Michael Rechtshaffen

While Long gives it his trademark amiable best and Klabin and longtime collaborator Patrick Lawler cook up a heady cocktail of lively though budget-conscious visual effects, at the end of the day the Carl W. Lucas script feels more like a concept pitch than a fully-plotted proposition.

While German actor Fürmann and especially Kingsley engage in a nimbly calculated game of cat and mouse, the film’s coup de grace fails to land with the intended punch.

Even ignoring the fact that it was completed back in 2017, Reality Queen! a punishingly shrill, unfunny mockumentary about a social media darling of a Paris Hilton-type celebutante, can’t help but feel totally so yesterday.

Playfully taunting title aside, Mullinkosson’s film is an affectionate portrait of a fraternal bond that no tribal council could ever tear apart.

While the escalation in anti-Semitic violence and rhetoric is justifiably alarming, Hate Among Us, which spends a lot of screen time covering attacks in Paris and Berlin, would have made for more incisive viewing had its exploratory journey kicked off closer to home.

In Mob Town, the cast’s definitely got the goods, but the writing and direction consistently fail to seal the deal.

A penetrating, mournful portrait of sexual identity in contemporary Guatemala City.

The film effectively illustrates how the words “Most Likely to Succeed,” written under a yearbook photo can serve as both a cheering vote of confidence and an awfully daunting expectation.

Unfortunately, as cobbled together by writer-director Patrea Patrick, those historical elements, in which grainy black-and-white archival footage is unconvincingly blended with repetitive reenactments, keep distracting from the main attraction, who is prominently featured in candid interviews conducted some years prior to his death in 2018.

What might have been a pertinent, evenhanded examination of the notion of free speech on today’s college campuses wastes little time in exposing an overwhelmingly right-leaning bias in the disappointingly sensationalistic agitprop that is No Safe Spaces.

Enhanced by playful animations, this nicely composed documentary serves as an engagingly honest profile of a driven man and his prodigious movement.

While the casually demonstrated prep work isn’t for the squeamish, the film’s aptly timed release should ensure viewers never consider their Thanksgiving turkey the same way again.

Although the film dutifully follows a familiar path to the courtroom, along the way, it serves as a solid demonstration of the fissures that can form when the bonds of friendship are tested against those of familial loyalty.

An undeniably heartfelt if overlong affair, especially for the uninitiated.

The visually poetic film offers an appraisal of Cash’s life and craft that is both painfully candid and often revelatory.

Provides a timely reminder of the once unquestionable value of a shared viewing experience in this era of personal streaming.

Ultimately more a curio than a bona fide buried treasure, the forward-thinking production, with its animated opening credits and resourceful use of models, makeup and double exposures, nevertheless serves as a valuable reminder that imagination and creativity needn’t ever be limited by the going technology.

Cutting through the small-town cliche clutter is Kanters’ deeply felt turn.

As wannabe Tarantino misfires go, at least one can say that Avary, who in addition to sharing story credit on “Pulp Fiction” also contributed (uncredited) to “True Romance,” comes by the affectation more honestly than most.

Despite the inherent familiarity, the quietly observed Low Tide, graced by a mournful, undulating score by composers Brooke Blair and Will Blair, nevertheless packs a genuine depth.

With the colorful Allison — he’d fit right into one of KFC’s revolving Colonel spots — and narrator Woody Harrelson at his disposal, Haney could have easily done without all the glossy dramatic recreations and frequent shout-outs to Bristol-Myers Squibb, which occasionally create the undesirable effect of a corporate promo video.

The impact of hearing Danny Glover’s calm voice reading published invitations to lynching parties remains chillingly undiminished.

Esrick’s Cracked Up affectingly peels back the years of protective layers trapping the trauma, revealing a man who has found a semblance of peace after a lifetime of battling demons.

[A] lethargic, hallucinatory mish-mash with matching dialogue that has all the zing of a Wikipedia entry.

A gorgeous tone poem that both deepens and personalizes the audio recording, creating a satisfying emotional arc that isn’t as apparent in the collection of 13 fully-orchestrated country-tinged songs.

