When, at the beginning of Miss Meadows, Katie Holmes as the titular character begins to tap dance while walking down a residential sidewalk while blowing kisses at watching birds, grazing deer, and curious squirrels it seems obvious just how silly this dark comedy is going to let itself get. And when a man pulls up next to her in a pickup truck telling her how pretty she looks before subsequently pulling out a gun and demanding she gets in the car, the extent of the film’s dark side is pretty obvious as well. But the extreme space between the silly and the serious is what unravels this schizophrenic film ultimately.

Miss Meadows is prim and proper, never leaves home without her tap shoes on and a book to read, she spends her free time gardening and works as a substitute teacher imbuing her positivity to young children. And when she encounters anyone with bad intentions, she becomes an angry vigilante, pulling out her tiny silver handgun from her purse and swiftly issuing her own form of justice. How she manages to encounter so much evil on a regular basis is a bit questionable, but more questionable is how her vigilantism seems almost always to be invoked in the heat of the moment, too un-meditated, and thus seemingly quite sloppy as far as crimes go. When she meets the local Sheriff (James Badge Dale) and finds he too is devoted to seeing the bad guys get theirs, she’s naturally quite attracted. Of course, their methods are invariably at odds with each other and romantic bliss is disrupted as the Sheriff grows more curious about his new girlfriend.

With cutesy dialog (Miss Meadows loves speaking in etiquette rhymes and says too-da-loo after every interaction), especially between Miss Meadows and her mother (Jean Smart) who are often on the phone with each other, the film can be tedious to endure. Somehow Holmes’s sweetness never seems genuine, and not just because she occasionally pulls out a gun and shoots people, but because writer/director Karen Leigh Hopkins tries to fully explain Miss Meadows darker inclinations as a result of a childhood trauma while giving her impassioned speeches of political reasoning behind her actions that seem almost sensible. She’s not fully sweet and she’s not fully psychotic, therefore she’s not fully interesting.

Some of the best scenes are between Miss Meadows and her students, portraying her as a terrific teacher and mother figure. The chemistry between Holmes and Dale is middling. Neither of them seem particularly to blame. Mid-way through the film when a sinister figure (Callan Mulvey) appears in Miss Meadows neighborhood and she takes it upon herself to warn him not to try anything foolish, the film seems like it might take a darker (and more interesting) turn, but the rest of the plot plays into expectations leading to a rather inevitable conclusion (though with an unnecessary and confusing epilogue that undoes some of the characters’ development.)

Having mostly written for TV movies, Hopkins gives off the impression she never intended for Miss Meadows to be truly dark, there’s too much safety written into the script. But Hopkins hangs out in too much middle ground. Her darkness isn’t dark enough, her humor isn’t funny enough. Even a twist in the third act doesn’t seem all that surprising. Katie Holmes can play it, but the writing isn’t strong enough to give her anything fun to run with.

Miss Meadows is the sort of psychopath you wouldn’t want as a neighbor. Not because she is creepy, but because her by the book manners and Snow White demeanor are so grating, exchanging pleasantries would be downright tedious. As far as friendly neighborhood sociopaths go, I’ll take Dexter Morgan over Miss Meadows any day.

Miss Meadows is now available to stream on VOD.

Joe Carnahan’s The Grey is an exhausting film. I mean that in a good way. This film involves characters going from one dire scene to another for 2 hours. The film doesn’t cheat its audience on how bleak situations can get. I admired Carnahan’s choice to not hold back. One of the best scenes of the film involves the death of a man that felt so true to life that it took my breath away. I’ve never been in the same room as anyone while someone has passed on, so I can’t say for sure how real the scene is portrayed. But the scene, felt very, VERY real.

The Grey is a very simple movie. Men board a plan in the Alaskan oil fields heading to Anchorage. The plane crashes during a massive blizzard. The survivors must fight all the elements, including a pack of vicious wolves that seem to have a serious problem with strangers in their territory. Carnahan and his screenwriting partner (Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who also wrote the short story the film is based on) must have realized how much this kind of movie has been done before because they add some nice details to the film that really flesh out characters in a nice way.

Liam Neeson, who seems to be having a career renaissance as an action hero as of late even though he will turn 60 soon, stars as Ottway. Ottway’s job is very clear. He is to protect men in the field who repair oil lines from wolves that seem to have an appetite for humans. He sits hundreds of yards away watching and waiting. When a wolf makes a mad dash to catch some dinner he shoots them without remorse. When we meet Ottway, he is near suicide. An ever evolving backstory that runs throughout the film fills us in on certain details of his life.

What I liked about the Ottway character the most was how much respect he has for the wolves. I personally don’t think he liked killing them, but I do think he is a man who believes in kill or be killed. This becomes pretty clear later on as the film presses on.

Ottway wakes up after the plane crashes and immediately imposes his survival knowledge on the rest of the men. He knows what to do, he doesn’t panic. He becomes the group’s leader by showing leadership and initiative. The others are shell shocked and scared. But Ottway is not scared or at least very good at not showing it.

One of the best things the movie does is show how packs work. One pack is obviously the wolves, but the other is the men. It’s funny I didn’t pick that up the first time I watched the film. Wolves are a lot smarter than I think most people give them credit for. When working in packs they are extremely deadly, they kind of reminded me of Velociraptors from Jurassic Park. They test their prey, often teasing them at times. There are scenes were the wolves I think are purposely installing fear into the men they stalk before they do the actual killing. Now that is scary.

The movie was kind of sold to and bought by the audience as Liam Neeson vs. wolves. Yeah, I can I see that, but the movie is so much more than that. A lot of the film is Neeson plotting the survival of his group as the wolf who leads the other pack hunts them. It sounds silly talking about a wolf being smart enough to ‘plot’ to kill, it really does, but Carnahan is smart enough to trust his audience to go along with it and he presents the idea very well.

