Email Author Aaron Hillis

2010 Stories by Aaron Hillis

• 

  Year in Film: Breakout Performances

  published December 22, 2010

  1. RONALD BRONSTEIN Daddy... More >>

• How (Not) to Succeed in Showbiz in Punching the Clown

  published October 20, 2010

  How would you market Henry Phillips? Is he a novelty folk-rock singer? A stand-up comedian with a musical shtick? Or do both descriptions... More >>

• SATC for Tom Colicchio Fans in BearCity

  published October 20, 2010

  Following up his 1996 filmmaking debut Raising Heroes—billed as the first gay action film—Douglas Langway transplants the... More >>

• A Jerk Gets His Wings (Learns to Fly) in Idiots & Angels

  published October 6, 2010

  Cult animator Bill Plympton's hand-penciled expressionism has, in the past, been put to best use in his shorts, likely because the deadpan,... More >>

• Imprisoned Without a Trial, Filmmaker Still Gets the Story in Tibet in Song

  published September 22, 2010

  Raised as an exile in India, Tibetan ethnomusicologist and first-time filmmaker Ngawang Choephel returned to his homeland as an adult in 1995,... More >>

• Fruit Fly, Just Another Adopted Immigrant Identity Crisis Musical Comedy

  published September 22, 2010

  Livelier than the typical low-budget immigrant saga of grappling with one's hybrid cultural identity, Asian-Amerindie musical Fruit Fly... More >>

• War, What Is It Good For? Vets Question the Fight in The Good Soldier

  published September 22, 2010

  Disconcertingly timeless is the idea that a "good" soldier is one who kills, lest he be killed. The emotional and psychological fallout from... More >>

• 3 Billion and Counting Plays the Blame Game

  published September 15, 2010

  "The death toll is mounting," shrieks the tagline of this dawdling, hysterical documentary that may as well be named Every 12 Seconds a... More >>

• Beautiful Model Points Out the Obvious in Picture Me

  published September 15, 2010

  Did you know that fashion models are rewarded with huge piles of money for being genetically blessed and able to walk a straight line? How... More >>

• Biopic on the Coolest 99-Year-Old You've Never Heard Of, Ahead of Time

  published September 8, 2010

  Jewish-American journalist, photographer, humanitarian, and former Virginia Woolf pal Ruth Gruber turns 99 this month, and if the moxie... More >>

• Aboriginal Musical, Unoriginal Music: Australia's Hit Bran Nue Dae

  published September 8, 2010

  Dorky and earnest, aboriginal teen Willie (Rocky McKenzie) proves deep down a dissident when he escapes Catholic boarding school in 1969 Perth,... More >>

• Fall Guide: Oliver Stone Issues the Initial Public Offering of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

  published September 1, 2010

  Even before our current economic slump, the financial world and its institutions had mutated over the years since corporate raider Gordon Gekko... More >>

• We Are All One in Babel-Meets-Benetton-Ad Altiplano

  published August 18, 2010

  High in the Peruvian Andes, young Saturnina (The Milk of Sorrow's Magaly Solier) loses her fiancé to the toxic mercury spill that... More >>

• South Asian Americans Drawn Broad in Hiding Divya

  published August 18, 2010

  Living in suburban New Jersey, Indian matriarch Divya (Madhur Jaffrey) suffers from what's never actually described as severe bipolar disorder, a... More >>

• An Unusual Taste of Mainstream Indian Cinema in Peepli Live

  published August 11, 2010

  First widely reported in the '90s, an ongoing suicide epidemic in Central India has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of farmers too... More >>

• Corruption, Redemption, and Way Too Many Pigs in Revenge Thriller La Soga

  published August 11, 2010

  Suspiciously employing the same thug flashiness, upbeat nouveau-ethnic soundtrack, and glamorously shot poverty found in fellow shanty-town... More >>

• Charlie St. Cloud, Starring Zac Efron's Abs

  published July 27, 2010

  In a go-nowhere Pacific Northwest town, dreamy high school sailor Charlie (played mostly by Zac Efron's abs and piercing gaze) puts his... More >>

• Japan Cuts Like a (Very Sharp) Knife

  published June 29, 2010

  Loosely tied to the New York Asian Film Festival, the Japan Society's artier, slightly more serious survey of contemporary Nipponese cinema may... More >>

• Norah Jones, MGMT, and Yeasayer Walk Into a Movie -- Why, Wah Do Dem, Why?

  published June 15, 2010

  A couple days before cashing in on a free Caribbean cruise for two, dorky Brooklyn hipster Max (Sean Bones) gets dumped by his girlfriend... More >>

• Bollywood Cops and Robbers Thriller Raavan Easy on the Eyes

  published June 15, 2010

  The plight of a Western critic tackling the modern Bollywood blockbuster is that, although a sea change has increased its appeal to... More >>

• Summer Guide: Casey Affleck Hopes to Slay 'Em With The Killer Inside Me

  published May 25, 2010

  Adapted from Jim Thompson's black-hearted 1952 crime novel, filmmaker Michael Winterbottom's equally uncompromising and wickedly entertaining... More >>

• High-Concept Meets Low Budget in Rom-Com TIMER

  published May 11, 2010

  A high-concept, low-budget romantic comedy that integrates science fiction (similar to Brad Anderson's underrated Happy Accidents),... More >>

• 

  Adam Sherman's Happiness Runs

  published May 4, 2010

  Born and raised on a polygamous commune in the wilderness, embittered teen hippie Victor (Mark L. Young) has realized that the nonconformist... More >>

• A Conversation with Human Centipede Director Tom Six

  published April 27, 2010

  Dutch filmmaker Tom Six was one of the TV pioneers behind the original version of Big Brother, so there's a disturbing irony in his... More >>

• Duncan Ward's Sub-Altman Ensemble Spoof Boogie Woogie

  published April 20, 2010

  Director Duncan Ward tries way too hard to nail a way too easy target in his sub-Altman ensemble spoof of the overpriced, overhyped, overly... More >>