From the vShere Client, click on whichever level contains the VMs you want to check, either the datacenter level, or the cluster level, or a single host.
Click on the "Virtual Machines" tab.
Right-click on any column heading to bring up the add/remove columns dialog, then click on "VMware Tools Status" to add that column.
Now you can click on that new column heading to sort. Possible values are: OK, Not installed, Not running, Out of date
You should also take a look at RVTools (http://www.robware.net/), which has great filtering options when displaying information about dozens/hundreds of VMs.
One of the simplest PowerCLI examples, and something which is actually extremely useful on its own, is the Get-VM cmdlet. Which lists VMs.
PowerCLI can be a bit overwhelming to use, But it can be enhanced with a nice toolset and a library of preconfigured scripts to jump-start your mass changes, which is possible with PowerGUI
The Community Pack is nice, but the vSphere Client "Filter" you mention doesn't appear to be a filter, just sort capability as I described above.
RVTools has an actual filter where you can restrict the listing by one or more of the following: datacenter, cluster, host, powerstate (on/off/suspended), VM/template, etc. See attached image.