4.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Documents five twenty-somethings' quests for power, love, sex and success in 2012 Hollywood.
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, James Deen (II), Nolan Gerard Funk, Amanda Brooks, Tenille HoustonErotic | 100% |
Drama | 69% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: LPCM 2.0
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
With a script from washed up American Psycho writer Bret Easton Ellis, directed by American Gigolo's Paul Schrader—who sadly hasn't
done anything good since 2002's Auto Focus—and starring America's sweetheart-turned-trainwreck, Lindsay Lohan, the The Canyons
is an attempt at a three-way comeback. I say attempt because the "erotic thriller" is a top-to-bottom failure and would be more likely to end
the careers of those involved than jumpstart them. For the record, I don't think the end is actually nigh. Ellis will continue his Twitter flame
wars, Schrader may have one more late-in-the-game cult hit left in him, and Lohan—with a little luck and maturity—could still turn her life around.
But The Canyons won't do any of them any good. Tellingly, Schrader and Ellis have been doing a lot of finger-pointing in the media since the
film's release, the former blaming his troubled star for not promoting the movie, and the latter straight-up dissing the director: "The film is so
languorous. It's an hour 30, and it seems like it's three hours long," Ellis has been repeatedly quoted as saying. "I saw this as a pranky noirish thriller,
but Schrader turned it into, well, a Schrader film." (What, exactly, did he expect?) The two initially teamed up to make a Jaws-esque shark
thriller called Bait—no, really—but when their funding pulled out, they decided to produce a cheaper project entirely independently, putting up
some of their own money to fund The Canyons and netting the rest of the tiny $250,000 budget with a well-received Kickstarter campaign.
Rewards included a script critique from Schrader—and come on, this guy did write Taxi Driver—and a week spent working out with Ellis and his
"celebrity personal trainer."
The production was rocky, with Schrader threatening to fire the perpetually tardy, diva-ish Lohan at least twice—by all accounts, including "Here Is
What Happens When You Cast Linsday Lohan In Your Movie," a painfully intimate exposé in The New York Times—and when the film was finally finished
and submitted to festivals, it was refused by Sundance and South By Southwest on the grounds of "quality issues." In other words, it's awful. The
Hollywood Reporter quoted one SXSW insider as saying, "It's got an ugliness and a deadness to it," an unbeatable description for everything that's
wrong with the film.
Just another evening in.
The Canyons was made quickly and cheaply, and it looks it, with flat, dully-lit cinematography shot digitally with the ubiquitous Arri Alexa HD camera. Besides some light compression, though—which occasionally amplifies and distorts the camera's inherent source noise—IFC's Blu-ray appears true to intent. Clarity is strong during daylight scenes but gets somewhat murkier the darker it gets, and the color grading stays mostly in the realistic range while occasionally veering into stylized territory for effect. Shadows do get crushed in certain sequences—see the four-way sex scene in Tara's laser- lit bedroom—but this was probably unavoidable while shooting on the fly in the dark. Otherwise, contrast is decent. No glaring issues here, but it's still hard to believe this ugly, plastic-y-looking movie was made by the same guy who directed the gorgeous Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.
As usual, IFC has provided two audio options, the default lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix and an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo track. Both are listenable and well-balanced, though neither offers anything particularly noteworthy sound design-wise. The multichannel track is front- loaded, with clear dialogue taking precedence in the mix, surrounded by some occasional quiet ambience in the rear speakers—room noise, light wind and crickets, a lonely helicopter panning behind your head, off in the distance over the Hollywood hills. The music—from composer Brendan Canning and a group credited as "Me and John"—has suitable clarity and presence. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, which appear in bright yellow lettering.
If you're placing bets on what film might sweep the Razzie Awards next year, my money's on The Canyons, a soulless and empty-headed "thriller" that marks the new career lows for writer Bret Easton Ellis, director Paul Schrader, and star Lindsay Lohan. (Co-star James Deen, the most popular man in porn, will surely bounce back, but I doubt we'll see him again in more mainstream fare.) It's just not worth your time, even if you're some kind of Lohan apologist or connoisseur of guilty pleasure cinematic punishment. You'd really have to be a masochist to enjoy this one.
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