The Canyons is Paul Schrader's zombie movie. Its blank-generation protagonists feast upon each other's weaknesses with glazed eyes, or submit blandly to each other's vile manipulations in a hollowed-out, ice-cold hellscape in which everyone is either prostitute or pimp, or both. It sounds like a perfect combination of the obsessions of director Schrader and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis, fierce moralists unafraid to swan-dive into the sleaze.
But The Canyons is more than just American Psycho Goes Hollywood, or an exploitation of the ruins of Lindsay Lohan, or a misguided attempt to make America's porn-star-next-door James Deen into the next Patrick Bateman. At a time when critics are writing books with names such as Film After Film: Or, What Became Of 21st-Century Cinema? (J Hoberman) or Do Movies Have A Future? (David Denby), Schrader's movie seeks answers, both within its fiction and via the movie's creation, using Kickstarter, deferred salaries, free locations and no costume department.
Continue reading...Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/05/the-canyons-paul-schrader-bret-easton-ellis
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