Bone Tomahawk (2015) Reviews - Movie

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When a group of cannibal savages kidnaps settlers from the small town of Bright Hope, an unlikely team of gunslingers, led by Sheriff Franklin Hunt, sets out to bring them home. But their enemy is more ruthless than anyone could have imagined, putting their mission - and survival itself - in serious jeopardy. This is a gritty action-packed thriller chronicling a terrifying rescue mission in the Old West.

MOVIE REVIEWS

October 25, 2015 2:38 p.m.

The Terrifying and Strange Bone Tomahawk Is an Unflinching Movie With an Old-Fashioned Veneer

By Bilge EbiriFollow

A tense, absorbing pursuit Western that turns into a Grand Guignol gorefest, Bone Tomahawk is what you might get if you crossbred The Searchers with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or maybe Cannibal Holocaust. It’s certainly not the first of its kind — we’ve had cannibal Westerns before, and we’ve had Western genre conventions pulled out from under us before — but it has a real respect for its characters, which makes all the difference. In fact, aside from an opening sequence that involves a ghastly throat-slicing and a hideous, demon-like figure seen from a distance, the film initially feels like a fairly traditional Western. We spend the first act hanging out, Rio Grande–style, in a small settlement — I hesitate to call it a town — where most of the men have departed on a cattle drive. Left behind are Arthur O’Dwyer (Patrick Wilson), a ranch foreman stuck at home with his wife (Lili Simmons) thanks to a fractured tibia; John Brooder (Matthew Fox), a slick, dandyish gentleman with a past; Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell), and a couple of vaguely hapless deputies — the too-green Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) and the too-old Chicory (Richard Jenkins). That doesn’t leave a lot of able-bodied men to choose from when several townspeople are killed and abducted by … well, “Troglodytes,” as one local Indian (Zach McClarnon) describes them, “a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals who rape and eat their own mothers.” As the Sheriff, Chicory, Brooder, and a crippled O’Dwyer head out on a journey to retrieve the captives, we know that they’ll eventually find real monsters out there. And most films would be content to play with that irony, to wink at us while setting up these complacent cowboys for their rendezvous with the unthinkable. But writer-director S. Craig Zahler (and, full disclosure here: I know the guy, and consider him a friend, though I haven’t seen him in years) seems genuinely interested in watching these men play off one another. The daffy Chicory can’t stop talking and asking questions. Brooder is calculating and resourceful, but also paranoid and racist. O’Dwyer is desperate and pained, with his leg getting worse. And Sheriff Hunt is tormented by the role he himself might have played in allowing his people to get captured. Some might call the back-and-forth between these men Tarantino — a few conversations seem random, maybe even slightly anachronistic — but the interactions always reveal character, and their relationships develop in interesting ways. It also hints at a broader notion — that there is something rotten in these men’s own fear of others that has given birth to their predicament. By the time Bone Tomahawk rolls into its gruesome (and I mean gruesome) third act, we’re fully involved in these men and their little dramas, which just adds to the unnerving tension. There’s an elegance to Bone Tomahawk that doesn’t let up even when it veers into cult-movie territory. Zahler is a patient director, willing to let scenes unfold, with tension developing organically. He uses music sparingly; the early scenes in town are almost unnaturally quiet, with the moody, minimalist score (credited to Jeff Herriot and Zahler himself) only kicking in once the search party strikes out for the territory. As the men become more and more desperate, the camera comes in closer and closer. But even the final act is devoid of the kind of unhinged stylistic hysteria that can take over films that upend genre. You could even say that’s what makes it so disturbing — the director’s unflinching eye reveals both character and violence. Bone Tomahawk is terrifying and strange, to be sure, but it’s the old-fashioned veneer that makes it beautiful.

The Magnificent Seven Reviews - Movie

        THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 

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The Magnificent Seven

PG-13

 2016 ‧ Crime film/Action ‧ 2h 13m

OVERVIEW

CAST

REVIEWS

Play trailer on YouTube

7.1/10IMDb63%Rotten Tomatoes54%Metacritic

With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue, the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns - Sam Chisolm, Josh Farraday, Goodnight Robicheaux, Jack Horne, Billy Rocks, Vasquez, and Red Harvest. As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.

