A Visit to 'The Canyons'

It's a strange thing about movies. They all require a certain leap of faith -- everything you're seeing is fake, the actors are playing make-believe, the stories are not real -- yet surprisingly, it's a rare thing for one to make it to the big screen that is so utterly absurd audiences cannot keep a straight face. We saw "The Canyons" on Saturday night. The woman at the box office implored us not to, but I had a feeling I wouldn't be disappointed whatever the outcome. I was right. The audience made it through the opening "dinner" scene OK.  It was poorly written and poorly acted, yet it still seemed like a "real" movie. But by the very next scene, all bets were off. Lindsay Lohan was required to act and, well, she's not really an actress anymore. From there it became sort of an interactive, audience-participation event, where you never knew what might set someone in the crowd into hysterics. The sight of Lindsay Lohan walking might do it for some -- she's even a bad actress when she walks! -- or her almost dropping a bottle might do it for someone else. James Deen wasn't much better, yet given the fact that his character was even more ridiculous than the others, he did as well as could be expected. The story revolves around a love triangle of Deen, cutie Nolan Funk (above) and Lohan, yet the whole time I kept feeling like it just didn't add up. Funk and Lohan were supposedly together many years ago, yet I kept thinking he looks 19, and Lohan looks 40. (Lohan's new love, Deen, looks 30.) Would any men really being fighting over this chain-smoking, puffy, odd-looking creature?  Was stunned to learn all three are 27.  (Yikes.) Of course, the principals' ages are the least of the things that don't add up. (Did you know you could swap cellphones with someone and they wouldn't even notice?) But if "Showgirls" and "Wild Things" shot on an iPhone on a $15,000 budget -- with plenty of Malibu real estate porn and some actual full-frontal softcore porn -- sounds like fun to you, you might want to visit "The Canyons." I'm glad I went.

James Deen: Fame Is Useless and Fleeting

In case you missed it, porn star James Deen gave a rather revealing interview to the New York Post over the weekend. In it, he has some choice words about everything from his "Canyons' costar Lindsay Lohan and director, Paul Schrader, to the notion that he would rather work in mainstream films versus porn. (He wouldn't.) Read HERE.

WATCH: 'The Canyons' - Official Theatrical Trailer

Lindsay Lohan is such a wreck and James Deen is so hot that I'm going to love every second of this film, which will surely sweep the Razzies!

Deen's List

Porn stud James Deen's lecture at Pasadena City College this afternoon has suddenly been deemed a "public safety concern" by administrators, but it seems to me that handing out free condoms would have done the trick. Read HERE.

James Deen Does 'Community' Service

James Deen, star of films like "James Deen Does Them All" and "Joanna Angel's European Vacation," will return to Pasadena City College on Wednesday to speak in Hugo Schwyzer's "Navigating Pornography" class -- and the professor sounds like he couldn't be more excited.

"I think we ought to be proud of him as a successful alumnus and I'm welcoming him back partially on those terms," Schwyzer said. "I think he is one of our best-known famous alumni, more of my students know who he is than they do Jackie Robinson."

Keep it in your pants, teach!

Not surprisingly, Pasadena Star News reports that a school spokesman said he was unaware Schwyzer's class - Humanities 3 - dealt with pornography ...

Read HERE.

Rebel Without a Shirt

Here's a look at "The Canyons," the new thriller neo-noir starring porn star James Deen and (how-long-before-she's-a-porn-star) Lindsay Lohan. "The Canyons" got its start via Kickstarter, but when a film that was written by Bret Easton Ellis, produced by Braxton Pope and directed by Paul Schrader requires crowdsourcing, it makes me wonder why they can't get traditional funding and leave the begging for us little guys.