The Good Lie isn’t really based on a true story, more inspired by events than anything else. It shows the kinds of things Sudanese refugees, especially the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” have gone through, and continue to go through today.

The movie follows a young (pre-teen) handful of family and tribe mates, the only survivors of an attack on their village. As they trek hundreds of miles through the harsh terrain of Sudan in seek of help, they continue to lose members to starvation and roaming soldiers. Finally they come to a refugee camp in Kenya, where life is hard but at least survivable. I think many Americans think refugee camps are temporary shelters, but this movie opens your eyes when it jumps forward 13 years and the surviving troupe are still in the same camp living out a haphazard existence. Finally they win a lottery and are picked to come to the USA, paid by help organizations here, to start a new life. Though they think their troubles are over, they realize upon arriving that they will be split up.

This is a fairly heart-wrenching movie. Each family member reacts differently to their new life in America. One embraces religion in thanks for their fortune, one wonders a bit aimlessly at the loss of their sister, and one throws himself into work. Yet they all stay together, with the 3 of them pooling their money to send just one of them to college. Remaining spoiler-free, I can’t really say much about the title other than it too shows how the 3 of them will do anything for the well-being of their family and friends. As the final credits rolled, it showed the 4 main actors as also true Sudan civil war survivors, several of whom were forced into child soldiers as youth. A gripping film.

Pretty good thriller here. The Equalizer stars Denzel Washington as Robert McCall, a supposed quiet man with a normal life. He works at a hardware store by day, reads classic literature by night, and seems content with his life. He has a bit of OCD in him, making sure everything is in its proper place, and even going so far as counting how many seconds it takes to complete simple tasks. He goes to the same diner every night and regularly exchanges pleasantries with a prostitute there before she heads out for work. When she gets beat up one night, McCall’s true skills come out, as he brutally takes care of the people that hurt her. This leads to a wild sequence of events, when bigger and stronger villains come after him for revenge.

The movie does become outlandish, especially the final confrontation, but it is extremely thrilling. Denzel is in his element here, as he remains one of the most bankable action stars around today. He doesn’t make as many films these days as he once did, but they are always hits and he remains one of the best actors around. Besides his extremely good acting in this film again, it is also full of excellent imagery and gripping, tense suspense.

Lot of hype leading up to this one, and it is rare that the film lives up to that, but Gone Girl mostly does. If you’ve been to pretty much any movie in the last month or so you’ve seen a preview for this one, so there were no surprises going in. It is the story of Amy (Rosamund Pike) gone missing, with few clues to her disappearance, and the police (and the nation, in today’s media frenzy style) turning on her estranged husband Nick (Ben Affleck) as the primary suspect.

The movie is based on a very popular book, which I had not read (though my wife read it twice!). It is a decent mystery-style film, with twists and turns to keep the viewer on their toes. Even you do not know for sure if Nick did it or not, with Amy’s journal entries along the way painting a pretty severe picture of him as a man with a dark side. There are two big surprises in the film, the first I sort of saw coming, the second came out of left field, but both will keep your attention until the very end.

There is some early Oscar buzz for Affleck in this film. Honestly I thought he was ok but not stellar, though Pike on the other hand is superb. For me, after the big thrills quiet down, the ending was a little paint-by-numbers, but it is still a satisfying film. The director, David Fincher, has been on a roll the last couple years, and this film continues his ride.

I was pleasantly surprised by The Skeleton Twins this weekend. Portrayed in the previews as just another comedy (and maybe a silly one at that), it is actually a very serious, heavy drama, albeit with good laughs thrown in to keep the movie from feeling too dark.

On the same day that Maggie (Kristen Wiig) is contemplating suicide, she gets a call that her brother Milo (Bill Hader) has just had his own attempt and is recovering. They haven’t spoken in 10 years, but the reason why is left a mystery for most of the film. She brings Milo home to live with her and her husband Lance, played by Luke Wilson. Both Maggie and Milo are a little strange, the product of their upbringing. They were raised mostly by their dad who was also a little out there, until his suicide when they were 14 years old. Their mother, as we learn, never wanted to be a mom and was never there for them either before or after their father’s death. Both siblings struggle with relationship issues and depression in their own way. You learn as the film progresses why each has become the person they are, and though the viewer begins to piece things together before the end comes, the final big reveal will still induce a gasp from you.

