The Canyons opens and closes with a montage of derelict theaters. Marquees empty, auditoriums gone to waste, and lobbies crumbling, these former movie palaces are shells of themselves. While one might be tempted to draw a comparison to the movie's star, Lindsay Lohan, it seems more likely that writer Bret Easton Ellis and director Paul Schrader are using these burnt out multiplexes to represent the moral—and financial—bankruptcy of the film industry.
The moral degeneracy of the Tinseltown set is made plain in the film's plot. Trust fund baby and would-be producer Christian (James Deen) uses his status as the money man on a microbudget horror film to play a series of sick games with his live-in girlfriend and co-producer Tara (Lohan) after she casts former boyfriend Ryan (Nolan Funk) in the lead role. A control freak, Christian gets off by inviting random strangers over to have sex with him and Tara. He has her followed when they're not together, hacks into Ryan's Facebook account when he becomes suspicious of their activities, and forces another producer (not Tara) to seduce Ryan in a plan to destroy him.
Hollywood's financial issues were made apparent in the production of the film itself. Famously chronicled in a stunningly good New York Times Magazine piece, Ellis and Schrader funded their film through Kickstarter and chose the down-on-her-luck Lohan for the lead. The flick is being released on Video on Demand because it's unlikely many theaters would play the hard-R (or light-NC17) movie. Hence the ruins of movie theaters littering the cinematic landscape: I imagine they are included because the director and writer want to impress upon us that the biz is dying because it refuses to take chances on risky fare, or some such.
If the film industry is dying—and I have my doubts that it is—it's not because theaters are refusing to show misanthropic, crowd-displeasing fare such as this. The Canyons is so flawed I am unsure where to begin. With the unimpressive performances? With the disjointed plot? With the unrelenting mopery? With the budget-driven sloppiness? With the fact that this movie's technical incompetence made me yearn for The Informers, a previous Ellis production I gave one star and genuinely, viscerally hated—but was at least competently put together and did not look as if it was shot by three buddies working in their wealthy dad's hillside home?
I like Schrader a great deal, but if he's going to delve into the darker side of humanity he's better off doing so while working with Robert De Niro and George C. Scott.
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Clear History, which debuted on HBO this weekend and will, in all likelihood, be playing constantly for the next few months, is the best 90-minute episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm ever.
Of course, it's not technically an episode of Curb—even though it stars Larry David playing, essentially, himself, and it was written by David, Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer, Curb alums all. And it's shot in a style similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm with a soundtrack that closely resembles Curb Your Enthusiasm. And it mimics Curb's pseudo-improv style.
No no, this isn't an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm! It's the story of Nathan Flomm (David), an eccentric ad man who sells his share in an electric vehicle company right before it goes big. The fit of pique costs him a billion dollars (literally), and the public ignominy causes him to disappear from the face of the earth.
We flash ahead 10 years, where the movie picks up with Flomm in Martha's Vineyard as Rolly, the caretaker for a crotchety old woman. He's living the simple life: good friends and the occasional poker game have helped him get over his loss. Until Will Haney (Jon Hamm) decides to buy a plot of land on the Vineyard, that is. The multi-billionaire creator of The Howard—the car that drove Nathan/Rolly from the company and has revolutionized the automobile business in America—haunts him still.
Rolly decides to take his revenge: With the help of a few locals (hilariously played by Danny McBride, Michael Keaton, and Bill Hader), Rolly decides to take a job as a contractor and blow up the garish new mansion that Haney and his wife, Rhonda (Kate Hudson), are building. He also hopes to seduce Rhonda in an effort to get her to leave Haney and take half of his billions. In typical Curb fashion, Rolly's/Larry's expectations are all wrong, his plans go awry, and he gets his comeuppance.
It's probably worth mentioning that David is exorcising a few personal demons in Clear History. Considering the plot, it's hard to expel from one's mind that David's real-life electric-vehicle obsessed wife Laurie divorced him and absconded with half of his Seinfeld fortune to Martha's Vineyard to marry a contractor. This probably explains why he couldn't simply turn Clear History into a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm; given that that show is loosely based on his real life, it might have been difficult to reconcile all the various issues at play.
Regardless, the film is hilarious. And it was a lovely palate cleanser following The Canyons.