It was an unusual premiere last night in New York for Christopher Nolan’s Oscar buzzed “Oppenheimer.”

The screening at AMC Lincoln Square IMAX was packed, drawing an eclectic crowd of recognizable faces including media mogul Barry Diller and punk rock queen Patti Smith. Prodicer/activist Trudie Styler was accompanied by her son, Jake Sumner, who’s got a great documentary coming to Netflix this fall about rock and roll promoter Ron Delsener. (Sting is touring all the world to sell out crowds.)

But there were no SAG members of note, no stars from the film as the union strike prevents any promotion of films.

Director Nolan was there to introduce the film, and thanks his crews around the world. An avowed enemy of streaming, Nolan made short remarks supporting the striking actors and writers, noting “changing business models that have not kept pace” and “need to be changed.” He said very politely, very British, “We need to get back to work as soon as possible so we can keep doing what we love.”

“Oppenheimer” is three hours, and nine minutes long. Already the raves are piling in. Director Paul Schrader said to me and later Tweeted that it’s the best film of the century.” That was a lot coming from him since Schrader is bffs with Martin Scorsese, who’s got the spectacular “Killers of the Flower Moon” coming in October — and will be “Oppenheimer'”s competition in awards season. (Watch for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., and Emily Blunt to be on the top of lists.)

Great food at the Natural History museum, and plenty of it since Universal scaled back the party so severely. But Universal chief Donna Langley was busy accepting kudos on her promotion to Head of Everything including Movies and TV. Langley has risen through the ranks over two decades, and she’s the only one in Hollywood who seems to know what they’re doing these days!

I’ll start my piece about Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” with this: I’m in deep admiration of people who can raise millions of dollars simply to indulge themselves. I also admire the actual investors. That they have this much money to squander on spending time with movie stars, that’s pretty swell.

“Asteroid City” is playing on Amazon Prime now. I paid 20 bucks to see it, and I’d like it back. Is it well made? Sure. The art direction is precious, perfect, contrived, impeccable. It all looks good. But it adds up to absolutely nothing. It’s a fraud.

Anderson has made some terrific movies in this vein before. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Moonrise Kingdom” were very clever. His films before that — “Bottle Rocket” and “The Royal Tennenbaums” — were amusing and off beat. But Anderson has reached the point where he’s having a laugh at our expense. First it was “The French Dispatch,” a box office disaster, and now “Asteroid City.”

Dozens of familiar faces dot this film shot in Spain at I’m sure tremendous expense. So far the film has made about $25 million in the US. It’s like petty larceny on the part of the filmmakers. Everyone wants to be in the cool group at school so you go see a movie with Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwarzman and a bunch of people who are in on the joke. But the joke is on us.

Anderson is one of the most indulged directors in modern history. Years ago, some studio was putting him up a boutique hotel on Irving Place and footing his bills. Now they say he’s living in France, I’ll bet he’s having a great time. He can pick up the phone and summon two dozen name actors to Europe for a six week shoot and someone pays the bill — even if the actors have no lines, or the movie has no plot.

“Asteroid City” is sort of like an unfunny parody of “Oppenheimer.” It’s set in the desert in 1955, where the children of rich people come to be in a science camp. An alien lands in this Area 51, so the people are quarantined. Not a lot happens. There’s little comedy and no drama. Actors make cameos, say silly things, and waste a lot of time. Scenes are sketches that go to black. Everyone has a contrived, meaningfully funny name. Schwarzman plays a war photographer named Steenbeck because that’s the name of the editing machine used in pre-digital times. So clever! You spend more time figuring out the names in these films than following the story.

The sets are built on a soundstage against painted backgrounds. There’s a lot of effort to make the film look surreal or animated. No one, however, is animated, in the real sense. Everyone is disaffected, droll, detached. The actors have cool costumes.

The space or science camp, it turns out, is fiction. The actors are making a movie. Sometimes we go backstage, where there’s some discussion of what’s happening in the shots. Listen, we’ve all been backstage a lot. Go see “Noises Off.” This is a worn out gimmick by now. How about an actual movie?

The next Anderson movie is based on Roald Dahl’s “The World of Henry Sugar.” There are just a few characters. If it’s not a substantial leap out of this morass, disappointment will be heavy. It’s time to take all this brilliance and making something meaningful, not just attractive.