Broken (2013)

I can't remember if I saw this rehash of To Kill a Mockingbird before or after some of these April/May films but I thought it was brilliant and violent and haunting and horrible and brilliant. It was a film Anna and I wished we'd seen with our parents and with our boyfriends but that we didn't want to watch again in a hurry because it was just so traumatic! 

Rory Kinnear's ham-eating was a good comic moment for us but in context just as frightening as the rest of his great performance. All actors involved brill- Cillian Murphy was great. Tim Roth was praised at the time but I don't know why, he was barely in it and he didn't add much when he was. 

Killer Joe (2012)

I saw the trailer for Killer Joe at the cinema a while back and thought it looked pretty good. I've never been a fan of Matthew McConnaughey but seeing him the other day in Eastbound and Down not playing 'naked model in advert' (the role I usually see him in) made me remember the Killer Joe ad.
It was based on a play and I think that's one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much, that it was about the words and not showing loads of set design or location, you knew it was Texas from the horrible trailer in which most of it took place. It was a film where the actors' performances and the script were the key things, it was a play. The script was pretty good, not great, but the performances were really excellent. I didn't even mind the extreme violence because it was still uncomfortably funny and Matthew McConnaughey was fucking scary as hell as well as being charming.

Lawless (2012)

 Guy Pearce was the best thing in it, typical Guy Pearce creepy psycho weirdo. And Gary Oldman was actually good as well, and I'm so used to him being the same these days that I forgot how brilliant he was in Leon, he was just as psycho violent in this. Rest of the film disappointingly boring and I don't want to see someone being tarred and feathered, that's too violent for me and will give me nightmares.

Black Death (2010)

"Don't act until I tell you!" said Sean Bean half way through the film- I wish he'd bloody told them at the beginning!

This film was basically a medieval torture showcase! Some actors got hideously tortured but Eddie Redmayne showed that he has promise as a versatile film actor by playing a repressed monk and then at the end a psycho bad guy- but quite a pretty one. So this film was probably good for him but not for the others. Sean Bean played his usual and a rather miscast Tim McInnerny (still my favourite) played the heavy who ended up in the extravagant torture device last seen at the end of Blackadder I. Yeah, looking at Tim there playing a big thug I was like; "Oh dear, you really have some odd choices, Amy. Why do you like him?" And then he started speaking and even though the script was drivel McInnerny has a voice I could listen to all day. Sigh!

Terrible script, mostly terrible acting, terribly violent and above all terrible camera work- I felt headachy watching the hand held effect that lasted the majority of the film, ugh, focus damn it, focus!!