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Zappa

Zappa

Music · Documentary · 2020

With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.

Movie details

Zappa

“Save the Vault. Tell the Story.”

2020 Music · Documentary 2h 9m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.5 / 10

3.8K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

96 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

76 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.3 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Zappa?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Alex Winter

Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Self (archive footage)

M

Mike Keneally

Self - Played with Zappa 1987-1988

P

Pamela Des Barres

Self - Author, Former Member of the GTOs

L

Lonnie Lardner

Self - Newscaster for Action News (archive footage)

P

Patrice Zappa

Self - Frank Zappa's Sister (archive footage)

R

Rose Zappa

Self - Frank Zappa's Mother (archive footage)

F

Francis Zappa

Self - Frank Zappa's Father (archive footage)

Court is in session

Put Zappa on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Ambition earns the room.”

The film reaches for consequence and scale, accepting the risk of seriousness instead of shrinking from it.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Importance has entered the chat.”

The production keeps announcing its significance, as though awards-season posture were proof of insight.