5 out of 5

Filmmaker & author S. Craig Zahler’s “Brawl in Cell Block 99” is a prison-fighting thriller, with an audacious literary-esque understatement. I’ll demonstrate using Lindsay Lohan…

In 2013, at her then-nadir, Lohan & disgraced porn performer James Deen headlined Paul Schrader’s social drama “The Canyons”. Schrader is the legendary screenwriter of Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” – but a type-A director, exemplified by Stephen Rodrick’s New York Times article on Canyons’ production.

One provocative point in Rodrick’s piece was distributors’ worries over Canyons’ slow, unmarketable first act. Directorial colleague & editing precisionist Steven Soderbergh offered to cut an alternate version himself, to what Schrader responded, “You know what [he’d] do if another director offered to cut his film?” And flipped the bird. “That’s what Soderbergh would do.”

[cont’d]