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.

I recently saw a Thanksgiving play put on by a bunch of 6 year old kids and I would rather watch that a thousand times before I ever watch this horrible movie ever again. Where do I even begin with this big poop pile of a movie. The acting is HORRENDOUS. Just when I thought no one could be more worse than Lindsay Lohan, James Deen appears! He's absolutely terrible. He should stick to the other movies he makes. I didn't recognize any of the other actors but they weren't very memorable anyways. At least not in a good way. None of the actors were all that great. It's not even worth seeing once. Just don't. It's a complete waste of time. I barely made it through to the end. I feel like I should be compensated for my pain and suffering (just kidding. Well actually maybe not...). It has a 1.3 rating on Netflix which is the lowest rating I have personally ever seen on Netflix. I think with a whole different cast and crew the movie might have a slight chance of being somewhat decent. The idea itself is okay I guess it just was not put together to well. I still can't give it more than 1 star.

The negative reviews of this film are incredible. Watching it without preconceptions, however, is probably essential. Both Lohan and Deen give stellar performances, the latter practically steals the film as the sadistic wealthy manipulator with long-standing mental issues who begins to seriously unravel when his sense of power over others is disrupted by his seemingly weak paramour. Deen wisely underplays it, with considerable subtlety, avoiding any suggestion of camp and thereby becomes quite realistically and quietly menacing. These two actors carry the film with enough skill to make it believable. In some ways reminiscent of "Gone Girl", but far more effective and meaningful than that over-rated, far more popular film. This work will eventually come into recognition for its merits. In the meantime, hopefully we will see more great work from both talented Lindsay Lohan and the new leading man with photogenic charisma, James Deen.

Watched the last hour plus because I was channel hopping and, well I flicked on as Lohan was in the shower >blush<.Having sat in front of the TV, mesmerised by the paucity of acting, of expression, of plot, of decent dialogue, of chemistry between the actors even;.... desperately begging myself to change channel, it soon became evident that not even Ms Lohans charms could rescue this car crash.In summary, if I thought I could sue the film company for sucking an hour of my life away, I would do so without hesitation...Lastly, I think for films like this, the voting scale should encompass minus figures...