Michael Rechtshaffen

While the end result feels a tad overstuffed at 92 minutes, it's entirely understandable if, after more than half a century of being identified as "that guy," Miller's in no hurry to relinquish the spotlight.

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.

ParaNorman is an amusing but only fitfully involving animated caper.

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.

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.

Like those cheeky genre-splicing comedies that came before it, the Ahern-Loughman collaboration doesn’t merely goose the boundary between charming and outrageous, it gleefully tramples it into oblivion.

Like any well-researched piece worth its weight in MSG, the documentary uses food as an angle to something else: a look at immigration and at a melting pot stirred by prejudice and persecution, later seasoned with adaptation, innovation and acceptance.

Just when you thought you had seen every permutation of the “making of a band” documentary, along comes Breaking a Monster, a thoroughly engaging portrait of Unlocking the Truth, a heavy metal outfit composed of African American middle schoolers.

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

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.

While director-writer Liford...hits a bit of a snag with an abrupt mood shift in the last 15 minutes that doesn’t feel true to the prevailing vibe, he usually hits the perceptive mark.

Uneven but nonetheless emotionally gratifying.

And although the film might stint on full renditions of their songs, one of the few played in its entirety is a gorgeous, relaxed acoustic version of “Honky Tonk Women” delivered by Mick and Keith in a vacant dressing room.

It's the affable cast, headed by Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski, that really makes the picture so widely accessible.

Effectively anchoring the picture is Keke Palmer's lovely lead performance as Akeelah Anderson.

A winning mix of sharp comedy and touching bits that keeps the laughter -- a few tears -- flowing.

While time inevitably marches on, director Roger Mainwood has a splendid constant at his disposal in the pitch-perfect voice performances of Blethyn and Broadbent, who inhabit their hand-drawn characters with a vivid, fully-dimensional authenticity.

An engaging portrait of a functionally dysfunctional family.

Credit a youthful, energetic spirit, nicely conveyed by its cast of naturally-acting newcomers, a workable raw-footage construct and a spare but smartly spent special effects budget for the satisfying end result.

The latest installment could well be Romero's masterpiece. Taking full advantage of state-of-the-art makeup and visual effects, he has a more vivid canvas at his disposal, not to mention two decades worth of pent-up observations about American society.

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.

Haphazard plotting and seriously undernourished character development aside, none of the emotional stakes have been planted deeply enough to elicit audience involvement in young Pete’s plight.

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.

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.

On its exotic surface, Wildcat might hold all the trappings of a standard wildlife conservation documentary, but lurking beneath the lushly photographed camouflage is a tenderly moving, deeply empathetic human survival story that has as much to do with emotional trauma as it does with the physical.

Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo is a well-crafted, revealing British documentary.

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

While its own roots never go quite as deep as they might, there’s still something goofily endearing about seeing Reitman, armed with that trusty bonsai, traipsing around the country on a healing mission.

A risible misfire of a contemporary war drama, the low-budget “Unfallen” stands as an epic fail on all fronts.

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.

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.

The film fittingly embraces the elements of camp and kitsch that played such a major role in defining the Nomi persona.

A work of surprising, commanding depth.

Beautifully performed and penetratingly photographed, Jalilvand’s assured second feature bears the probing precision of one of those meticulous autopsies.

Denzel Washington ventures into the dark side as a seriously corrupt narcotics cop in Training Day, and the results are electrifying. So is the picture, thanks to taut, sinewy direction by Antoine Fuqua and a compelling script by David Ayer (The Fast and the Furious).

At once frank, tender and unapologetically funny, Come as You Are is a sweet surprise.

A fiendishly entertaining Christmas yarn rooted in Northern European legend and lore, complete with a not-so-jolly old St. Nick informed more by the Brothers Grimm than Norman Rockwell.

Although the documentary can feel like a volunteer instructional video at times, the faces on those who have fallen through the cracks in the system speak volumes.

By the time one of the gun-toting members of Team Snipes growls “Let’s finish this!” viewers would be hard-pressed to disagree.

Neil Marshall's horrifically terrific The Descent cannily recasts 1972's "Deliverance" as a female-bonding thriller with some "Hills Have Eyes"-style mutant terror tossed in for truly harrowing effect.