Movie remakes have not been setting the world on fire lately. The all-gal Ghostbusters will maybe break even. Ben-Hur and Tarzan each cost — and lost — a fortune. So what's Hollywood pushing this weekend? The Magnificent Seven, a remake of a remake — admittedly, one with a decent pedigree.

In Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954), a pickup band of seven sword-wielding rōnin are hired by a Japanese farming village to protect it from bandits. Only three of them walked away at the end.

In the original The Magnificent Seven, John Sturges made it seven gunslingers protecting a Wild West town from Mexican banditos. Only three of them rode out.

Now comes The Magnificent Seven the remake, and though the plot's essentially unchanged, the filmmakers have made some clearly intentional updates to their time-honored formula. No banditos this time. The bad guy is a greedy U.S. capitalist named Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard). And the good guys? A rainbow coalition: Asian knife hurler (Byung-hun Lee), Hispanic outlaw (Manuel Garcia Rulfo), face-painted native-American archer (Martin Sensmeier), a Confederate sharpshooter (Ethan Hawke), a guy described as a bear in people's clothes (Vincent D'Onofrio), and a goofball gambler (Chris Pratt), all led by silky-smooth bounty hunter Denzel Washington.

Haley Bennett and Chris Pratt in The Magnificent Seven.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Actually, I say Denzel Washington leads this band of variously grumpy, dopey and bashful dudes, but they're actually in the employ of a woman this time — that's another change — a woman I started to think of as a particularly aggrieved Snow White (Haley Bennett). When asked if she seeks revenge, she says she seeks righteousness, but she'll take revenge. Whistle while you work on that.

Though much of the film was shot in Louisiana, there are crags and wide open plains enough that the Old West vistas and the artfully shot mayhem look appropriately majestic. If you're going to have church bells crashing down from flaming steeples, director Antoine Fuqua is definitely the guy you want behind the camera.

He previously teamed up with Denzel Washington on the contemporary shoot'em-ups Training Day and The Equalizer, and he seems to really relish the sight of his star riding a horse (or even just walking beside it). At one point, Washington quietly says something like "go on, horse" and his steed obligingly saunters away to give him a clear shot at a bad guy.

As you might expect, the firepower is significantly increased this time out — I don't recall a Gatling gun in the 1960 version — and the climax, pitting Bogue's thuggish army of 200 against the town's nobly heroic seven is, let's say "explosive."

If body count is what you go to Westerns for, by all means drift into this one's corral. It's hardly magnificent, and apart from its casting it's not doing anything particularly original with its premise. But it's diverting in about the way you'd expect of a remake twice removed — call it a perfectly competent seven.

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SCARAMUCCI: Why is it so bad to be a billionaire

     

                                     

  Why is it so bad to be a billionaire?' Trump adviser mocks attacks on rich cabinet members: 'It's not like they have their money located in a swimming pool in $100 bills'

• Financier and Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci said it's 'categorically unfair' to oppose rich cabinet members just because they're rich
• 'It's not like they have their money located in a swimming pool in $100 bills,' he said: 'Their money is actually in their businesses'
• Trump has appointed billionaires to lead the Treasury, Commerce and Education departments
• President Obama has also had wealthy Americans in his cabinet, including super-rich Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker
• President Eisenhower's rich cabinet because known as 'nine millionaires and a plumber'

A top Donald Trump adviser told reporters on Friday that he has heard enough of 'categorically unfair' sniping aimed at billionaires tapped for key positions in the coming administration.

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said in the lobby of Trump Tower that Americans who 'have been able to amass that kind of wealth' are 'super talented, or in what the president-elect says, they're actually "killers".' 

What you'll find about some of the nation's billionaires – it's not like they have their money located in a swimming pool in $100 bills,' he said. 

'Their money is actually in their businesses, they're in the capital accounts, the capital equipment structure of their businesses and they're putting people to work in those businesses.'

Anti-Trump lawmakers in Washington wasted no time complaining after the president-elect announced this week that he would make former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin his treasury secretary, and chose investment guru Wilbur Ross to head the Commerce Department. 

