Van Sant set to direct 'Acid Test'

Finally, Gus Van Sant has taken time away from building his gay bathhouse in Portland, Oregon, to concentrate on something else. Something film related. According to Variety, the My Own Private Idaho director will be adapting Tom Wolfe's novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for the big screen.

Forty years after being published, the hallucinogenic work is finally getting the scripted treatment. Big Love's Lance Black has been hired to hone the work for theaters.

Wolfe's literary masterpiece followed Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters on a revolutionary road trip. They drove a bus from California to New York to visit the World's Fair. The group spent most of their time on the road under the influence of LSD.

I wish I could say I was excited by this news. I loved "Drugstore Cowboy," but Van Sant it is a very hit or miss director. With all the various elements going on in Kesey's text, it would be very easy to turn this classic American tale into a glossy cartoon. And, there is also the off chance it will never get made. Hollywood likes to dash your expectations like that...