This movie shows Wiig and Hader can do much more than just SNL style comedy, with Hader in particular being tremendous as the troubled Milo. The Skeleton Twins is not a huge blockbuster and I don’t see it hanging around theaters for long (and you might have to search for a theater even showing it in your area), but it is well worth a watch.

The Maze Runner is kind of a mess. It has a fantastic premise and background, but the teenybopper themes permeate the whole film and really hold it back.

The story is that of group of teenage boys living in “the glade,” the center of a large maze from which no one has escaped. They don’t know why they are there or who put them there, all having had their memory erased before waking up one day in the glade. Every day the door to the maze opens and runners go in to map it out, but they have to return before the door closes at night, as monsters called grievers haunt the maze then. The plot revolves around Thomas, the newest member of the group, who pushes the laws they’ve been living by in a relentless pursuit of finding the answers behind it all.

Sounds great right? Unfortunately it’s just not a great film. There is a lot of overly dramatic pauses, right out of the Twilight series. The acting overall is subpar, and whole sequences don’t make any sense. When there is a fairly large group of adventurous youth, why is everyone content to live in the glade until Thomas arrives? Why does the film try to create a huge, gutwrenching scene when a character dies near the end, when others have died left and right throughout with nary a whisper? When all is revealed in the end, it just opens up more questions, that I guess you have to wait for the sequel to find out. Fans of the teen book series this film is based on may love it, but I think most adults will do what I did and count the minutes till the end of this labyrinth.

Liam Neeson continues his trend of playing tough guys in A Walk Among the Tombstones. Adapted from one of Lawrence Block’s popular mystery novels, it is the story of a former cop turned PI who is drawn into hunting down a pair of twisted murderers, not to bring them to justice, but to bring them to the surviving spouse for vengeance.

As I said, this movie is based on a mystery novel, which unfortunately means I can’t say much about the plot without giving things away, and ultimately the build up is the best part about this film. All I can say is there are multiple layers that Neeson must twist through. He has this rough demeanor act down pretty well by now, and does a great job here again. He admits during the film that he wasn’t a “clean” cop, and his morals seem fairly low as he tries to get to the bottom of this maze. However, he is struggling with the steps of AA as a former alcoholic as he goes as well, and Neeson does well conveying these personal challenges.

The movie is really good along the way. As new elements are made clear, the suspense keeps clicking up, until it feels as if you are on the edge of a deep cliff waiting for the fall. Unfortunately the constant building does not lead to a tremendous climax, and the ending is really sort of a letdown. After the terrible things the culprits have done, the only thing that would have satisfied me was if they were truly monsters, but of course, the bad guys are just bad guys, and sort of fumbly ones at that. Still, the movie as a whole is enjoyable, but ultimately only worth watching once, since its greatest element (the mystery unfurling as you go) can only be experienced the first time.

Love is Strange isn’t your typical summer movie. It is a very slow-moving, thought-provoking film, and features subtle acting, made brilliant by the context of the movie.

Love is Strange is the story of an aging couple, played by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina. Partners for nearly 40 years, they are just recently able to marry due to changing laws in New York. However, doing so causes Molina to lose his job as music teacher at a local Catholic school. Though the school, kids, parents, etc., all knew he was gay and was living with his partner for years, the act of getting married angers the higher ups who invoke the “Christian lifestyle” clause in his contract and terminate his job. Lithgow is (and always has been) a struggling artist, and Molina’s private lessons aren’t enough to pay for their apartment. With all of their nearby friends and family also living in tight, small New York apartments, no one has an extra room to take them both in, so they split into different places.

Lithgow ends up with his nephew and his family, in the bottom bunk bed of the family member’s 16 year old son. He is a bit of a burden to the family, as the mom (played by Marisa Tomei) is a work-at-home author trying to complete her new book, while Lithgow is a bit of a conversationalist. Molina has the opposite problem, staying on the couch of another gay couple they are friends with. The couple is much younger, throwing regular parties and loud get-togethers, to the ire of the normally quiet-loving Molina.

