Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Touches You

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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.

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.

Predictable, usual nihilistic Bret Easton Ellis script, all they do is show bored and cynical people, usually texting o having sex or taking advantage of someone else, "Hollywood style", of course. Broke bartenders/actors ready to do everything for a role, gay people ready to "help" them, pretty girls faking relationships because they don't wanna be broke anymore, the usual, you know. Pouty-lip James Deen is OK as a proper actor I guess, that role didn't require much effort after all. Lindsay is basically playing herself or possibly the tabloid version of herself, I'm afraid. Don't waste your time, unless you're an Easton Ellis die-hard fan.

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...