Email Author Aaron Hillis

2011 Stories by Aaron Hillis

• Patton Oswalt Was Once a Young Adult, Has Aged, Reflects

  published December 7, 2011

  In the arrested-development dramedy Young Adult, actor-comedian Patton Oswalt faces his biggest career challenge to date: holding his... More >>

• I Melt With You

  published December 7, 2011

  Insincere and superficially nihilistic, Arlington Road director Mark Pellington's swaggering, midlife-crisis melodrama—about a... More >>

• Grandma, a Thousand Times

  published November 30, 2011

  From her rundown balcony a few flights above the streets of old Beirut, illiterate but sharp-tongued octogenarian Teta Fatima observes the... More >>

• Answers To Nothing

  published November 30, 2011

  Panicked over being late to artificially inseminate his wife at the hospital, an unhappily married therapist (Dane Cook) pulls his... More >>

• Urbanized

  published October 26, 2011

  A micro-to-macro expansion of and logical conclusion to Gary Hustwit’s elegantly compelling, design-in-the-everyday doc trilogy (which... More >>

• Elevate

  published October 19, 2011

  Four years, two continents, and a whole lot of culture shock in the making, Anne Buford's endearing and vibrantly photographed hoop-dreams doc... More >>

• It's a Musical Life: American Man Trades Jersey for the African Forest in Oka!

  published October 12, 2011

  Love Actually's Kris Marshall stars as Larry, an endearingly goofy ethnomusicologist from Jersey who travels to the forests of Central... More >>

• When Dad's Working for the CIA: A Son's Portrait in The Man Nobody Knew

  published September 21, 2011

  With a chewy title to tip us off, director Carl Colby’s compelling and tricky portrait of his late pop streamlines and connects two vital... More >>

• Animal Therapy: Love a Bottlenose, Love Thyself in Dolphin Tale

  published September 21, 2011

  Of this year's corny family heartwarmers based on true aquatic stories of coping with the loss of appendages, director Charles Martin Smith's... More >>

• Building a War Crimes Case in Granito: How To Nail a Dictator

  published September 14, 2011

  In 1982, doc filmmaker Pamela Yates traveled to Guatemala to capture both sides of the then-raging civil war, in which the despotic regime of... More >>

• Fall Arts: Film Picks

  published September 7, 2011

  When Movies Mattered September 16, 19–20, 26–28 Curated by indispensable film critic Dave Kehr, BAM's... More >>

• Fall Arts: Albert Brooks, Gangster

  published September 7, 2011

  If you only know Albert Brooks from his prophetic comedies (Lost in America, Modern Romance, Defending Your Life) or other... More >>

• Brother's Justice: Hahahaha We're All Famous

  published September 7, 2011

  Like an overlong episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with none of the wit and twice the irritation, co-director/writer/star Dax Shepard's impotent,... More >>

• Grave Encounters: A Skeptic's Tour of the Supernatural… Or is It?

  published September 7, 2011

  More mockbuster than mockumentary, this bogus and blatant pilfering of both The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity from... More >>

• When the "Meet Cute" is a Gruesome Accident: The High Cost of Living

  published September 7, 2011

  Panicked that she might be in labor at 34 weeks, Montrealer Nathalie (Isabelle Blais) tries to flag a cab from the middle of the street and... More >>

• Flypaper: Just Another Bank Heist Comedy

  published August 17, 2011

  More generic Indiewood product burbles down the Sundance pipeline in this slick, manic, excruciatingly hollow entry in the exhausted subgenre... More >>

• Spanish History Meets Insane Clown Posse in The Last Circus

  published August 17, 2011

  Baroquely sinister and grotesquely funny, the latest overstimulated bout of dark comic mayhem from writer-director Álex de la Iglesia... More >>

• Final Destination 5

  published August 10, 2011

  Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was chased by seven more sequels and a reboot, so was anyone really expecting 2009's schlock-tacular 3D... More >>

• A Sitcom Version of Suburban Angst in A Little Help

  published July 20, 2011

  "Suburban malaise" they call it, and it's the reason why Long Island dental hygienist Laura (Jenna Fischer) self-soothes with afternoon... More >>

• What a Tease: Foreshadowing to the Extreme in The Chameleon

  published July 13, 2011

  Screenwriters, take note: Unless your story is a whodunit, it’s an unforgivable flaw to telegraph early and often that, sometime during... More >>

• 100-Acre Wood, Just As We Left It, in Winnie the Pooh

  published July 13, 2011

  Vivaciously confirming the timelessness of A.A. Milne’s talking teddy bear, Disney’s frickin’ adorable return to the Hundred... More >>

• Religion Bad, Atheism Good, Says Quasi-Thriller The Ledge

  published July 6, 2011

  Before being tasked with talking down a suicide jumper, police officer Terrence Howard learns that he has always been sterile—so whose... More >>

• The Comedy of Manhattan Parenting, Wasted, in The Best and the Brightest

  published June 22, 2011

  In this Manhattan-set comedy of errors that’s seriously more error than comedy, Neil Patrick Harris and Bonnie Somerville play a barely... More >>

• Summer Guide: Bellflower's Muscle-Car Mayhem Shifts the Summer Into High Gear

  published May 25, 2011

  Homemade flame-throwers. Hot chicks who eat crickets. The ultimate muscle car named Medusa. Booby-trapped with the superficial pleasures of a... More >>

• Soul Surfer: Christian Pandering That Pretends It Isn't

  published April 6, 2011

  Adapted from the memoir-ized 2003 tragedy-to-triumph of Hawaiian teen surfer Bethany Hamilton—who famously returned to her board a few... More >>