Obvious Child (2014)

Obvious Child, written and directed by newcomer Gillian Robespierre, is far from the issue-centered, feminist manifesto that the talk about its resolution suggests. There’s an abundance of profanity in the film, most of which could be classified as equal opportunity gross-out humor that wouldn’t be out of place in a Judd Apatow movie, except that it’s about female anatomy, which Apatow saves for shock value and not laughs. But overall, it’s a fairly conventional, albeit transposed — meaning girl meets boy instead of boy meets girl — romantic comedy. Read the full review here.

Chef (2014)

A hotshot chef loses his way only to find it again by scaling down to a food truck. Such is the facile premise of Jon Favreau’s return to independent filmmaking. 

For the role, Favreau attended a week-long course at a French culinary school and then worked on the line in the L.A.-based restaurants owned by chef and food truck pioneer Roy Choi, who went from consultant to co-producer on the movie. Favreau’s focus on the food borders on fetish, particularly when aphrodisiac pasta gets slurped through Scarlett Johansson’s pillowy lips. She does herAvengers’ director a charity by taking a turn as an edgy, fringed restaurant hostess who trades sexual favors for well-prepared food.

Read the full review here.

Belle (2013)

William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield and Lord Chief Justice, takes in an illegitimate grand-niece, the daughter of an admiral and an enslaved African woman, and not long after is required to rule on a case affecting the legality of the slave trade. Such is the burden of Misan Sagay's script, written in the vein of Jane Austen adaptations, which swaps incisive, specific criticism of the social customs of the landed gentry for broad arguments against the now-indefensible position. Read the full review here.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Why independent film’s own prince of darkness Jim Jarmusch has only just now released a vampire movie at what seems to be the tail end of the genre’s popularity is anyone’s guess. But Jarmusch’s immortals, played by Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton, are far from the sparkly vampires of young adult fantasy. In fact, angst is entirely replaced with a world-weary ennui, which adds a philosophical facet to the well-worn genre but at times makes for very boring viewing. Read the full review here.

Transcendence (2014)

Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception) makes his directorial debut with a tale of techno-apocalypse suitable for his signature visual style and effects. But the script, written by actor Jack Paglen making his feature screenwriting debut, provides only simplistic observations of the important issues it attempts to examine. Read the full review here.

Dom Hemingway (2013)

There's a more interesting story in Richard Shepard's latest film than the one the American writer/director presents. Not that deeply embedded in Dom Hemingwayis the tale of a Cockney safecracker whose wife dies from cancer while he's serving time in order to protect his crime boss. But instead of making this the focus of the movie, Shepard, doing his best Guy Ritchie impersonation, fixates on caricature and cartoon, dodging all substantive material except cheap sentiment after all else is exhausted. Read the full review here.

Tim's Vermeer (2013)

In the documentary Tim’s Vermeer, with Jillette as narrator and Teller as director, they present what they consider indisputable proof of a subversive theory regarding the photo-realistic painting of Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Music Lesson). But, notwithstanding a small but convincing appearance by the British artist David Hockney, their smugly presented discovery has very little to say about art in the 17th century. Read the full review here.

Bad Words (2014)

The actor Jason Bateman’s directorial debut starts with the promise of a smart, edgy comedy. Exploiting a technicality in the rulebook of the Golden Quill Spelling Bee, 40-year-old Guy Trilby (Bateman) forces his way into a regional competition. Armed only with a sharp tongue (and possibly an eidetic memory), he mercilessly slaughters his pre-teen competition by both inciting them to mistakes and spelling all his own words correctly. Upon winning the competition and qualifying for nationals, he hightails it out of the building to the getaway car driven by his blogger sponsor Jenny Widgeon (Kathryn Hahn), in it for the first-hand scoop but still affronted at an angry parent’s reaction to his victory. Read the full review here.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Ralph Fiennes is Monsieur Gustave, the swishy concierge at the pastel fairytale Alpine resort of the film's title. Notwithstanding his implied proclivities, his raison d'être is to serve the hotel's clients, paying particular attention to the disproportionate number of wealthy dowager guests. Among these favored guests is the Countess Madame Desgoffe-und-Taxis, or Madame D. for short, played by Tilda Swinton, scarcely recognizable behind wrinkled prosthetics and under a silver Dairy Queen swirl of a wig. Read the full review here.

Noah (2014)

Darren Aronofsky’s latest film Noah starts at the beginning, and also ends there. It’s meant as an eco cautionary tale, as told from the perspective of a ruined mythical landscape purged by an extreme weather event to those of us living at the tail end of the next iteration, currently witness to singular events of initial devastation caused by changes in our own climate. The film’s message could be interpreted as misanthropic; focused as it is on the caretaking of the diversity in the animal kingdom — rendered in creative CGI combinations — and the question of whether humankind should be allowed to continue in a new world after it destroyed the previous one. Read the full review here.

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

This is not the story of what comes before or after the battle of Thermopylae as told in 300, Zach Snyder’s 2006 steroidal blockbuster based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel and starring Gerard Butler as the vastly outnumbered Spartan king Leonidas. Instead, it is an ambitious expansion, which opens wide its cavernous maw and swallows its originator whole. Read the full review at KCAcive.com.

The Past (2013)

What appears to be a simple love triangle eventually reveals itself as a complicated investigation into conflicting stories in Asghar Farhadi’s latest release. The writer/directorof the 2012 Oscar winner for best foreign film, A Separation, Farhadi once again focuses on domestic drama without confining it to mere soap opera; subtly, he reveals how the personal is burdened by wider world issues. Read the full review at KCActive.com.