What was most impressive about The Grey was how it presented an age old story of survival. Instead of being a stupid brainless action movie it transcends the genre and becomes something else. It becomes a meditation on what lengths man must go to in order to survive. I don’t think I would survive the conditions the film presents. I can’t say that for sure because I’ve never had to. The film asks us as an audience to look at ourselves and wonder if we were in this situation could we do what we had to do to survive. Most people would probably say no. But if you’re in the wild, freezing, no food to eat and being chased by blood thirsty wolves I’d bet my bottom dollar you would kill to survive. When we are pushed, we push back.

Carnahan presents three dimensional characters who have thoughts, who say things not to please a story but because they have something meaningful to say. The men have hopes and desires. They want to see their wives, children, girlfriends again. They aren’t all about killing and being ‘men’. A lot of them are not as tough as the first seem. The wild breaks them. Neeson’s character in particular has a fantastic backstory that is shown in small bits at various points in the film. The final revelation in that backstory arrives at a perfect moment in the present time near the end of the film and will break the heart of even the manliest of man watching the film.

The Grey feels very succinct with its scenes. A lot of them are straight to the point. Deaths aren’t being foretold within the scene. They just happen, Carnahan is not here to mess around. One great scene in particular involves men running through a massive blizzard trying to make it to a tree line of a forest to escape the rabid pack of wolves. We know as an audience one of these guys is not making it. Sure enough the straggler of the group falls to the ground and out of the heavy wind and snow come the wolves to claim him. He has no chance. He is ripped to shreds. There is no build up to this. Carnahan shows him falling and as fast as he hits the ground the wolves are already on him. The men scream at them and try to run back to help him, but their feet can’t go fast enough through the snow. As soon as the attack begins, it’s practically done. The wolves drag him back into the unkown.

Carnahan made a film nearly a decade ago called Narc. The film showed Carnahan had lots of promise and a lot of talent. Since then he has made Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team (also with Neeson). I thought both were terrible. I (wrongly) wrote off Carnahan as a sellout. Both films are by the numbers and at times extremely nauseating. I’m here to say that he is back. He shows maturity with The Grey. He doesn’t pull any punches with his audience and treats them with respect. Most people don’t like being treated like a child when watching a movie, Carnahan knows this. The film is like the weather it presents, it’s blunt and very unforgiving. The Grey does not disappoint. This is one of the best films of the year.

Steve McQueen’s Shame is a mesmerizing film about a man that has a severe addiction to sex who finds it impossible to have emotions around others. The film is dark and depressing with shame present in each of the characters eyes. But the true shame here is that the film will not be seen by most because of the NC-17 rating it received, a true shame.

The film starts off in a New York subway when Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) notices a woman on the train giving him flirty looks. A dramatic score builds up as she gets off the train at its next stop. We see a wedding ring on her finger but that does next stop him from chasing after her. He frantically looks all around the stop but she is nowhere in sight. In his mind, she was the one that “got away”.

At a glance Brandon seems to have everything going for him. He is a charming, handsome, and successful man. What you do not see the strong addiction he has to sex. He does not believe in marriage because he is incapable of emotionally connecting to people. The longest relationship he has ever had is four months and it was probably his longest by a landslide.

On any given night he brings a lady home from a bar, hires a prostitute or settles for internet pornography. He often watches pornography on his computer without pleasuring himself. It has gotten so bad that his work computer stopped working because of the amount of pornography and subsequently computer viruses that were on it.

He comes home one night to find music blaring in his apartment. Thinking he has walked in on some kind of criminal he quickly heads to the closest to get a bat. Then he bursts open the bathroom door only to find it is his sister, Sissy Sullivan (Carey Mulligan).

It would be just like Sissy to show up uninvited as that is the whimsical nature of her personality. She is a beautiful traveling singer but she is also not without her flaws. The first indication that she is suicidal is when she and Brandon are at the subway and she half-jokingly acts if she is going to step down to the tracks. Perhaps it was more of a reaction than a joke? The second time her suicidal tendencies comes up is at the dinner table when someone spots marks on her arms that she simply shrugs off by saying she was bored as a child.

Sissy just wants to stay in contact with her brother. She knows if she stops attempting to do so with him that she would never hear from him again. But he does not see it like that. Brandon looks at her as weight on his shoulders and a responsibility. She stands in his way of living the life he wishes to pursue.

Hinted along the way is the fact that their upbringing was rough, but it was never explained. It is not a bad thing that it was never explained as films often give out unnecessary details. Instead you will be thinking to yourself just exactly what it was that their parents did to thems growing up.

Michael Fassbender was simply stunning in his bravest and greatest performance to date. I agree with the many out there that say he was snubbed from an Oscar nomination, but it is not much of a mystery as to why. It had less to do with his performance in the film as it did with the rating of the film.

It is hard to believe that this marks only the second film that which Steve McQueen has directed. Shame was executed so well you think he would have been doing this his whole life. I have foolishly not seen his first film, Hunger, but after watching this one I will be sure to add it to my list.

The cinematography was very well done. In particular the scene where he is jogging down several blocks in downtown New York City. Shots of the city skyline are frequent throughout the film and a character in the film even says at one point, “Wow. I forget how beautiful this city is.” The colors in Shame are dark which works perfectly for its subject matter.

Ultimately, Shame is about the failure to connect emotionally with people. It is a passionate, perverse, and powerful film. But I suspect Steve McQueen knew this already. In the last scene of Shame the words powerful, thoughtful, and relevant appear clearly visible in the background. I do not think that was an accident.