Frank Zappa was a rock star. He was also a self-absorbed libertarian, performance artist, and avant-garde composer who nonetheless filled his more populist music with cheap sexual references like an immature fourteen year-old boy. Above all else he was someone who always knew what he wanted to do with his life, and lived it without fear. This documentary, assembled in large part from Zappa's own film archive, is therefore intriguing even if you don't appreciate his output: with many celebrities, the life-story is got lucky, got rich, never did anything interesting again, but no-one could say this of Frank. Watching this (and hearing his rather odd creations) I marvelled that he ever made it out of obscurity: perhaps he didn't simply because others found him interesting. And yes, he really did call his daughter Moon Unit.
Review of Zappa