There are spots to chuckle at, but for the most part the movie is a sad look at the plight homosexuals can face for doing nothing more than what others do every day. Amazingly this same scenario happened in my area this past summer, where teachers were fired from a Catholic all-girl school for getting married and trying to buy a house together. Our society has come a long way but obviously it isn’t there yet, if it ever will be. In Love is Strange, you sharply feel what our protagonists are going through, yet they don’t complain and plod on just trying to live out their remaining time together. A very poignant film.

This is Where I Leave You is one of the more heartwarming and heartbreaking movies I’ve seen in a little while. It is the story of a family coming back home after the passing of their father. It features some truly incredible acting, by people you wouldn’t expect. Comedy heavyweights Jason Bateman and Tina Fey show a personal side, and while there are plenty of laughs here, it’s the heavier moments in the film that really stuck with me.

The Altman family is made up of Bateman, Fey, Adam Driver, and Corey Stoll, with matriarch Jane Fonda. Each of the kids has issues that they need to deal with through the course of the movie. The movie is told through Bateman’s view, who found his wife in bed with his boss just weeks before his father’s death. Fey is struggling with her marriage as well, with a career-focused husband who doesn’t have time for his family, and coming back home has set off old feelings she had for the neighbor across the street (played here by the highly underrated Timothy Olyphant). Driver (youngest child syndrome) and Stoll (oldest child syndrome – the responsible one looking to carry on Dad’s legacy) each face their issues as well.

The movie is funny, laugh-out-loud funny at times, but it is also very well acted. Anyone with a sibling feels the familiarity the actors display with each other. These are adults that grew up and moved away from home. They are family and once shared everything together, and while they can joke at each other, time and distance has them feeling hesitant to bring up any serious issues. The quartet do an amazing job of feeling like a family through the screen. It isn’t long into the movie that you really start hoping that everyone ends up ok by the end.

This movie is getting middle of the road reviews (currently 45% by critics on Rotten Tomatoes, 71% by audience), but many of the “professional” reviews I’ve poked through this morning seem to have issues with silly stuff if you ask me, such as the family doesn’t look much alike, and Fey should stick to comedy since it is her strong suit. If you aren’t a movie critic and don’t tend to over-analyze, I think you will very much enjoy this film.

Been a slow couple weeks, with no movies that I cared to see at the theaters lately. That changed this weekend with The Drop, James Gandolfini’s last film. Starring him and the brilliant Tom Hardy, this is a gripping, building film with a you-don’t-see-it-coming fulfilling climax. It is based on a book by Dennis Lehane, who’s books have also become the films Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone Baby Gone, all great ones in my opinion.

With last year’s Enough Said (released just after Gandolfini’s death), we all saw he could play more than the tough guy we know from The Soprano’s, and play it well, but The Drop takes him back to his roots. He plays the manager of a bar, which the local organized crime use as a drop where money can change hands. Hardy plays the bartender, and the two of them keep the money flowing right in front of everyone, but no one is foolish to rob the place, until one night someone is. Cops start investigating, and the crime group wants their missing money. When questions start getting asked about a missing bar regular, a 10 year old unsolved case, the viewer is left wondering who is on who’s side and who is the real bad guy behind it all. It might sound too complex, but it really isn’t. The story is told so well, with interlocking plot elements, that it isn’t hard to keep up, even when you don’t know exactly what may be going on.

Hardy has been around for 15 years, but it seems he didn’t really get his due until Inception, and everything I’ve seen of him since is compelling. The Drop is no different, where he is the quiet, unassuming barkeep, yet you sense his underlying edge throughout. This isn’t a fast moving film, the tension builds slowly but steadily, until 45 minutes in you realize you are sitting at the edge of your seat and don’t remember moving forward. The climax hits like a hammer. This is the kind of movie you can watch again and again, and well worth a trip to the theater for the first viewing.