A killer concept falls frustratingly short of the finish line in Empathy, Inc., a dark morality tale that ambitiously casts contemporary technology in a throwback visual setting.

The documentary can’t help but feel like a promo piece despite providing some insightful backstage glimpses into its subject’s well-publicized life.

Although, structurally speaking, the production follows a safely familiar path, it doesn’t require a lot of fancy footwork when you’ve got an enthusiastic on-camera fan base including Bruce Springsteen, Scorsese, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal and Van Morrison, a terrific storytelling arc, a treasure trove of archival footage and, naturally, those iconic songs.

It’s hard to imagine a true-life underdog tale more engaging than Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel, a winning David vs. Goliath baseball documentary that covers all the crowd-pleasing bases.

A solidly assembled documentary portrait.

Grafting familiar Disney and DreamWorks tropes onto a tapestry of traditional Chinese legend and lore (the plot is loosely based on a Ming Dynasty-era shenmo novel), the adventure entertains with a title character who could be the spawn of Chucky and Stitch, from “Lilo & Stitch.”

The film is content to sluggishly go through its preordained paces without bothering to take any compelling detours.

While it may not put a fresh spin on the sports documentary format, “Loopers” gives the bag-carrying faithful a well-earned moment in the sun.

As Gamal, himself raised in a leper colony, knowingly navigates the uncomfortable glares he encounters along the way, Yomeddine (Arabic for “judgment day”) takes an affecting path toward belonging and acceptance.

As the legal proceedings progress, Carracedo and Bahar wisely keep their probing camera trained on the passionate faces of their subjects, allowing their stirring testimonies to take the spotlight.

It isn’t that the sequel, directed by the returning Chris Renaud and again boosted by an energetic voice cast, doesn’t deliver on the genially amusing, if disposable, fluff — it’s just that the shtick-heavy storytelling proves even more undernourished than it was for the first outing.

Far more than simply “The Longest Yard” with hoops, the remarkable Q Ball serves as a potent illustration of the redemptive powers of team camaraderie.

Carmine Street Guitars is a leisurely Sunday stroll of a documentary.

It turns out Pokemon Detective Pikachu isn’t half bad.

As informational as it is inspirational, Patrick Creadon’s Hesburgh is a thoroughly engaging documentary chronicle of the life and turbulent times of longtime Notre Dame president Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, whose tenure coincided with a particularly pivotal stretch of American history.

While not exactly uncharted documentary territory, the Iraq conflict is thought-provokingly portrayed in “Mosul,” an up-close-and-personal examination of recent events that puts a human face on a land that remains vulnerable as a result of clashing ideologies.

As long as he maintains his focus on the notoriously private Land and the painstaking efforts of Impossible Project’s chief technology officer and Polaroid vet Stephen Herchen to recapture lightning in an SX-70, Baptist delivers something reasonably compelling. Unfortunately the bulk of the overly artsy production is preoccupied with the exploits of others.

A moving testament to the boundary-shattering language of music.

While director Penny Lane (not a pseudonym) energetically goes about shattering our preconceived notions at every intriguing turn, the film is at its most potent tracing society’s history of “satanic panic,” from the Salem Witch Trials to the rise of the evangelical lobby on the shoulders of the Red Scare to the 1980s when Dungeons & Dragons was viewed as a demonic gateway game.

Even more than those acclaimed lion, chimp and bear films that have preceded it, Penguins proves especially delightful — a coming-of-age story outfitted with an engaging anthropomorphic overlay that can make you forget you’re watching an intimately filmed documentary instead of an animated adventure.

In Disney’s hands, William eschews freak show theatrics for something much weightier.

Director Seet’s gorgeously filmed production proves to resonate as much today as it did 40-plus years ago.

Perhaps he was too distracted by wearing so many hats (Dara also performs the self-penned Once-style ditties on the twee soundtrack), but both he and Lancaster didn’t bother to imbue their sketchy characters with sufficient likability.

One wishes the script might have shared the degree of precision that has obviously been applied to the technical side of the production, which is resplendent in visual dazzle from the smallest beads of sweat on a character’s forehead to the vintage knit fabrics to those sprawling exotic vistas.