'I'm not shocked by this,' said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a reliable voice on the Democratic Party's far left wing. 

'It's a billionaire president being surrounded by a billionaire and millionaire cabinet, with a billionaire agenda ... to hurt the middle class. The appointments suggest that he's going to break his campaign promises,' Brown said in a statement on Wednesday. 

This 'demonization of success' is part of what Trump is pushing against, Scaramucci said Friday, praising the 'super successful' people Trump has decided on.

They also include future education secretary Betsy DeVos, who married into the multibillion-dollar Amway fortune; and Ameritrade scion Todd Ricketts, who co-owns the championship Chicago Cubs. 

'We want super bright people. We want super bright academics. We want super bright military experts. We want super bright people along a whole cross section of the economy, diplomats et cetera,' Scaramucci told reporters.

'I really want to push back very strongly on this whole billionaire criticism. Why is it so bad to be a billionaire, okay?'

Mavenvision: Apple iPhone 7 Hype review

                                                            The iPhone 7: if I have one thing against it is the 5.5 —inch screen. Okay, also, not having Android with Google —Google is not only an addiction of mine, but it's also advantage to access any information in the world. And the overpriced value? To spend $700 on a smartphone that can easily be rivaled and not to mention that it still legs behind some of the high-end AMOLED Android display on the market [think of Samsung Galaxy S7 or LG G5 and the new Google's Pixels  with a best-ever 89 DxOMark Mobile score, Pixel's camera lets you take brilliant photos in low light, bright light or any light. More on that soon.]
The Apple iPhone 7 is a smartphone that is not designed to innovate but rather to iterate —and boy does it iterate on last year's iPhone 6s well.

Okay, but Should you get the iPhone 7 Plus? 

If you are an iPhone fan, no matter what anyone else says, you'll be upgrading to the iPhone 7, that is given.

Let's compare the iPhone 7 to Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Samsung recently launched the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to rave reviews, pairing as it does the premium design of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge with the business-orientated features of the Note phablet range.

Given the timing of its release in mid-August, Samsung’s new phone has had a month or so to build up a lead over Apple’s new flagship phone, the iPhone 7. But now that Apple has played its hand, how do the two devices compare?

The Samsung Galaxy Note:  given its recent unveiling, I’ve been able to observe the specs and features of the iPhone 7 only at a distance. Still, that means I already have a pretty good idea of how these two titans will stack up.
iPhone 7 Plus vs Note 7: What's the difference?

 

iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – Design

As alluded to already, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 borrows much of its design from the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge – which, as regular readers will know, is pretty much our favourite phone design on the market right now.

It has that alluring dual-curve display, an all-glass back (which is also curved), and that shiny finish that changes according to the angle of the light
Conversely, the iPhone 7 looks very much like last year’s iPhone 6S – itself a dead ringer for 2014’s iPhone 6 which, even at the time, wasn’t viewed as much of a looker.

There are differences to the iPhone 7, but they’re slight. There’s the rejigged antenna design, which partially rectifies one of the ugliest aspects of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S. As widely advertised, Apple has also done away with the 3.5mm headphone jack – entirely. Not that this has any significant aesthetic bearing. Nor does the iPhone 7’s newly fixed home button.

There’s good news for those who were fans of the all-black iPhones of old. Black is back, and in two shades no less. Out goes Space Grey, and in comes Dark Black and glossy Piano Black – all the better to co-ordinate with those all-black Apple Watch models.

We’d perhaps back the iPhone 7 when it comes to robustness. The iPhone 6S was a surprisingly rugged phone that could stand up to general nicks and scrapes surprisingly well, so we’re expecting the iPhone 7 to be similar. Samsung’s recent designs, on the other hand, seem to scratch and dink if you so much as look at them sharply – and there are reports of the Note 7 being rather scratch-prone, despite the presence of Gorilla Glass 5.

