Play Time (2006)

Whether it's Austin Powers or Harry Potter, a hit character today gets franchised ad infinitum. But as Jacques Tati tired of alter ego Monsieur Hulot, a French-provincial bumbler previously front and center in M. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle, he turned this brilliant vision of an over-urbanized Paris into a Where's Hulot? The trenchcoated Everyman hovers on the periphery of astonishingly sustained slice-of-life long shots. Some unbelievers find the artful inaction in Play Time more exhausting than funny, but they're so wrong. EXTRAS Poignant interviews detailing how the mega-costly picture bankrupted Tati.