Notoriety is a double-edged sword. Lindsay Lohan's tabloid headlines and James Deen's career in porn got them cast in a movie, The Canyons, by the respected director Paul Schrader. But the movie's own notoriety, its reputation for badness, did nothing to further a comeback for Lohan or an emergence into respectability for Deen. (Subsequent accusations that Deen was a serial rapist didn't help.) It's not, I think, quite as badly acted as some say: Lohan gives a more than competent performance and Deen has a wolfish presence that lends his character credibility. Schrader is skilled at creating an atmosphere of moral decay that almost makes the movie into the fable about contemporary Los Angeles that it wants to be and its title suggests. But it was made on the cheap with an inadequate supporting cast, and it never comes to life as either erotic drama or social commentary.
