Sundance: New Film Much Less Than Zero
Joel Schumacher’s “Twelve” screened yesterday to a lot of people leaving the theater quickly. This is “St. Elmo’s Fire” for the “Gossip Girl” crowd, and it’s perfectly awful. Chase Crawford, of “GG” fame, plays a rich teen drug dealer on New York’s ritzy upper East Side. All the kids go to private school, they’re all doing drugs and buying stuff, and acting like stereotypes. Kiefer Sutherland narrates the film like it’s a “Dragnet” episode. Charismatic Billy Magnussen, currently on “As the World Turns,” makes a lasting impression as a spoiled kid who goes crazy, gets some guns and tries to kill everyone. I wish he’d tried harder. Here’s an alternative ending to this item: the Twelve of the title refers to a drug that’s a mix of coke and ecstasy. I wish I’d had some during the screening.…Fox Searchlight seems like it’s in the lead to buy Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right.” All day we heard stories of every studio wanting this terrific film. But it seemed like a F/S entry while we were watching it. Also in the running: Weinstein Company. There’s also strong interest in “Blue Valentine,” another solid entry. All the potential buyers are being very wary, and trying to out outsmart the sellers. Long gone are the days of bidding wars commencing at the end of screenings…
Joan Rivers is the star of an excellent new documentary about herself called “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.” It’s directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg. Listen, Joan Rivers is forever. The film shows clips of Joan from her early days of standup to “Ed Sullivan” to Michael’s Pub, where she became a cult favorite. At last night’s party, I asked Joan what she thought of the whole Conan-Jay debacle. Joan’s NBC disaster ‘ trying to get more money as Johnny Carson’s guest host only to wind up leaving for Fox, disastrously ‘ is chronicled in the film.
“What do you think?” she said, with a dismissive wave of the hand.