Seeing Sonia confidently gripping the leopard print-covered steering wheel of her late model Oldsmobile and getting on with her day serves as a potent and especially timely lesson about living a compassionate, vibrant life that doesn’t have any room for hatred and bitterness.

Laurent and Dion’s passionate, off-the-beaten-path primer advocates thinking globally but acting locally with community-driven, grassroots alternatives that aren’t affected by any executive orders.

An absolute delight from start to finish.

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

Director Jason Wise’s enthusiasm proves undeniably infectious.

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.

Tapping into that transitional juncture where limitless possibility crosses paths with nagging uncertainty, filmmaker Michal Marczak adroitly captures the youthful, restless spirit cradled within the pulsating beat of its immersive, ambient soundtrack.

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.

Incorporating fluid flashbacks and snippets of narration that refreshingly serve to enhance rather than distract, director-writer Hannes Holm maintains a gentle, lyrical flow while coaxing fine performances from a diverse cast.

It may have been a long road to glory, but seeing Perkins (then 97) and Smith (75) enthusiastically accept a 2011 Grammy for their album “Joined at the Hip,” it’s readily apparent that it was worth the trip.

A potent hybrid of passion and politics fuel this energetic and highly compelling documentary.

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

By now Bowers, who also directed the last two Wimpy Kid movies, knows how to choreograph the inherent chaos for optimal giggles, even if many of the book’s more satirical elements have been swapped out for broader slapstick.

Some 40 years in the making, the remarkable Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is a gorgeously rendered, unexpectedly moving appraisal of the life and craft of one of the best-loved literary voices of the late 20th century.

Ron Howard and Russell Crowe bring the Braddock story to vivid life in a superbly acted, beautifully shot, highly engaging drama that ranks as one of Howard's best efforts.

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.

Any scrap of charm or honest-to-goodness humor already possessed in limited quantities by the original has been relegated to the outhouse in this sorry follow-up.

While the template may be familiar, the nicely balanced blend of comedy and pathos still hits the mark.

This smartly assembled wake-up call concerning the nation's lousy spending habits proves to be as unexpectedly spirited as it is dispiriting.

A spare, creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect.

Think of it as "The Matrix" for the quantum physics set.

Director Levy struggles to find a uniform pitch that would agreeably blend together the gags, the visual effects and the obligatory heart moments. In its absence, there's a stop-and-start hollowness that confuses noise and chaos for comic energy.

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.

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.

This agreeable remake still manages to go the distance.

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.

Although it occasionally feels as if the thoughtful Powell (who unexpectedly died last summer) is being forced into a repentant corner, the film remains a penetrating case study in taking ownership of one’s actions.

Leave it to the folks who brought us "Wallace & Gromit," "Chicken Run" and "Flushed Away" to bring a delightful blast of fresh air to the conventional Christmas genre. Aardman's Arthur Christmas is that and more - an endlessly amusing 3D, CG-animated Yuletide romp with lively innovation at every turn and a dream voice cast headed by James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie and Bill Nighy.

In the absence of a sturdier storyline and more dimensional characters, the manic, rapid-fire delivery, while yielding some well-deserved laughs, proves more exhausting than inspired.

For all the clever satirical touches and asides, the gorgeously intricate, wondrous stop-motion landscape is ultimately pure Selick, imbued with a fitting color scheme of swirling, eerily glowing greens and purples choreographed against a mischievous score by Bruno Coulais that effectively sets the mood for the film’s pre-Halloween arrival.

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.

It would be hard to imagine a more entertaining corrupt-cop documentary than The Seven Five, a slick and fascinating portrait of disgraced New York policeman Michael Dowd.

Not since Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg teamed up in "The Other Guys" has an onscreen pairing proved as comically rewarding as the inspired partnership of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.

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

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

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.

The unifying power of music is rewardingly demonstrated in Song of Lahore.

Director Miranda de Pencier and writers Graham Yost and Moira Walley-Beckett haven’t dodged hard sociological truths lurking beneath the gentle humor, engaging performances and stirringly photographed tundra, lending The Grizzlies a decisive, transformative edge.

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.

A creeping naturalism inhabits virtually every frame of Dayveon.

The parameters of homeland security are chillingly assessed in Do Not Resist, a troubling documentary examining the escalating militarization of the nation’s police forces.

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.