Michael Rechtshaffen

An absolute delight from start to finish.

Co-directors Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland deliver big time with Storks, a fittingly buoyant, delightfully madcap animated romp.

Gilbert emerges as a tenderly observed, remarkably insightful keeper.

Learning to Drive is a richly observed, crosscultural character study that coasts along pleasurably on the strengths of its virtuoso leads.

Scorsese has crafted a rip-roaringly gorgeous-looking, beautifully acted biographical epic. But while firing on all cylinders, there's something oddly distancing about the picture.

There’s a prevailing playfulness to many of the sequences which, like that properly placed unrest wheel, ensures a satisfying balance.

[An] endlessly fascinating, bracingly up-to-the-minute Netflix documentary.

Worley has adroitly assembled the mega-mash-up into an engaging whole, with the help of an amiable cast and a crack technical team.

Although the title might suggest cheesy sensationalism, A Monster With a Thousand Heads serves as a sobering, all-too-relatable indictment of the bureaucratic Hydra that is the medical insurance industry.

Those accustomed to the sort of grandly executed, tightly paced escape/rescue sequences that tend to go with the territory will have to acclimate themselves to the film’s more subdued rhythms, but in time, the quietly unassuming, character-rich approach pays some affecting dividends.

Norbu charts an inspired, fittingly meditative journey to enlightenment.

While this buoyant account of his brief but eventful life might feel like a rock climber's "Man on a Wire," the Oscar-winning 2008 documentary about tightrope walker Philippe Petit, director Marah Strauch gives the film an exhilarating uplift of its own.

The rise-and-fall trajectory of Knievel's career is colorfully captured in Daniel Junge's Being Evel, a savvy documentary that gives the granddaddy of extreme sports his due while gauging the national climate that welcomed his shrewdly timed arrival.

Masterfully keying the compact performances into a striking lighting scheme that often bathes the musicians and dancers in warm golden or somber indigo hues representing the cycle of life, Saura's spare, elegant staging and the fluid, intimate cinematography by the great Vittorio Storaro ("Apocalypse Now") create an intoxicating effect.

The blissfully silly Blades of Glory is one of those rare comedies that puts a goofy smile on your face with the premise alone -- and keeps it planted there right until its wacky finale.

The intimate and remarkably relatable documentary that is "Bad Axe” takes its name from the rural Michigan town where Siev’s Cambodian refugee father and Mexican American mother raised a family and ran a restaurant; Bad Axe turned out to provide a tellingly relevant backdrop for the film.

A work of surprising, commanding depth.

The immensely likable Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong is a freshly contemporary change-up on the traditional cross-cultural romantic-comedy.

Unlike the last Scott-Washington matchup, "Man on Fire," Deja Vu boasts a muscular, fast-forward story that won't be overwhelmed by Scott's need for speed in the form of rapid cuts and all that visual fusion that have become his stylistic trademark. Here, the approach is perfectly suited to the picture's time-shifting, multitasking structure.

Under director Emir Kusturica's gifted hand, lunacy here takes a poignant and, ultimately, uplifting turn. [28 Oct 1996]

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.

The skillfully assembled documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste proves as eye-opening as it is mouth-watering.

Mott, who started out in Hollywood working in the fabled William Morris Agency mailroom, nimbly choreographs all the updating, resulting in a breezy, cute-and-clever confection that’s tailor-made for a sultry midsummer’s night.

The film offers a valuable life lesson in the powers of determination and timing, but most of all it's darned entertaining.

A uniquely compelling, exhaustively researched documentary by Israeli filmmaker Maya Sarfaty that never settles for pat answers.

What begins as a quirky portrait of the artist as a gringo mariachi troubadour proves to be a telling study of a lost soul whose palpable passion for his music acts as a surrogate for more meaningful human contact.

The assessment of Candy’s life and legacy provides ample cause for laughter while also provoking plenty of tears.

Resistance is futile. It's impossible not to be swept up into the uplifting world of Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary that can be neatly summed up as the "Spellbound" of competitive ballroom dancing.

The updated classic is a chiller of a political thriller in its own right.

Manages to deliver more laughs than most of the competition.

