Starbucks Nation

Delivering an exhaustive inventory of L.A. archetypes, this debut by the writer/director of Who is Cletis Tout? fails to offer insight into the media-blitzed circus at which it discharges its big guns. Morgan Beale, a jaded screenwriter of ""mythic"" stature busy adapting bestselling book The Chihuahua in the Blue Prada Bag for the screen, one day runs into his long-dead writing partner, Luke. Luke quickly entices Beale into a Hearse, and so begins a hallucinatory if largely incoherent trip into an alternate universe where Ver Wiel allows Beale to go about shooting fish in a barrel. Beal targets ""chimp"" producers, paparazzi, reality TV hosts and contestants, actors, celebutantes, critics (""I hate critics""), TV anchors (and their segment producers), FEMA and his starlet wife-""the whore of the corn."" Unfortunately, this reads mostly like a score-settling hit-list than Tinseltown parody, and it rarely rises above the level of a drugged-out diatribe-particularly during a lengthy, surrealist delirium involving a talking Chihuahua. Beale's bilious outpouring makes his Hollywood shooting gallery almost endearing by comparison.