BIOGRAPHER BOOS NEW PARKER FILM.(PREVIEW)

Byline: VALERIE TAKAHAMA Orange County Register

In her first theater review for Vanity Fair in 1918, Dorothy Parkerrecommended a lackluster Broadway musical as a great place to get some knitting done and ``if you don't knit, bring a book,'' the caustic 24-year-old critic advised.

Parker biographer Marion Meade recalls that pan and another famous Parker put-down of a performance by Katharine Hepburn that ran ``the gamut of emotions from A to B'' when she describes her reaction to the new film ``Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.''

``I would say the movie ran the gamut from drunk to drunker. I found it rather boring. It didn't seem to go anywhere,'' Meade says.

``I think the movie shows part of her personality. The movie …