There is a great animated sequence too.
The film was shot in an experimental video format and includes all kinds of psychedelic optical effects. It's a lot like The Monkees "Head" with comedy bits, music and wild colors. I was very impressed with the sophistication of the video technology, considering the film was released in 1971. They must have gotten access to the original video tape masters, because it looks like a video now, not a kinescope.
I'm not sure how they fixed the speed issues. The film was shot on PAL video and slowed down to 24 FPS on a previous release, making everything drag. I didn't notice any dropped frames or interlacing problems, and it runs at the right speed now.
The sound is clear with good bass (it sounded muffled and thin in the past) and it comes with a 5.1 remix and the original soundtrack. The 5.1 mix is fairly conservative. They must not have had access to the multitrack masters, but it does the job nicely without a lot of ping pong tricks.
It's a really forward thinking film, foreshadowing the look of rock videos a decade later. Well worth picking up.
The movie features bizarre skits depicting life of a rock band on the road, along with live footage of the reconstituted Mothers of Invention featuring Flo and Eddie. The host is Ringo Starr dressed up as Zappa- Zappa himself barely appears in the film- along with Keith Moon, Theodore Bikel, Pamela des Barres and the Royal Philharmonic orchestra. There is a great animated sequence too.
The film was shot in an experimental video format and includes all kinds of psychedelic optical effects. It's a lot like The Monkees "Head" with comedy bits, music and wild colors. I was very impressed with the sophistication of the video technology, considering the film was released in 1971. They must have gotten access to the original video tape masters, because it looks like a video now, not a kinescope.
I'm not sure how they fixed the speed issues. The film was shot on PAL video and slowed down to 24 FPS on a previous release, making everything drag. I didn't notice any dropped frames or interlacing problems, and it runs at the right speed now.
The sound is clear with good bass (it sounded muffled and thin in the past) and it comes with a 5.1 remix and the original soundtrack. The 5.1 mix is fairly conservative. They must not have had access to the multitrack masters, but it does the job nicely without a lot of ping pong tricks.
It's a really forward thinking film, foreshadowing the look of rock videos a decade later. Well worth picking up.
