Alex in Wonderland

Alex in Wonderland is a great movie. As usual there are users on IMDb who are dissing this movie, telling: ooh, this is the worst D. Sutherland movie, it's so boring, this is not actually a movie (sic!)more short scenes bla bla bla...that's normal. They have a different taste, they've expected something else, who knows....some familiar people were dissing lot of other great directors, you know the ones which were categorized as unconventional, as if movies should been made conventional and well structured including dramaturgish suspense romance and being thrilling also and having "well written screenplayed executived characters"...or: they're knowledge in movies could fill a regular bean halfway....

Alex in Wonderland is a near to life movie. I've found myself in some scenes or better, my thoughts. D. Sutherland is bombing in his role playing really deep. He is a long-haired, bearded, free -soul director, who's trying to find a subject for his next movie...and then a lot of funny & strange things are taking place...(what a plot description)

It's a movie for your brain & eyes, it's colorful and chilling and warm and intimate and surreal and sad...and it also leaves room for your own thoughts.

For all you cine-dudes and D. Sutherland fans give this gem a try. (You can also catch it on TCM)

And don't give this dumb user any importance who was saying "And what's with the "pedofile" scene at the beginning of the movie"...What a jerking doh-doh! In this particularly scene Alex Morrison takes a bath with his child. Which loving father or mother on this holy earth wouldn't take a bath with their own beloved child...If you call that a "pedofile" scene, then there is no hope for you fella, you're just sick & rotten....you're head is empty.

.....because I have fond memories around it. Yes...it is so very dated. But I remember the tender relationship Sutherland's character had with his family, his wife and two daughters, in this movie. I also remember how entranced I was with Donald Sutherland - the actor. He was so charming. This was the first movie I ever saw with him and the first movie I ever saw in the theater without my parents. It was the first time I was able to go to the movies with friends only, and what a time we had. All five of us silly, giggly, girls....and we couldn't take our eyes off of "THE Donald". So when you watch this movie now on cable or DVD, see NOT a movie of no value, but of a wonderful fantasy vehicle that five little girls took one Saturday afternoon in 1970. What a memory!

This is definately not for everybody. I found this really interesting and since I started combining forces of cable TV with IMDB I discover really nice films. After all THERE ARE nice, different & interesting american films, even in the seventies!

Anyway, this movie is not for people who like one-dimentional films. This is both serious and funny, both tragic and amusing. Even if its not too slow, it won't appeal to those who like it fast.

Basicly it's about an intelligent director who is starting to lose it a bit. This is depicted in a most realistic way. I dont know what it has in common with Fellini's 8-IN-1, as I havent seen it. Anyway ALEX IN WONDERLAND implies a straight effect of 8-IN-1 on it.

The dialog is the strongest about this one and people on stupid action films or those who dont like a dialog based flick wont find anything in this one.

Paul Mazursky co-wrote and directed this self-indulgent, though rarely boring, chronicle of an emerging movie director's quest to find a relevant, honest subject for his second picture. With reality and fantasy intermingling (often with a heavy hand), Mazursky is able to try out different filmmaking styles and techniques--some bold and some pretentious. This approach turns the picture into a series of vignettes, not all of which hold together, however there are wonderful individual moments amongst the dross. Donald Sutherland has a magical chance meeting with Jeanne Moreau in front of a book store, and there's an elaborate, surreal scene of war on Hollywood Boulevard (as seen through the jaundiced eye of a movie camera). A prickly bit of overstated authority on the U.S./Mexico border (with Sutherland singled out possibly because of his long hair and beard) is still topical today, however the circus folk and hippie longueurs probably looked embarrassing and dated only a year or so after the movie was released. An excursion to Rome seems included only to get a Federico Fellini cameo in the movie (Mazursky emulates Fellini's "8½" throughout, however the director's bit part is a gambit that fails to pay off). Everyday scenes of family life (house hunting, grocery shopping, etc.) are handled far too lackadaisically, although the depiction of Hollywood, California circa 1970 (wherein the Old Regime has been replaced with the avant garde New Wave) has a pointed preciseness which makes "Alex in Wonderland" an occasionally bracing document of its era. ** from ****

I'm very fond of films made from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s for their experimental attempts to get beyond genre conventions. I had fully expected "Alex in Wonderland" to be an overlooked psychedelic gem. While the film does have some amazing hallucinatory set-pieces (the most elaborate, a violent war in Hollywood with soldiers firing into a crowd while 2 men in top hats and tails dance on a flaming station wagon to the tune "Hooray for Hollywood"), most of the action is plodding. Donald Sutherland as Alex, goes off on many travels and tangents to entertain ideas for his next directorial effort. None of the episodic scenes build on each other and aside for gloriously lensed shots (by Laszló Kovács) of Sutherland in full hippie regalia walking introspectively in a variety of locations, there is little cumulative insight.