Inevitably, the oddball Elmore Leonard-meets-the Little Rascals conceit loses some of its wacky effectiveness, but while Corben might not hit this one out of the park, Screwball energetically rounds the bases.

But while both bands would go to court to sever ties with the man they once affectionately referred to as Big Poppa, it’s what happened after they bid “Bye Bye Bye” to Pearlman that makes Aaron Kunkel’s documentary so compelling.

Although the often humorous film may not quite rank among Chen’s best and that CGI-enhanced feline isn’t always convincingly up to scratch, the buoyant yarn nevertheless casts a beguiling spell.

Unfortunately Marryshow, in his various capacities, has neglected to instill his terminally obnoxious character with a vital shred of audience empathy, let alone to provide sufficient comedic beats that would have better engaged his thoughtfully diverse cast.

Ultimately coming across more like a bloated, corporate infomercial, Beers of Joy will undoubtedly leave only those who know their ABV (Alcohol by Volume) from their IBU (International Bittering Units) thirsty for more.

While Stewart didn’t live to see the enactment of a new California law last fall that will see the phasing out of the practice already banned elsewhere in the world, his passionate documentary, boasting stirring underwater photography and an equally poignant Jonathan Goldsmith score, speaks urgently on his behalf.

With its parade of finger-pointing vloggers, picture-posting stalkers and hijab-wearing, smartphone-clutching schoolgirls, Pig (“Khook”) makes it savagely clear Western society hasn’t cornered the market on selfie-centered behavior.

A committed cast fails to elevate Beneath the Leaves, an otherwise draggy and derivative thriller.

For every poignant keeper...there’s a clunker.

Even as it treads on familiar Stephen King (“The Mist”) and John Carpenter (“The Fog”) territory, the film has moments that will leave you gasping for oxygen — as long as you choose to avoid all those gaping plot holes.

Replaying many of the visual gags that worked so amusingly before, the latest edition proves every bit as repetitive and uninspired as its glib title, bringing little that’s fresh or funny to the interlocking brick table despite boasting a script penned by originators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

It’s all quite amusing up to a point, but unfortunately that point arrives early on in this practically two-hour-long take on a one-gag premise.

There’s the kernel of an intriguing political thriller buried beneath all the strained exposition and pompous speechifying enveloping An Acceptable Loss, but writer-director Joe Chappelle never manages to find it.

Hernández ultimately fails to inject sufficient empathy into his moody character, while all those alternating flashbacks and episodes of delirium take a toll on the film’s ability to maintain a firm grip of its own on viewer engagement.

In Genesis 2.0, the prehistoric past and the near future intersect at a most intriguing — and disturbing — juncture.

The film, which debuted last year at Sundance, covers considerable, resonant socio-political ground while being anchored by the compelling performances of its’ leads.

Pulling off a rare three-peat, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a tender, spirited coming-of-age CG-animated feature that proves every bit as emotionally resonant and artistically rendered as its 2010 and 2014 predecessors, if not even more so.

A disturbing portrait of the substantial emotional and physical price exacted when mental illness hits devastatingly close to home.

Amid the despair, Spitak nevertheless offers a glimmer of hope in the bleakness.

Oliver Parker’s Swimming with Men is a lazily formulaic male-bonding comedy.

As savagely satirical as it is gorgeously surreal, The Great Buddha+ is something else again — an outrageous, poignant punk Taiwanese black comedy marking the feature arrival of fresh filmmaking talent Huang Hsin-Yao.

Robert Townsend’s reflective Making the Five Heartbeats serves as an illuminating documentary detailing the considerable passion and perseverance that went into bringing his dream project to the big screen.

Andy Serkis' decidedly non-Disney Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle may have intended to offer a darker, grittier take on the classic Kipling stories, but the end result proves to be more of a murky muddle.

[An] enlightening, life-affirming documentary.

The jumble occupies an unfortunate space situated somewhere between the ponderously pretentious and the just plain ridiculous.

They Fight, produced by Common and energized by an inspirational hip-hop soundtrack, serves as a vital reminder that often the battle can be more important than the inevitable outcome.