Unlike the highly charged “Sicario” and other recent drug trade-themed movies, the film, shot in New Mexico, eschews explosive confrontations and political judgments in favor of complex, thoughtfully portrayed characters and tense, compelling situations.

There has been no shortage of films tracking the immigrant pursuit of the American dream, but few have been as laugh-out-loud delightful as The Tiger Hunter, a sparkling first feature by Lena Khan.

Layered with elements that are both amusing and touching but never threatening to collapse into a big heap of sentimental mush.

As documentaries go, few arrive with as much ripped-from-the-headlines urgency as The Will to See, an eye-opening return visit to the backdrops of some of the world’s worst atrocities.

Inextricably rooted in lead Arndis Hrönn Egilsdöttir’s quietly defiant performance, The County tells an immersive, timeless David vs. Goliath story set against a contemporary backdrop of shifting societal norms.

Dancer becomes a gentle inquiry into how a gifted performer disrupts his life in order to test his passion.

The film is at once gently intimate and breathtakingly expansive in scope.

Although the blandly nondescript title doesn’t exactly suggest the promise of deep intrigue, Philipp Stölzl’s Chess Story masterfully confounds expectations as a tautly calibrated, intricately constructed Chinese puzzle of a period drama set during Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria.

A strikingly poetic documentary that illustrates the push and pull of life's opposing forces.

As keenly observed by Korem and cinematographer Jacob Hamilton, Dealt achieves the neat trick of giving its main subject a rewarding character arc.

An intense Mel Gibson performance anchors this brutally effective crime thriller.

A deeply personal, often wrenching documentary.

There's a new bogeyman in town, and he makes all other pretenders to the terror throne look like a bunch of cuddly Disney characters.

A highly satisfying documentary tracking the hoop dreams of basketball bright light Sebastian Telfair as he made that rare leap from high school all-star to NBA draft pick.

Falling closer in tone to "Shaun of the Dead" than "28 Days Later" or the George Romero movies, Zombieland has its tongue planted firmly in its rancid cheek while still delivering the visceral goodies.

A gleefully discomfiting portrait of male bonding that delivers some of the year’s biggest laughs.

Montréal Girls emerges as a vivid, immersive paean to artistic expression and youth’s unhindered possibilities.

Despite the clunky bits, "Tomorrow" still manages to deliver the blockbuster goods.

[A] richly rewarding tribute.

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.

Frequently laugh-out-loud funny and tangibly tender where it ought to be, the immensely satisfying screwball romp feels freshly contemporary even as it largely conforms to genre conventions.

Ultimately, Swimming Pool belongs to Ozon, and while incorporating a carefully measured, quietly menacing style that summons up vintage Hitchcock and Chabrol, he has made it unmistakably -- and entertainingly -- his very own.

Throughout, both the character and the film constantly keep one guessing as to whether Margrete’s driving impulse leans more in the direction of the maternal or the Machiavellian.

In Jarmusch's capable hands, the mundane has never been so delightful.

The beautifully acted serio-comedy takes a potentially smirky premise -- a chance dirty phone call between an introverted writer and a persuasive mystery woman becomes a meaningful long-distance relationship -- and turns it into something that really reaches out and touches you.

As tenderly observed as it is laugh-out-loud funny.

Happens to be extremely funny -- at times sidesplittingly so -- thanks to Zwigoff's way with raw irreverence and Thornton's perfectly pitched, ready-for-anything performance.

It's a beautifully modulated performance in a nicely crafted, quietly unassuming character study by Vancouver-based writer-director Carl Bessai.

A consistently amusing, often inspired family romp.

You don't have to be a baseball fanatic or for that matter a historian or a physicist to appreciate Fastball.

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.

Essentially serving as a constant spectator, looking in on both the production and her own tangled life, Seyfriend impressively conveys a myriad of tamped-down, long-repressed emotions with an economy of dialogue at her disposal.

Once again Bier demonstrates just how misleading appearances can be, as she artfully removes the veneers concealing the dark truths locked away by her intriguing characters.

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

The film traces Cernan's career trajectory, going back to his days in San Diego as a hot-shot naval aviator, blending terrific archival footage with contemporary perspectives to quietly poetic effect.