The Galaxy Note 7 will be tougher than the iPhone 7 when it comes to taking a dip, however. The Samsung is IP68 certified, while none of Apple’s phones have been so far. Sure, the iPhone 7 has IP67 certification. 

iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – Display

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has a stunning 5.7-inch QHD Super AMOLED display. It’s the absolute best in the business, bar none. The Quad HD resolution remains the same as before, for a 518ppi pixel density. Where Samsung has improved things is with the inclusion of Mobile HDR, which leads to an even more vivid, high-contrast picture in your videos.

Conversely, Apple’s mobile display technology remains a bit static. The company opts for the same 4.7-inch display with a 326ppi pixel density for the iPhone 7, and a 5.5-inch display with a 401ppi pixel density for the iPhone 7 Plus. It’s also used the same IPS LCD panel technology for years now, and it finds itself trailing Samsung on pretty much all counts.
That’s not to say that the iPhone 7 display isn’t an improvement over previous models, though. Apple has given it a wider colour gamut, much as it did with the iPad Pro, leading to a more vibrant picture.

We’ll need to go hands-on to be absolutely sure, but we just can’t see how this will be enough to close the considerable gap between the iPhone 6S display and that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

Of course, both displays have extra tricks up their sleeves beyond a great range of colours. In the case of the Galaxy Note 7, it takes the form of the S Pen stylus. Popping out of the bottom of the device, it lets you jot down your thoughts and messages in a naturalistic fashion. This time you get an improved 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, too, and you can also use it to instantly translate foreign text or create speedy GIFs from YouTube videos.

As for the iPhone 7, we get a continuation and a development of the 3D Touch technology that debuted with the iPhone 6S. This lets you access further UI elements by pressing a little harder on the screen, and is accompanied by a subtle series of vibrations via a sophisticated vibration motor.

With iOS 10 set to take these 3D Touch elements even further, the iPhone 7 display should provide far more depth and nuance than your average phone. 

But more than the Galaxy Note 7? That remains to be seen.

We should take this opportunity to mention one related area of the iPhone 7 that’s unexpectedly taken a leap over the Galaxy Note 7 – its sound output.

While the Samsung phablet is stuck with weedy mono sound from a single speaker, Apple has fitted the iPhone 7 with a second speaker in the earpiece section of the device. That means proper stereo sound for landscape video and gaming.

It’s a shame, really – the Galaxy Note 7’s phenomenal screen should have made it the media king. With a set of headphones, it pretty much is, but if you leave those at home then you’re out of luck.

Conversely, of course, if you have an expensive set of wired headphones, you’ll need a fiddly adapter to make them work with the jackless iPhone 7. You can’t have everything, it seems.

iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – Performance

The Galaxy Note 7 certainly isn't what you’d call underpowered, but it uses the same chip as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. That means either the Snapdragon 820 or Exynos 8890 CPU, depending on where you live.

Both chips are capable, and they nudge ahead of the iPhone 6S’s A9 CPU in a number of areas. But the iPhone 7 has debuted Apple’s next-gen A10 Fusion chip, and it’s looking to be quite a beast.

Apple has continued with its rate of CPU performance improvement. The A9 was 50 to 70% faster than the A8, and now the A10 marks a 30% improvement over the A9.

We’ll need to run some hands-on tests to be sure, but the iPhone 7 is looking set to be the new mobile CPU champ – at least in a number of the key scenarios (we won’t go into the practical differences between a dual-core and quad-core setup here).

The Galaxy Note 7 does have double the RAM of the iPhone 7 – 4GB versus 2GB, with the iPhone 7 Plus having 3GB, apparently – but that’s never been a particularly useful metric for comparison. Android and iOS are simply too different, and with Samsung applying its own clunky custom skin, Apple’s phones have always felt noticeably smoother than those of Samsung.

iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – Camera

One key battle between these two phones will be for the camera crown.

For several years, Apple made the best smartphone cameras around. It’s still one of the best, and it arguably remains the easiest to use and most consistent. However, for outright quality – not to mention low-light performance – Samsung took over with the Samsung Galaxy S7 (if not the Galaxy S6 the year before).

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 packs exactly the same camera as the Galaxy S7. We’re talking the same 12-megapixel unit with phase detection, Dual Pixels, OIS, an f/1.7 lens, and a 1/2.6-inch sensor – and we’re not complaining one bit.

