Home > Drama >

The Canyons

Watch Now

The Canyons (2013)

August. 02,2013
|
3.8
|
R
| Drama Thriller
Watch Now

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

...

Watch Trailer

Cast

Similar titles

Reviews

Linbeymusol
2013/08/02

Wonderful character development!

More
Hottoceame
2013/08/03

The Age of Commercialism

More
Nonureva
2013/08/04

Really Surprised!

More
Glimmerubro
2013/08/05

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

More
Martin Bradley
2013/08/06

The credits show a series of derelict cinemas, now just ruins, before cutting to a kind of business lunch in which beautiful, vacuous movie people talk about movies and sex. The scene would appear to be 'badly' written and acted but brilliantly directed; if this is what constitutes the movies today it's little wonder so many theatres have closed down. You might call Paul Schrader's "The Canyons" a satire on the movie business but it's much too sour to be truly satirical. For decades Schrader has always been Hollywood's Number One Avenging Angel, condemning sex and violence in his puritanical fashion while showing it in extremis.Now he has turned his jaundiced eye on the business that has been providing him with a livliehood from the seventies onwards. It takes time to get your head around the inane dialogue and the stilted acting that in lesser hands might have condemned this to a straight-to-video release but this is an expensive production, brilliantly photographed in widescreen by John DiFazio, its money shots coming, not from below the belt, but from inside Schrader's head, or should we say from inside Schrader's head and that of writer Bret Easton Ellis who has also been biting the hand that feeds him for quite awhile now.The problem lies in the casting. It's one thing having good actors play 'badly' but it doesn't really work in reverse. The lead here is played by porn star James Deen who is supposed to be someone who, if not exactly intelligent, is at least successful and in this role Deen never convinces for a second. Lindsay Lohan, on the other hand, is somewhat better. Lohan is someone who might have had something of a career had her personal life not got in the way. Everyone else is cast for their bodies and not for their brains which, I suppose, is just as it should be in a film about an industry that seems to have been founded on sex. No doubt the 'Me2' movement will find much here to back up their argument that Hollywood has long been operating on exploitaiton. At least Schrader has fun telling us that all this is bad while wallowing in it. Of course, most people haven't caught Schrader's little jest as intended and the film flopped. It may be far from his best work but I think it fits perfectly into his canon.

More
BrazenBrunhilda
2013/08/07

I will not regurgitate the story line of this horrendous clunker of a film, The Canyons; there are many reviews outlining this stark, confusing and confounded movie, so I won't bore anyone with a redundant rehashing of this freakishly odd, depraved and lackluster bomb. All I can offer are a few, hopefully non-cruel notes on the sad fate of it's pathetic, washed up lead actress, Lindsy Lohan. Oops, so much for not being cruel. This film (more like student made video) is a true life commentary on the pitfalls and repercussions of allowing oneself to drug and drink her way into oblivion as Miss Lohan has apparently and unfortunately done. This once beautiful and talented young actress was teetering at the precipice of super stardom; now, she is a terribly aged has-been addict who has run her career and life down the proverbial tube. We have watched in horror, and perhaps morbid curiosity, as this young woman has circled the drain and finally sunk into a virtual abyss of failure, and in the end, written herself into the annals of infamy. It's a very depressing sight to behold. In this instance, art really does imitate life. Well, at least REALLY bad art. Lindsy accepted a role befitting a faded and torn painting of her own life. Maybe she took a major turn at Method Acting. Maybe she could truly see herself mirrored in her character. Maybe this putrid film is another note in her real life swan song. Maybe The Canyons is so hard to watch because I actually see a glimpse of the real Lindsy Lohan in a more heartbreaking light. Then again, maybe I am just trying to justify the very existence of this crud-fest in my own philosophical way.

More
sussmanbern
2013/08/08

THE CANYONS is a film done on the cheap. Financed by rattling the tambourine on Kichstarter, soliciting actors on another website to work for scale, and mostly borrowing existing locations. The reason: Lindsay Lohan, the only "nomenclatura" in this production - and the co-producer eager to revive her movie career, was so notoriously into drugs and dodgy behavior that no investors or insurance companies would touch this project. Her co-star is Bryan M. Sevilla, who rejoices in the screen name of James Deen and has attained ephemeral fame in skin flicks ... the press kit dares to say that The Canyons is his first non- porn movie, but that's a fib; The Canyons is just pricier porn.This movie was filmed and then re-edited ruthlessly. There were hopes that it would do well at Sundance or some other film festival, but no such luck. As far as I know, it stained only a few theater screens and then went to DVD and cable.Originally intended as a thriller, this ends up as a noir study of life among over-indulged youthful Hollywood sociopaths. Christian (Deen) is a young Hollywood millionaire, and Tara (Lohan) is his girlfriend, and at various times Christian takes Tara out to restaurants to meet with people who would like him to throw money at their movie projects. If things seem promising, Christian invites these people to his fabulous house in the Hollywood canyons (this was actually rented from the architect who built it), where he throws a little drink-and-drug party with Tara the door prize for all participants. Tara puts up with this because she hopes that someday Christian will keep his promise to make her a star, and even so Christian is cheating on her with Cynthia (Tenille Houston), whom he treats every bit as badly as he treats Tara. There is some back and forth between Tara and her former boyfriend, Ryan (Nolan Funk), and Cynthia, about Christian's pathological behavior, but the simple fact is that Christian is the one with the money and presumably the power. Every now and then we are shown a shuttered old movie house to tell us that the movie industry (as distinct from maybe cable TV) is dying and so are Tara's hopes. Before it's over we find out that even Christian's family keeps him at a safe distance, a fact that would be significant for the others to know.The one remarkable feature in this film is a couple of glimpses of Lindsay Dee Lohan barefoot all over. She was 27 when this was filmed - but she looks closer to 37 and that was not intentional. If this was supposed to be a mystery, the mystery is why they bothered to make this movie. I would suggest several other movies for stories about drugged up sociopaths such as TRAINSPOTTING.

More
aforandromeda
2013/08/09

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.

More