The Canyons

This film suffers heavily from a distinct lack of sexiness and way too much boring dialogue. And that is just the beginning of the problems. You really know a film is bad when Lindsay Lohan is the only bright light in it!

The Acting: Lindsay Lohan does quite a good job in a couple of scenes involving emotion, though she is much less effective in the (too abundant) dialogue heavy scenes. James Deen shows a few flashes of talent but mainly seems as if he is trying to emulate a method actor with no real understanding of how to actually pull it off. The other "performances" are uniformly bad to less-bad.

The Writing: One word... Awful. Boring dialogue and unbelievable story. Poor ending. I think Bret Easton Ellis is a one-trick pony. He has never managed to equal what he achieved with American Psycho.

The Directing: Same word as above... Awful. Paul Schraeder really should sink back into obscurity. This project is definitely not going to help his career. Poor choice of camera angles and poor framing abounds. He shows no sign of his earlier talents. I think he is lost in his own imagined "genius" as he tries for a gritty realism and gets ugly pretentiousness.

Camera, Lighting, etc.: Poor lighting in almost every indoor scene. It looks like it was shot on a smart phone. The music is irritating. Wardrobe... What wardrobe? It looks like the actors supplied the clothes they wanted to wear. There is no costume design or set design in evidence here.

Sexiness: Basically there is none. Lindsay Lohan looks pretty sad with her prominent beer belly, sagging breasts and 1960s style lingerie. Control-top granny panties are not lust-inducing! The sex scenes are boring and much less spicy than the hype suggested. The "orgy" was so badly filmed it and lit that it was impossible to find it sexy or even interesting. Women or those with a gay interest may find it more sexually appealing but I don't find dangling limp penises to be anything but silly looking. The entertainment media painted this as shockingly graphic but it is pretty tame compared to cable shows like True Blood if you discount the number of penises on view.

In Conclusion: Not really worth a look even if you just want to see Lindsay Lohan in the buff. There was more of her on view in Playboy and her body looked at least a bit better in the magazine. If you are looking for titillating sex scenes you would be better off with Skinemax. If you want to see a dramatic expose of Hollywood's dark underbelly look elsewhere. In fact just look elsewhere. Period.

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.

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.

Release Date: 2nd August 2013 (US)

After starring briefly in two of the years worst films, Lindsay Lohan makes her full length return in Paul Schrader's "The Canyons". A film that documents just how crazy one individual can go, when he finds out about the secret love affair between his girlfriend and the lead on his film project.

With this being Lindsay Lohan's first full length appearance since the critically panned, "Labor Pains" released in 2009, there has been a lot of correspondence and speculation surrounding this indie flick.

Despite hearing some very mixed opinions, I have to say I wasn't particularly fazed by "The Canyons". The film is littered with problems, yet I never really had any trouble sitting through it. It is overdramatic and slightly ridiculous, but at times, that alone makes it a very compelling watch.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't enjoy the movie, but I didn't dislike it either. It's a very middle of the road experience. Well at least it was for me anyway.

The films production budget is very low. So don't go into it expecting some extravagant revenge-romance esque thriller, because that's not what it is. In a way, the films plot-line could be compared to that of a soap opera. It's not particularly exciting, but it is partially entertaining watching it unfold.

However, for such a low budget film ($250,000 to be precise), the film is actually rather attractive. It is very well lit and the various locations work with the direction that the film goes in. It's well cinematised, and in terms of shots, whilst it doesn't do anything original, there were times when I was watching the film amending some of the cinematography.

Now a lot of media outlets have compared to the film to porn. I don't necessarily agree with that statement. Sure there are specific body parts that are revealed on numerous occasions, but whilst there is an emphasis on sex, it's not as explicit as a lot of people have made it out to be.

The performances are average. Nobody really impressed me and whilst nobody is bad, some of the dialogue is very cheesy and repetitive, but of course that can only be blamed on the writers. Lindsay Lohan offers a solid turn as does real life porn star, James Deen, but nobody does anything that you're going to love or remember the next day. Everyone's very mediocre, and due to how ridiculous the film eventually becomes, the characters all end up becoming rather comical.

Whilst the film does lack in its key areas, along with the cinematography, one of the aspects I liked was the score. I will be the first to admit that it does sound very amateurish, but the electronic nature of it occasionally works, with what the movie is trying to present. That presentation being that shouldn't have affairs, especially if you're dating a complete an utter psychopath.

I have to admit The Canyons was lot of better than I expected it to be. I didn't necessarily enjoy it, but there were aspects to it that I liked. Perhaps I'm being too nice, but for a low budget production I didn't find it too bad. If you have a partial interest in seeing it, see it. But if you don't, then I wouldn't bother.

5/10

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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.