Neither long nor dumb, Hannah Fidell’s The Long Dumb Road is in reality a terrifically entertaining odd couple road comedy expertly navigated by costars Tony Revolori and Jason Mantzoukas.

While Elgort, whose big breakout role was in last year’s “Baby Driver,” does a decent job of delineating the two characters and Patricia Clarkson reliably comes through as their sympathetic doctor, the clinically distancing production never forms a meaningful bond with its audience.

A turbo-charged satire that swaps out Gen X video arcade nostalgia for our current, all-consuming social-media-fueled obsession, the endlessly inventive Walt Disney Studios Animation follow-up impressively levels up with laugh-out-loud consistency.

What the production may have lost in a “nasty-wasty skunk” of an antagonist, it gains in an inspired voice cast (led by Benedict Cumberbatch) and a dazzlingly merry and bright visual palette.

Factoring in the flat narration by Clarke and some awfully hokey visual effects, Better Angels would have benefited from better angles.

Focusing on the last 15 years in the life of mercurial actor-director Orson Welles, the bulk of which was spent trying to complete his passion project, “The Other Side of the Wind,” the impeccably assembled production employs Neville’s virtuoso touch to provocative effect.

Of the many premium 2018 documentaries on tap, Brewmaster may not pack one of the bigger buzzes, but it certainly goes down easy.

Although a third act reveal doesn’t quite pack the intended punch, Bullitt County nevertheless propels its characters in some unanticipated, intriguing directions.

A straight-ahead but affecting documentary that acknowledges the stubborn obstacles inherent in their efforts to make a difference.

Problem is, filmmaker Martin can’t seem to decide whether he’s making a tribute or a send-up, and the overlong, yet under-plotted, results, with awkward close-ups and prolonged, flatly delivered exchanges, take their toll.

Director George Gallo, taking a cue from his 1991 film, “29th Street,” romanticizes everything in a nostalgic glow, but without a sturdier script featuring fully dimensional characters at his disposal, the performances prove to be as unconvincing as their ethnic accents and period wigs.

The film adopts a sanctimonious tone that’s anything but subtle.

Playing like a Nordic “This is Spinal Tap,” the Finnish import Heavy Trip, a satire about an aspiring heavy metal band’s efforts to land its first legitimate gig, proves as affably goofy as its characters.

The mournful film, which includes equally sturdy performances from old reliables Stephen Rea and Jim Broadbent, admittedly puts a hefty premium on tone at the expense of more intricate plotting and character development.

Taking aim at American society’s seriously broken criminal justice system, Iroc Daniels’ well-intentioned multi-character drama The System compensates in compassion for what it lacks in a more accomplished delivery.

Padding Audé’s first-person account — and those hammy dramatizations — with glowing testimonials from family and friends including José Canseco and, distractingly, the director herself, the overlong hodgepodge proves to be an ordeal in and of itself.

Perhaps in the unique case of The Healer, it could just be said that although the cause may be noble, the end effect is decidedly less rewarding.

A stirring valentine of a documentary.

Riddled with as many plot holes as those highways and byways have potholes, the heavy-handed writing and direction, with its awkward close-ups and purposeful, sustained takes does its cast few favors.

While it only occasionally rises to the clever levels of its inspired jump-off point, Smallfoot, an animated romp about a civilization of Yetis who make the discovery that the legendary pint-size human isn’t a mythological creature after all, carries sufficient charm and a bit of unexpected depth to justify its breezy existence.

The Dawn Wall transcends initial conventional sports documentary trappings, emerging as an affecting portrait of conquering personal limitations.

While an argument can be made for it being either “too late” or “too soon,” James D. Stern’s American Chaos nevertheless serves as a handy look back on the poll-defying perfect storm that cleared Donald Trump’s path to the White House.

Although it’s all bathed in a warmly nostalgic glow courtesy of cinematographer Darin Moran, and the cast, including Peter Stormare as an oddball shaman called the Rock God, is uniformly engaging, too often the familiar proceedings get bogged down by extensive slo-mo surfing sequences and pointless “Wonder Years”-style narration.