Aaron Hillis

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Premiere, Village Voice
For 194 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 9% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Aaron Hillis' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 Take Out
Lowest review score: 0 Unthinkable: An Airline Captain's Story
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 99 out of 194
  2. Mixed: 44 out of 194
  3. Negative: 51 out of 194
194 movie reviews
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    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Aaron Hillis
    Never Here
    Up through the ambiguous ending, Thoman withholds the story’s bigger puzzle pieces, which is satisfying when the focus is on Miranda’s quietly traumatic unraveling. Yet as a mystery, Never Here teases too much naturalism to get away with the haunting abstruseness Lynch does in his masterful return to Twin Peaks.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Aaron Hillis
    Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous
    It’s all a curious humanist experiment with anecdotal surprises and whimsy, but its motives aren’t in sharp focus like Doyle’s hotshot imagery.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Aaron Hillis
    Extraordinary Ordinary People
    Folklorist Alan Govenar has dedicated himself to exalting their work in dozens of books and films. His knowledge and affection are contagious, but this enjoyable documentary is a sampler plate crammed with bite-size pieces that only hint at the original fare’s distinctive flavors.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Aaron Hillis
    Alina
    It’s all rather implausible, as is how all those cinema luminaries Barenholtz once nurtured seem to have no impact on his style-free storytelling.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Aaron Hillis
    The Future Perfect
    With unpretentious formal rigor and a lighthearted deadpan, the film tracks Xiaobin’s development through self-reflexive escalation.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Aaron Hillis
    Rebel in the Rye
    This thanklessly watchable film, recut since its mixed Sundance premiere, may not warrant Holden Caulfield’s trademark judgment of phoniness — but, like any clichéd writing, deserves rejection.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Aaron Hillis
    The Teacher
    The setup may be as unsubtle as a metaphoric morality lesson about Europe’s not-too-distant past, or perhaps it’s politically timeless; it’s not a far leap to also think about a certain someone’s insane need for backscratching loyalty within the White House.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Aaron Hillis
    Machines
    Machines proves both uncompromising and unforgettable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Aaron Hillis
    Endless Poetry
    This self-reflexive ode to following muses, finding meaning in nothingness, and transcending the sensitive roadblocks between fathers and sons is loopy, irreverent, and more intensely personal than anything its mystic creator has invented before.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Aaron Hillis
    Goodnight Brooklyn - The Story of Death by Audio
    The footage relies more on idealistic testimonies than a cinematic experience showcasing DBA's vitality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Aaron Hillis
    Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
    Herzog smartly takes a broad, bird's-eye perspective of our early techno-evolution.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Aaron Hillis
    Kill Zone 2
    Dizzily entertaining when the knives, bullets, and feet are flying, and sometimes painfully melodramatic during the interim exposition.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 90 Aaron Hillis
    Pee-wee's Big Holiday
    Manically imaginative and very funny.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Aaron Hillis
    Remember
    Though it dodders engagingly at its antihero's pace, Remember is not subtle.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Aaron Hillis
    Songs My Brothers Taught Me
    The performances are undeniably authentic, the cinematography could make Terrence Malick stand to give a slow clap, and sometimes a sensitive mood and evocative milieu are enough to sustain when there's barely a plot.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Aaron Hillis
    Backtrack
    Between the generic shadowy cinematography and a gothic score that manages to telegraph even the film's jump-scares, there's no tangible tension by which to build an effective climax.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Aaron Hillis
    Jack of the Red Hearts
    It's rare that a drama shows such specificity with respect to the experience of coping with autism, and that sensitivity goes a long way.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Aaron Hillis
    Eisenstein in Guanajuato
    Rigorous and outrageous, Greenaway's defiant approach to narrative only offers insight into his character, not Eisenstein's.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Aaron Hillis
    The Girl in the Book
    Cohn is clearly on the right track toward making the kind of nuanced grown-up dramas that sadly are no longer in vogue.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Aaron Hillis
    American Hero
    The filmmakers blend tones like a child mixing fountain drinks into one unidentifiable flavor.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Aaron Hillis
    Coming Home
    Viko Nikci's undeniably poignant doc surprisingly chooses to follow threads of hope and forgiveness over the angers of injustice.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Aaron Hillis
    Landmine Goes Click
    It's an exploitation film that never gets its audience off, even with cheap thrills — what a dud.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Aaron Hillis
    Youth
    Elegantly shot to emphasize the suffocating atmosphere of its believably frightening scenario, the film speaks clearly about generational expectations and the disintegration of the middle class, even when the brothers communicate without using words.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Aaron Hillis
    Jenny's Wedding
    Lazy, schmaltzy, and on-the-nose from its Hallmark-friendly production design to its rancid pop-music cues and naive dialogue.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Aaron Hillis
    Frank the Bastard
    Overlong and slack in suspense, the film is most noteworthy for its patchy accents and the late Ellen Albertini Dow (the "rapping granny" from The Wedding Singer).
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Aaron Hillis
    Dark Was the Night
    The narrative strikes a mostly sensible (if overly earnest) ratio of inner-turmoil human theater to B-movie monster hunt, before ultimately tilting toward the classic drive-in with climactic siege action and old-school effects.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Aaron Hillis
    A Little Chaos
    Appropriately hunky but neutered of the brute sexuality he exhibited in Bullhead and Rust and Bone, Schoenaerts and his lack of bodice-busting tension with Winslet mirrors the film's transparent, often anachronistic inauthenticity.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Aaron Hillis
    The Film Critic
    Criticism mutated long ago, after the internet's floodgates opened, and that outmoded disconnect between The Film Critic and today's film critics underscores how the persistent references to cinema and film writing are self-awarely mimicking clichés but not subverting them.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Aaron Hillis
    Hyena
    The film's convoluted moral trajectory to hell may be as unoriginal as quoting Taxi Driver, and the pervasive violent menace can be needlessly punishing (including a drugged sexual assault), but as stylish, scorched-earth entertainment, it'll get you in its teeth.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Aaron Hillis
    Kung Fu Killer
    Director Teddy Chan's glossy thriller pays tribute to martial-arts cinema by casting enough Hong Kong industry legends to rival the cameo count of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's a pity, then, that it's an undeniably bland film in style and story, despite a few elaborately staged fight sequences.
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