The Canyons

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy The Canyons. It's trashy as hell, but it manages to be somewhat intriguing throughout. If anything, it gives me a lot of hope for Lindsay Lohan. She's actually pretty great in this, by fat the best. Nolan Gerard Funk is also pretty solid. Now, James Deen is one beautiful man, but the shot of his junk is probably the most impressive thing about him in the film. I think he needs some serious acting classes, and while I appreciate his effort, he totally overplays the narcissism and many times delivers lines without any range or charisma. The ending is sort of weird and unsatisfying, but overall, very much a guilty pleasure.

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.

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.

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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The Canyons lays it's cards on the table right from the beginning. The opening scene introduces the main protagonists right off the bat, a curious tactic that immediately signposts the motivations of all the characters.

Tara (Lindsay Lohan) and her rich boyfriend Christian (James Deen) are a couple seemingly living the Hollywood dream. Christian is in the process of cobbling together a low budget slasher movie, using his considerable trust fund in order to break into the film industry. However, the movie's lead, the naive and inexperienced Ryan (Nolan Funk), has a secret that threatens to derail the movie and shatter Tara's relationship with Christian. What follows is a story of suspicion, betrayal and secrets, set in the seedy underbelly of a Los Angeles populated by dream chasers and wanton, predatory selfishness.

The first ten minutes tell the audience immediately that we are dealing with shallow and vacuous individuals, grasping at every opportunity in order to satisfy their self serving natures. This presents the main problems that ultimately ruin any chance that The Canyons might have had of being a compelling drama. In order for a drama to succeed where the majority of the characters are simply dreadful, there has to something to engage the viewer. That could be an interesting script, stylish direction or passionate and sincere performances. The Canyons regrettably has none of these to offer the viewer.

Bret Easton Ellis' script is quite amazingly dull. It really does give the actors very little to work with. The story line contains an unbelievable series of coincidences, the dialogue would embarrass an amateur dramatics class and the characters have no depth to them at all. Lohan tries gamely to prove her acting chops in some scenes, but the dialogue gives her nothing but tired, predictable lines to try and give some life to. It doesn't help matters any further for her that she spends most of the movie opposite James Deen, a porn star who has little or no real acting experience. He starts the movie off reasonably enough, but by the end his acting becomes forced and clichéd. Unfortunately, although Deen isn't primarily a dramatic actor, you can't help but feel that a better director could have coached more out of him. However, even he is streets ahead of the ludicrously named Nolan Funk, who gives a vacant, amateurish and dreadfully stilted performance. That leads me to one of the most significant problems that The Canyons suffers from, that being director Paul Schrader.

Despite his impressive list of past credits, including directing edgy and challenging projects such as Blue Collar and American Gigolo, as well as writing screenplays for most notably Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, it's made abundantly clear from The Canyons why he doesn't make many movies these days. His style is quite simply outdated and his efforts here show that he has done little to keep up with the changes in modern film making that audiences do not unreasonably expect.

The camera-work is creaky and linear, the editing is poor and he overwhelmingly fails to get the best out of an admittedly ragbag collection of actors. You always feel like the crew are in the scene, such are the hackneyed nature of the set ups. For example, many scenes feature an entrance from a character walking into a room with the camera at first at a distance, then either panning across or following them in an unimaginative and linear fashion once it leaves it's previously rigidly static position. Many set ups feel disconcertingly framed, yet they feature hardly anything of interest, lending a stagey, unnatural feel to the proceedings. Strangely, the much talked about sex scenes are so tepid and perfunctory you wonder why they were even bothered with, yet it seems Schrader wanted to elicit some kind of outrageous shock value from them. As they stand, even the actors look rather embarrassed to be in them, even though of course one of them is a porn star.

The talky nature of the dialogue also grates even more than it should as the scenes appear disjointed, either being too long or too short, then simply going on to leave the plot devoid of pace and flow. Locations are curiously bland and the cinematography is completely by the numbers. It all feels very much like the work of someone who didn't have any fresh ideas or flair to assist this very oddly assembled cast who were stuck working with such a tepid script. Everything feels very clichéd and predictable, almost to the point of ridicule.

While Lohan's allegedly erratic behaviour on the set of The Canyons has been well documented, she is actually the only member of this motley crew of a cast to show any real acting ability. There are a handful of scenes that serve as reminders that before her life descended into chaos, she was indeed an real talent with great potential. It would therefore be unfair to blame Lohan and point the finger at her, as many have done, for the critical mauling that The Canyons received. The real blame must go to Ellis and Schrader. I find it remarkable that such an empty screenplay would be made into a movie in the first place and Schrader is a director who is squarely stuck in the past, with his best days as an auteur sadly long behind him.

It's hard to fathom out to what kind of audience The Canyons was aimed at, as it has contains so little in the way of redeeming features. It all amounts to what is frankly an irrelevant and entirely unessential piece of film making that's unquestionably one to avoid. Unfortunately for Lindsay Lohan, this project should have been one for her to avoid as well.