The Canyons

Whoo-boy, saw "The Canyons" and I guess to damn it with faint praise is that it isn't the worst movie I have seen this year (congrats still, "Grown Ups 2").

"The Canyons" does have its minor moments of art-directed, abject L.A. decadence and contains a modicum of car-crash curiosity. Lindsay Lohan is OK in it, as is porn star James Deen - although both are characters I'd pretty much cross the street to avoid in real life.

The movie is as nihilistic and dead-at-it's-core as it was designed to be, particularly expected when you have the guys who collectively created American Psycho and Taxi Driver piloting this thing. In fact, if you took Bret Easton Ellis' "Less Than Zero" and spliced it with Paul Schrader's "American Gigolo", you've pretty much got this movie's number.

Schrader's camera captures the vacuum of this glam couple well in the early going setting up Lohan and Deen's hedonistic, vacant relationship - its coolly pointed in its visual observation. Ellis manages to make a few catty points about the movie industry and those who work in it. It doesn't add up to much, though.

Perhaps coked-up "The Canyons" greatest misstep is that it settles to be forgettable mid-grade trash instead of a batsh*t-great guilty pleasure. The movie seems satisfied to recline in low-speed soap-opera theatrics, softcore antics and smug button-pushing instead of putting pedal to the metal and really going gonzo - which both writer and director are prone to do in their own individual projects.

In the end, the film's final act basically torpedoes whatever low-budget goodwill the picture had cobbled together. Both director Schrader and writer Ellis are expert provocateurs and have done - and will do - better than this shoestring experiment. Still, it coulda been worse.

Predictable, usual nihilistic Bret Easton Ellis script, all they do is show bored and cynical people, usually texting o having sex or taking advantage of someone else, "Hollywood style", of course. Broke bartenders/actors ready to do everything for a role, gay people ready to "help" them, pretty girls faking relationships because they don't wanna be broke anymore, the usual, you know. Pouty-lip James Deen is OK as a proper actor I guess, that role didn't require much effort after all. Lindsay is basically playing herself or possibly the tabloid version of herself, I'm afraid. Don't waste your time, unless you're an Easton Ellis die-hard fan.

I was eager to see 'The Canyons' because of Paul Schrader, Brett Easton Ellis directing and writing respectively, and Lindsay Lohan as the lead. I'm not a LiLo fanatic by any means, but I have always thought that given the right script and director she would be primed for a comeback. And if she can clean up her personal life then maybe she deserves one. The film for me was neither horrible nor far from perfect. The movie opens with scenes of boarded up movie theaters's, and I don't quite get the symbolism there since Hollywood seems alive and well. It is puzzling to me though that the Schrader/Ellis team had to go the Kickstarter route to raise a minute $250,000 for the budget. As you probably know, the film center's around two couples- a trust fund 'doucebag' named Christian who hasn't even read the script for the movie he is helping fund and Lohan as his girlfriend Tara, and unknown to Christian, Tara's ex Ryan, who is now dating Christian's assistant. Ryan has also been cast as the lead in the movie, and he and Tara are still hooking up. You would think Christian wouldn't be jealous of Tara's sex life since he constantly invites strange men and women into their bedroom, but of course he is. He suspects Tara is sleeping with Ryan, and things spiral out of control from there. Much has and will be said about the sex scene's in the film, but for me what really worked was Lohan's performance. You can sense that the actress knows her career is in trouble, and when she talks about needing to be taken care of, and not wanting to go back to being poor, you start to wonder where the acting stops and her real life begins. The movie isn't perfect, and the performances are flawed. I'm not at all happy with the ending, but I still think it's worth watching.

While "The Canyons" is not a total loss, it still doesn't work. As mentioned, it's about this spoiled and mentally unbalanced trust fund baby named Christian (James Deen) who's accustomed to getting his way, and his gold-digging yet not entirely unsympathetic girlfriend, former actress Tara (Lindsay Lohan). They live in a stylish mansion and have sex with each other and sometimes have guests join them. Partly on his father's insistence that he work, Christian produces the occasional film and one of those films stars Ryan (Gerard Funk Nolan), a hunky actor whom Tara was once lovers with and whom she still secretly loves. This unexpectedly makes Christian violently jealous (even he's surprised by his reaction) and sets in motion eventual tragedy. None of the people here are all that likable, not even the seemingly idealistic Ryan, and the low budget shows. The gratuitous sex and violence is reeks of exploitation. Yet the film is watchable at times. The entertainment industry is somewhat captured and some of the dialog is perceptive. The acting is somewhat better than one would expect. James Deen is a porn star, yet he shows he can carry a lead role without sinking a legitimate film. More importantly, Lindsay Lohan gives her best performance in years. She's a greedy user not because she likes to be, but because she believes she has no choice, yet she's still capable of love isn't really out to hurt anyone. I don't recommend this film, but it's not as terrible as it could have been. For all its faults, "The Canyons" has its moments.

The Canyons (2013)

1/2 (out of 4)

Paul Schrader's latest deals with the rich Christian (James Deen) who's living in Los Angeles and seems to have it all until he learns that his girlfriend/sex partner (Lindsay Lohan) is having an affair with a man (Nolan Gerard Funk) who he hired in his latest movie. THE CANYONS is without question the greatest WTF movie in the history of cinema or at least to date. I say this because there was never a single second during this film where I understood what was going on or what director Schrader or screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis were trying to say or do. This film is without question a complete and utter mess and for the life of me I can't understand what the point of it was unless the only goal was to make it as cheap as they could and hope that the Lohan nude scenes would gain enough interest to make some money. Both Schrader and Ellis are so incredibly talented that it would be easy to make fun of this picture but I personally found it rather sad as neither man has found themselves involved with something this bad before and worse of all is the fact that the film makes no sense. It's meant to be some sort of twisted erotic thriller but there isn't a single thrill and the sex scenes aren't nearly as shocking as it appears the filmmakers think they are. Had this been made twenty-years ago then it might have been considered shocking but in today's day and age everything just comes across as pretty lame. Deen is fair in his first non-porn role but he certainly doesn't show enough here to warrant any future movies. The supporting players are all either bland or downright horrid and often times it seems like we're watching line rehearsals instead of an actual take. As for Lohan, well, sadly she once again is pretty bad. She just doesn't have any emotional depth here and even during her nude scenes she just looks incredibly uncomfortable and especially during a shower sequence. I'm sure this nudity is what's going to make most people check this thing out but it's really not worth it. The film also features a bad music score, some forgettable cinematography and worse of all is how deadly boring it is from start to finish. The dialogue is downright laughable and the overall feel is something cheaper and worse than what you'd expect to see on Cinemax at three in the morning. I guess the best thing I can say is that it's actually the best of the three movies Lohan has released in 2013.