Contemporary audiences who wonder how loony, "What were they thinking?" early 70s Hollywood studio disasters like "Myra Breckinridge" were ever made would do well to take a look at "Alex in Wonderland": a near anthropologic look at the confused atmosphere that was Hollywood in the 70s.Donald Sutherland (looking alarmingly like "Myra Breckinridge"s latter-day hippie director, Michael Sarne) plays a young, hot, filmmaker of the sort Hollywood was blindly courting in the years following "Easy Rider." With the entire industry opening up their doors to him to do whatever he wants, Sutherland is hamstrung by his inability to latch onto what his next film project should be. Torn between a desire to do something meaningful and yet still operate within the "system" of Hollywood success, Sutherland, through a series of fantasies and vignette encounters, grapples with the very real possibility that he really hasn't any more depth in him than the Hollywood hacks he derides, and that his half-hearted hippie-era beliefs bring him no closer to happiness or self awareness than anyone else.There is much to dislike about the structure of "Alex in Wonderland" (riffing on Fellini's "8 1/2", the film is mired in too many 70s era movie clichés), but I enjoyed how it shined a refreshingly candid light on that point in time when Hollywood was so unsure of itself that it was handing over millions to any and everyone calling themselves a "director" so long as they were young and espoused a "now" and "with it" philosophy. It implodes the romanticism that shrouds Hollywood's most recent "Golden Age" and provides a well-observed character study to boot.If there is a problem with Hollywood films about Hollywood, it's that those involved (understandably) take the business of making movies so very seriously, but most of us average folks find it hard to identify meaningfully with individuals who agonize and fret in palatial homes and near-perfect weather, while producing for the most part, escapist (sometimes willfully mindless) entertainment motivated principally by the desire to make enough money to buy even bigger palatial homes.

.....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!

Does anything at all happen in this movie. There are only the bizarre short scenes where I didn't know what the hell was going on so that doesn't count. This movie is sooo boring it hurts, and this is coming from a person who likes it when movies are about making movies. Confused?, well I was after watching this crap. What was Donald Sutherland on, because he missed it with this one completely. And what's with the "pedofile" scene at the beginning of the movie. Can put anyone to sleep! 4/10

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.