Alex in Wonderland | Ellen Burstyn, Neil Burstyn | A magnificent self-indulgent masterpiece!

VHS: Alex in Wonderland | Ellen Burstyn, Neil Burstyn

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Alex in Wonderland

	Alex in Wonderland Ellen Burstyn, Neil Burstyn MGM (Warner), 1998 average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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This autobiographical 1970 film by Paul Mazursky came on the heels of his success with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Donald Sutherland stars as a young filmmaker who finds himself the toast of Hollywood after having a big commercial hit. But he feels that he should be doing work that challenges--and even puts off--the mass audience. As the studios clamor for his next film, he finds himself mired in self-conscious writer's block that ultimately leads him to Italy and a meeting with his idol, Federico Fellini (in a cameo as himself). Self-conscious is one of the words critics applied to this film, an obvious and only occasionally funny homage to Fellini's 8 1/2. Nevertheless, it's an interesting artifact of its time. --Marshall Fine

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A magnificent self-indulgent masterpiece!

I probably have a real soft spot for this movie, since the one and only time I was in Hollywood was with my family as a kid when this movie was being made. But it wasn't just your typical movie location! Of course we all wanted to see Hollywood Blvd and got there very early in the morning. What we saw blew us away. Basically the entire Viet Nam war was taking place. Literally. There were tanks and bombs and Viet Cong prisoners and marines, and men in top hats and tails dancing on the rooftops (I don't remember that from Viet Nam, actually!), and Donald Sutherland all bearded and hippy looking, leading the "parade" crying his eyes out! I just sort of knew, even as a child that this was NOT your typical Hollywood scene! It was of course the famous Hollywood Blvd.-Viet Nam War dream sequence from Alex In Wonderland. The movie seemed to be following us around, since when we got to the airport, we saw, on the tarmac, ambulance and police and tons of people wondering around as if gassed, and bodies everywhere! Again... yes, a scene from "Alex"! I tried to wonder as we flew back to Boston, how all this was going to make a movie. In fact, it almost doesn't... but this wonderful mess of a movie is filled with imagery and ideas, and self-indulgent moments of enlightenment. It reminds me of a coffee shop out here. They make something called Missy's Mess. It's scrambled eggs with about 15 other ingredients thrown in. Actually I've been told that "Missy" throws in whatever looks good in front of her and just sort of fries it all up with lots of hot garlic, onions and hot sauce. It may look terrible, and you may not want to eat it every day, but oh, in the right mood... it's ambrosia! That is, I think the best description of Alex In Wonderland. Of course, Mazursky is doing his version of 8 ½ (and in fact has a wonderful moment where Alex goes to Italy to read a script and actually runs into Fellini who editing his TV documentary "The Clowns" and really has no interest in hearing from yet another "young American filmmaking fan")... but this is more than that. Mazursky had just come off several hits and had the power to make basically anything he wanted. The studios at the time really didn't have a clue (now they not only don't have a clue, they don't even now what game they're playing)... so they let him do what he wanted. Unlike so many other filmmakers who are given this freedom, Mazursky actually has talent and intelligence... so that when he makes his personal movie with a major studio budget, it rings with so much more entertainment and eye candy. "The Last Movie" this isn't! Disneyland on acid is more like it. Simply it's a movie about a moviemaker in search of his next movie. So much of that has to do with Sutherland's performance. He is not a man full of himself, but someone who understands with total sober clarity the "fluke" of fame, the power he has... and how fleeting that power is in Hollywood (this movie was made long before the phrase "flavor the month" came into vogue). And therefore, you really feel his worry, when he realizes that his next movie must be something good... something important, or else he too will end up out of "flavor", teaching extension courses in Fresno. Scene after scene delights with staggering honesty of the "biz" without getting too "in" about the whole thing. Yes, everyone talks about his shutting down Hollywood Blvd, and then staging the Viet Nam war on it, but perhaps the most brilliant scene is Sutherland going to see the head of MGM (played by Mazursky himself). There have been dozens of scenes done before and since to show just why movies are as bad as they are... basically because the people who make the decision are functionally illiterate, incompetent, and without any qualifications for the job. To watch Mazursky trying to convince Sutherland to make a "modern day" version of Huck Finn, or a just plain dumb "heart transplant" story (ironically, Sutherland made virtually that very movie years later called "Threshold"!) is classic filmmaking of the highest degree. Sutherland's reactions to this vapid shallow man, more interested in his pet monkey and wine collection that making movies says more about what's wrong with the "biz" than volumes of text. But there are also scenes of wonderful "control". Especially the long, slow, yet achingly naturally moments of Sutherland at home with his family. A sequence of him in his tub with his daughter, and another with his wife (a young Burstyn in her best performance) in bed, right after they've made love... ring so true and so universal to ANYONE with a family that it transcends a "filmmaker's odyssey", and becomes, instead, the odyssey of any man (or woman) who find themselves suddenly holding the brass ring and has no idea what to do with it.

For anyone who loves movies, this is a must have. I never thought it would make its way to video... so I'm delighted to see it here. The nice coda to this movie is the fact that the REAL filmmaker, Paul Mazursky DID go on to make one great hit after another. It's nice to know, even those "Alex In Wonderland" ends with Sutherland running through an empty house he may buy (and which could put him in instant debt)... pretending to be Errol Flynn... still without a clue what he's going to do next... that the REAL filmmaker's triumphant, not only had a clue... but the talent and the resources to back it up.

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