Still, this lack of progress has offered Apple a chance to make up lost ground with the iPhone 7’s camera, and it appears to have done just that. We’re a little disappointed that the plain iPhone 7 is only a relatively minor update over the iPhone 6S, although the 12-megapixel snapper does gain OIS (at last).

Both iPhones also get an improved True Tone system, which doubles the number of LED flashes for better, more natural night shots.

But the real advance can be found in the shape of the iPhone 7 Plus, which adds a second camera to the rear of the device. This dual-lens setup combines a telephoto camera with a wide-angle camera – both 12-megapixel – to create an effective optical zoom option. They can also combine to allow you to alter the focus after the picture has been taken, much like a Lytro light field camera.

Apple has also widened the aperture to f/1.8, which makes a big difference for low-light shots. 

It remains to be seen how these new iPhone cameras perform against the Galaxy Note 7 in day-to-day shots; Samsung’s effort may not be the best-snapping phablet around for long.

iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – Software

The one area that we can confidently say the iPhone 7 will beat the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, even before we’ve gone hands-on with final iPhone 7 hardware, is the OS.

Put simply, Apple does software much better than Samsung. While the South Korean phone maker has stepped up its game considerably in recent times, it still employs a custom Android UI that inherently compromises the speed and functionality of the Android OS at its core. Not massively, but enough.

Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, goes from strength to strength. iOS 9 borrowed a bunch of features from Android, which means it’s far more flexible and powerful than before, while retaining Apple’s slick performance and peerless app support.

What’s more, the iPhone 7 will debut iOS 10, and it’s set to be better still. In particular, we’re looking forward to vastly improved notifications, lockscreen functionality, and deeper 3D Touch support.

As for the Galaxy Note 7, it runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow – a great OS in its own right. However, it’s already technically out of date, as Android Nougat has begun rolling out (albeit on a select few Nexus devices). It will be updated, but probably not for another two to three months.

The Note 7 UI is the company’s best effort at modifying Android yet, but it’s still a sub-optimal experience, pushing users towards Samsung’s iffy apps and services when there are often superior Google equivalents readily available.

On the plus side, Samsung’s tweaks allow for strong S Pen integration, as outlined above. But if we could get a Note 7 with a stock Android 7.0 experience (plus some S Pen tweaks), then the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus would really be on the back foot.

iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – Storage: Apple gives you more fixed option. 

These two (OK, three) phones give you vastly different options on the storage front. Samsung has gone with a single, fixed memory allowance of 64GB, which is backed up by a microSD slot for up to 256GB of expansion.

Apple still doesn’t support microSD with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, but it does offer three fixed storage options – and they’ve been dramatically increased over previous years.

At last, the weedy 16GB option is no more. In its place returns the 32GB unit, this time as an entry-level option. We approve, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this should have happened years ago.

The mid-tier option is a far more capacious 128GB, while the top tier offers a whopping 256GB of fixed storage. If you’re a 4K video-shooting fiend, that’s going to sound mighty appealing.

Of course, the Galaxy Note 7 potentially boasts the most storage for such 4K film makers (although a fast 256GB microSD doesn't come cheap), and that 2K display will do a much better job of reflecting your handiwork when it comes to watching it back on the device.

Galaxy Note 7 vs iPhone 7 – First Impressions

We’ve spent plenty of time with the Galaxy Note 7 by now, but the iPhone 7 has only just been announced, so a definitive comparison isn’t possible at this point.

However, from the announced specs and features alone, we’re pretty confident that Apple’s new phone won’t give the Galaxy Note 7 anything to worry about in terms of screen or design quality.

Where it could make things interesting is with its new camera tech. The Galaxy Note 7 takes awesome pictures, but it’s no better than the Galaxy S7 on that front. The iPhone 7 Plus, meanwhile, has an intriguing (if hardly original) dual-camera setup that could push its photographic nose back into the lead.

Meanwhile, there’s the age-old disparity between the quality of Samsung’s software and that of Apple. If a slick native UI is all-important to you, the iPhone 7 will likely prove the better pick.

We’ll have a much better idea of which phone is the more appealing in just a couple of weeks’ time, when the iPhone 7 hits the shops.