Michael Rechtshaffen

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Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter
For 1,187 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 10% same as the average critic
  • 38% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 8.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Rechtshaffen's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 Coco
Lowest review score: 0 The Assignment
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 530 out of 1187
  2. Mixed: 449 out of 1187
  3. Negative: 208 out of 1187
1187 movie reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    A Gray State
    A Gray State disturbingly traverses the blurred boundary between reality and performance all too inherent in today’s social media-fed climate of cultural narcissism.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    William
    In Disney’s hands, William eschews freak show theatrics for something much weightier.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    AlphaGo
    On paper, a 90-minute documentary involving the playing of a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game wouldn’t seem to lend itself to adjectives like “lively” and “compelling,” but darned if Greg Kohs’ AlphaGo isn’t those things and more.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Who Killed the Electric Car?
    A potent hybrid of passion and politics fuel this energetic and highly compelling documentary.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Extra Ordinary
    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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    All These Sleepless Nights
    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.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Letters to Father Jaakob
    The kind of film that makes a truly lasting impression despite its brevity.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    The All-Americans
    Director McMillin effectively interweaves the involving profiles into the lead-up to the big game, as the young players deal with the pressures placed on them by their respective schools and the expectations of family members, some facing the threat of deportation and other realities of living in Trump-era America.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Lambert & Stamp
    Under their all-encompassing tutelage the band originally billed as the High Numbers would go on to international renown as the Who, and the extent to which Lambert & Stamp can take credit for that transformation is thoughtfully weighed in this revealing film.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    For Ahkeem
    A tenderly intimate, affecting documentary portrait.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    I Was a Simple Man
    Taking a cue from its taciturn protagonist, I Was a Simple Man prefers to let its soulful poetic imagery do the bulk of the talking.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Mrs Henderson Presents
    An absolute delight from start to finish.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Storks
    Co-directors Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland deliver big time with Storks, a fittingly buoyant, delightfully madcap animated romp.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Gilbert
    Gilbert emerges as a tenderly observed, remarkably insightful keeper.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Learning to Drive
    Learning to Drive is a richly observed, crosscultural character study that coasts along pleasurably on the strengths of its virtuoso leads.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    The Aviator
    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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Unrest
    There’s a prevailing playfulness to many of the sequences which, like that properly placed unrest wheel, ensures a satisfying balance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Get Me Roger Stone
    [An] endlessly fascinating, bracingly up-to-the-minute Netflix documentary.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Sketch
    Worley has adroitly assembled the mega-mash-up into an engaging whole, with the help of an amiable cast and a crack technical team.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    A Monster with a Thousand Heads
    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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Our Time Will Come
    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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache
    Norbu charts an inspired, fittingly meditative journey to enlightenment.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Sunshine Superman
    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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Being Evel
    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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Flamenco, Flamenco
    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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Blades of Glory
    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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Bad Axe
    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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Falcon Lake
    A work of surprising, commanding depth.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong
    The immensely likable Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong is a freshly contemporary change-up on the traditional cross-cultural romantic-comedy.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Rechtshaffen
    Deja Vu
    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.
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