Zappa

It makes a very good case that you should be interested in Zappa's work.

If there is one American musician who was overdue for a comprehensive documentary, that's Zappa -- and this one doesn't disappoint. It's as messy as his music in parts, but that fits.

Key to the success of the film is the editing, a pinballing assault of free association, claymation and gleeful profanity, which goes some way towards recreating what it must have been like to spend time inside Zappa's head.

Winter has simply collated the resulting audio and video recordings into more than two hours of slightly sophomoric Zap-tastic musings on the pointlessness of commercial music, the need to fight the system and the tediousness of mainstream success.

Winter has created a fascinating watch.

Winter's film deserves a lot of credit for appreciating the full, intrepid range of Zappa's music, though penetrating the leathery mystery of his personality is perhaps a tall order.

Surprisingly concise but still well rounded, Zappa is the best doco of this under-appreciated talent that we’re likely to get.

The style does bring a flamboyancy to the craft and creates methods that endear one to the brash yet creative persona of this particular artist.

While perhaps erring on the side of worshipful, and not interesting in delving into Zappa's flaws, it is, nonetheless, gripping and thorough.

"Legendary" is an adjective that gets thrown around a lot, often without too much justification. So too is "visionary", come to think of it. But Frank Zappa was both: insanely talented, intimidatingly intelligent and incorrigibly iconoclastic.