The chillingly twisty plotting is dispensed in painstakingly measured increments that allow for maximum dread and, ultimately, well-earned shock value, while his four leads deliver equally subtle performances that sync with the pacing beat for beat.

An engrossing mix of atmospheric gothic horror and smart sci-fi that's cemented by intriguing mythology, terrific visual effects, a dry sense of humor and an ideally cast Keanu Reeves.

While Cheadle's fearlessly robust performance absolutely galvanizes Talk to Me, it's not the only thing that makes Kasi Lemmons' third feature such a pleasure to take in.

A smart, sharply observed, highly affable look at contemporary relationships that finally injects a little life in the stagnating genre.

The fact-based story, which is allowed to quietly unfold in a series of extended takes, has been stripped of all artifice, especially in regard to the pared-back performances of Harewood, a British actor with regular roles on “Homeland” and “Supergirl,” and Findley, who starred in Ava DuVernay’s 2012 breakthrough feature, “Middle of Nowhere.”

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

Conspiracy of Faith marks the darkest and most gripping screen adaptation of the Jussi Adler-Olsen novels to date.

Nimbly blending comedy and action -- with an affectionate slo-mo nod to John Woo -- McKay does his best work to date here.

Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes is a darkly compelling, skillfully crafted cold case thriller.

Through its keenly observed small moments and the presence of the charismatic Nafar and his infectious, socially charged raps, Junction 48 sensitively yet powerfully conveys the considerable challenges inherent in attempting to reconcile those rocky crossroads of coexistence and cultural identity.

As the heart and soul of the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor once again impresses.

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.

Nye's openness extends to a clear-eyed examination of his personal life — one which has often taken a back seat to his career pursuits, impacting his ability to sustain meaningful relationships.

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.

Grafting the buddy picture onto the framework of the classic political thriller, director Jang Hoon also manages to find time for lighter moments of human comedy, and those seemingly disparate elements are deftly navigated by Song and his fellow fully dimensional characters.

Disney may have written the book on live-action animal adventure stories, but it has been quite a while since there has been a chapter as terrific as Eight Below.

Despite his perceived failings, Karski and “Remember This” serve as a crucial reminder of society’s duty to bear witness, especially whenever and wherever it would seem impossible to raise one’s voice above the din of indifference.

What might seem unlikely to endure beyond standard sketch length proves surprisingly resilient in the hands of directors Clement and Waititi, the team responsible for the equally droll "Flight of the Conchords."

Kells proves that in the increasingly high-tech world of feature animation, there still can be a place for old-time tradition.

A stirring valentine of a documentary.

A delightful romp that captures the spirit of the adored 65-year-old comic strip.

The affecting work by Almanzar, Rodriguez and the rest of the ensemble in this immersive film tenderly speaks for itself.

In interposing haunting footage of the destructive wake of the Fukushima tragedy with Sakamoto’s evident, childlike delight in coming up with the perfect tonal combinations, the film serves as a stirringly poetic meditation on the pursuit of creation in the face of mortality.

A richly crafted documentary that serves as an enlightening tribute to the filmmaker who masterfully tapped into the medium's wide-reaching socio-political potential.

A pitch-perfect musical comedy that at long last moves the talented John C. Reilly up the billing ladder from second banana to top banana.

Australian Mendelsohn (sporting a pitch-perfect American accent) and Reynolds are terrific, each wrapping himself up in the material like a well-worn favorite sweater.

A largely compelling ride on the strength of a powerful cast led by Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

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.

Despite focusing entirely on a single individual speaking into a headset in a Danish emergency call center, The Guilty nevertheless emerges as a twisty crime thriller that’s every bit as pulse-pounding and involving as its action-oriented, adrenaline-soaked counterparts.

Several shades darker in tone than the previous edition -- which, to be fair, didn't carry the burden of expectation that a sequel must bear -- the return to Narnia still casts a transporting spell.

Gervais and Robinson take what might have been a cute concept comedy and elevate it to delicious heights.

The wow factor works overtime with state-of-the-art effects sequences that often are as beautiful as they are astonishing.

A movingly rendered, stirringly photographed first feature by Ham Tran.