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.

Somewhere (Sofia Coppola, 2011)

My brief review for Sofia Coppola's excellent Somewhere is up at The Final Girl Project. Coppola's most stripped-down film to date, Somewhere admittedly mines the same territory as Lost in Translation, but this is less a deadpan comedy than a wistful-yet-critical drama about the blurring ennui of Hollywood life, albeit one without sneering damnation. It's hard not to think of the film as autobiographical, but the relationship between a charmed but world-wise Elle Fanning (in a magnificent performance) and her anhedonistic actor father (Stephen Dorff) feels like a stand-in for all emotionally distant relationships. Still, the personal nature of the film adds layers of meaning and emotion to Coppola's indefatigable empathy for her characters. In her minimalism is a genuine emotion that makes this far more than some dry rant about childhood frustrations.

Note: I listed the film as a 2010 release on Sasha's site, but since it didn't receive wide release until this year, I'm going to consider it among this year's releases when I tally my favorites in Decemeber. At the moment, it rates in the upper echelon of the movies I've seen this year.