Capsule Reviews: I Used to Be Darker, It Felt Like Love, Man of Steel

I Used to Be Darker (Matt Porterfield, 2013)

Matt Porterfield’s film draws its title from Bill Callahan’s song “Jim Cain,” one of several about his breakup with Joanna Newsom, but the Bill (Ned Oldham) who appears on-screen in the movie is not the focus of the film. Instead, I Used to Be Darker focuses on the reaction of the daughter (Hannah Gross) being affected by her parents’ separation, though it is truly moved by her Northern Irish cousin (Taryn) who has run away across the pond and found more troubles than she’d left behind. By expanding the perspective outward from the myopia of a breakup album, Porterfield trades narcissism for a deeper, more empathetic consideration, one that gives equal weight to everyone’s reactions and also makes the acrimony between wounded parties all the more bitter as witnessed by bystanders. Everyone in the film speaks bluntly of what eats away at them, but that does not preclude moments of evocative impressions, as when Bill tells his soon-to-be-ex (Kim Taylor) how much he hates shaking the hands of those who come to his house to take her instruments away. The initial bustle of edits gives way to long takes that survey each scene as if assessing damage for insurance purposes, and a final embrace shows characters finding comfort with each other only because there is none to be had anywhere else. Grade: B+

Immortals (Tarsem Singh, 2011)

Dressing up 300's presentation ancient Greek carnage with even more slow-motion, gore and fussy but meaningless art direction, Tarsem Singh's Immortals represents a significant step backward for the director whose long-gestating labor of love, The Fall, made him an instant cult icon. Immortals, sadly, resembles more the director's prior The Cell, a thin, borderline offensive premise made both more alluring and more repellent by Singh's grandiose, immaculate designs. Most of the shots in this film display an intricate control of mise-en-scène, but the florid colors, precise blocking and refreshing use of tactile objects where possible only make it more frustrating that no one apparently stopped to take stock of how awful all those obsessively arranged objects were.

Awkwardly inserting itself between a revisionist exposé of how great but mortal deeds become godlike and an endorsement of supernatural mythology, Immortals never properly finds its footing. Vaguely retelling the story of Theseus (Henry Cavill), the film depicts the mythological hero as a peasant who has honed his fighting skills from childhood under the tutelage of a kind old man (John Hurt) who just might be more than meets the eye. Theseus' village, a stacked network of homes etched into a sheer cliff face near Mount Tartarus, comes under fire by Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), the king of Crete, who seeks to free the Titans caged in the giant mountain to bring about the death of the gods he despises. We soon learn that gods do indeed exist in this world, but despite the threat of unleashing the Titans, they force the humans to fight their battle for them.