Review:
"The Canyons"
Release Date: Aug. 9, 2013
Rating: Unrated Running Time: 100 minutes Money can buy power. But what about control? That’s the question at the rotting heart of The Canyons, a typically lurid indictment of La La Land excess by Less Than Zero author Bret Easton Ellis. Porn star James Deen stars in this Paul Schrader-directed drama as a movie producer whose sexual appetite is as big as his trust fund. While Deen’s girlfriend (Lindsay Lohan) is a willing participant in his sexcapdes, he suspects she’s cheating on him. Of course, it doesn’t matter that he’s cheating on her. Deen’s right, though. Lohan’s sleeping with her ex-boyfriend (Nolan Gerard Funk), who just so happens to be the lead in Deen’s new horror flick. Only in Hollywood. From Hardcore to American Gigolo to Auto Focus, Schrader’s has never been afraid to analyze lost souls whose downward spiral stems directly or indirectly from the role sex plays in their lives. The Canyons, though, doesn’t boast such rich and strong characters as Richard Gere’s male prostitute in American Gigolo and or the Greg Kinnear-protrayed sitcom star Bob Crane in Auto Focus. The pretty young things this glossary affair are unlikable, vapid Hollywood vampires and obvious Ellis archetypes who are defined by their desire to obtain and maintain control over those above and beneath in the food chain. Deen possesses the necessary charisma to warrant his sexual conquests, but he lacks a strong enough presence to hold The Canyons together. Lohan gives an emotionally authentic performance as a woman torn between love and creature comforts, and her much-mooted fourway with Deen and another couple serves as a defining moment in The Canyons that Schrader shoots in artful fashion. Despite its inherent flaws, The Canyon often unfolds as a gripping psychosexual game of one-upmanship that Schrader executes without resorting to shock value. Robert Sims Aired: Aug. 8, 2013 Web site: https://www.facebook.com/TheCanyonsFilm |
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