In such works as "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" Bret Easton Ellis dissects contemporary American society, a culture in which too much is never enough. Now, adapting his own novel for the screen, he returns to the Los Angeles of the early 1980's with a multi-strand narrative that balances a vast array of characters who represent both the top of the heap (a Hollywood dream merchant, a dissolute rock star, an aging newscaster) and the bottom (a voyeuristic doorman, an amoral ex-con). Connecting all his intertwining strands are the quintessential Ellis protagonists -- a group of beautiful, blonde young men and women who sleep all day and party all night, doing drugs -- and one another -- with abandon, never realizing that they are dancing on the edge of a volcano.