James Deen is such a bad actor he sucks at playing an abuser despite being one himself.Paul Schrader had managed to direct a movie I have to call pretentious. I hate saying that, but I can't help myself. This is a movie made by two talents, Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis, who fumbled the ball so hard that it somehow isn't fascinating, ala Emilia Pérez. I hated nearly everything about this movie, which is funny because some of the same aspects were in films like The Bling Ring and Maps to the Stars. Intention matters, and Sofia Coppola and David Cronenberg felt like they had something to say. The Canyons feels like a joke. This has some of the worst lighting and shot composition I've ever seen with subpar to atrocious acting, especially from James Deen, a notable porn actor who plays a sociopath so badly that it comes across as a Reddit troll even though he's playing a rich kid. Lindsay Lohan is trying here, but it's never in service of anything. Schrader doesn't have a clear vision as the film's main plot conflicts with the intellectual elements he wants to portray, such as Hollywood and the death of cinema. I don't know, we occasionally see run-down movie theatres whose superfluousness ties into how bad Bret Easton Ellis' script is, which suffocates anything of interest that could happen with scenes that go nowhere or have no conflict. I got one big laugh with the blow job scenes, but other than that, this was a big plate of nothingness.

James Deen is such a bad actor he sucks at playing an abuser despite being one himself.Paul Schrader had managed to direct a movie I have to call pretentious. I hate saying that, but I can't help myself. This is a movie made by two talents, Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis, who fumbled the ball so hard that it somehow isn't fascinating, ala Emilia Pérez. I hated nearly everything about this movie, which is funny because some of the same aspects were in films like The Bling Ring and Maps to the Stars. Intention matters, and Sofia Coppola and David Cronenberg felt like they had something to say. The Canyons feels like a joke. This has some of the worst lighting and shot composition I've ever seen with subpar to atrocious acting, especially from James Deen, a notable porn actor who plays a sociopath so badly that it comes across as a Reddit troll even though he's playing a rich kid. Lindsay Lohan is trying here, but it's never in service of anything. Schrader doesn't have a clear vision as the film's main plot conflicts with the intellectual elements he wants to portray, such as Hollywood and the death of cinema. I don't know, we occasionally see run-down movie theatres whose superfluousness ties into how bad Bret Easton Ellis' script is, which suffocates anything of interest that could happen with scenes that go nowhere or have no conflict. I got one big laugh with the blow job scenes, but other than that, this was a big plate of nothingness.