Tag: bret easton ellis

Now Playing: ‘The Canyons’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Lindsay Lohan and James Deen (yes, that's a stage name) confront an exhausted, post-film landscape in 'The Canyons'.
Lindsay Lohan and James Deen (yes, that’s a stage name) confront an exhausted, post-film landscape in ‘The Canyons’.

thecanyons-posterA couple of enfant terribles (Lindsay Lohan and writer Bret Easton Ellis), a director with a good grasp of the lengths people will go to in destroying themselves (Paul Schrader), a clutch of blank-faced performers, abandoned movie theater ruin-porn photography, and a bed-hopping Hollywood melodrama make up the cracked camp quasi-classic that is The Canyons.

My review’s at PopMatters; here’s part:

Everyone is exhausted in The Canyons. But even as Paul Schrader’s and Brett Easton Ellis’ wickedly unnerving satire offers the usual Southern California power games, it also shows how soul-sapping this constant contesting can be. Everyone knows the machinery is lubricated by tainted money, but this is all that anybody seems to know. Even the allure of Hollywood fame seems to have disappeared, leaving nothing in its wake. Terrified of standing still, the characters just keep pushing back the night. The frightening thing is, soon all they can see is more night…

The Canyons is playing now in very limited release, and is also available on VOD, where Schrader and company think most people will end up seeing it. The hope is that their micro-budgeted indie will get some free publicity out of Lohan’s still-considerable tabloid profile. Given that big-budget movies have crashed and burned with regularity all summer, and anything that’s not big budget can barely get released, The Canyons could serve as a harbinger for a new kind of movie future. One with a lot fewer theaters to overpay for popcorn at.

One of the many stills of closed movie theater facades that Paul Schrader scatters throughout 'The Canyons'.
One of the many stills of closed movie theater facades that Paul Schrader scatters throughout ‘The Canyons’.

 

Department of Awards: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Best Film of 2012?

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film - Upcoming, Omnicultural1 Comment

zerodarkthirty1This afternoon, the New York Film Critics Online (an august group that I am glad to be a member of) announced their awards for films released in 2012. Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, led a fairly scattered pack, with three awards. Steven Spielberg’s biopic Lincoln and debut filmmaker Benh Zeitlin’s magic-realist Beasts of the Southern Wild were tied at two awards each.

Herewith the full list:

  • Picture – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
  • Actress – Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
  • Director – Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
  • Best Supporting Actor – Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
  • Best Supporting Actress – Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
  • Breakthrough Performer – Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Debut Director – Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Ensemble Cast – Argo
  • Screenplay – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Documentary – The Central Park Five
  • Foreign Language – Amour
  • Animated – Chico and Rita
  • Cinematography – Life of Pi
  • Film Music or Score – Django Unchained

This gives Bigelow’s war film an early lead in the oddsmaking for Oscar contention (and for good reason, despite whatever idiot musings come from Bret Easton Ellis these days), as the NYFCO joins other critics groups like New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, and the Boston Film Critics Society in naming it film of the year. Of course, that still leaves plenty of time and other awards to allow early favorites like Les Miserables and Argo to make up some room.