Alex in Wonderland

Alex (Donald Sutherland) is the hottest commodity in Hollywood, a first-time director who’s completed an unreleased but buzzed-about movie. Opportunity doesn’t knock, it hammers.

Alex and his wife (Ellen Burstyn) can buy a big home (which one?). He can lunch with a big producer (the producer pitches him). He can dream big (and in outlandish reveries, he does). The only thing Alex can’t do is decide what he’ll film next.

After Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice put them on everyone’s Rolodex, the filmmaking duo of Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker created this far-out exploration of Alex’s quandary that’s both Felliniesque homage and, fascinatingly so today, a time capsule of Hollywood’s take on the values of the ’60s.