Back at Trackside

Having missed the last home bout, I was suffering some derby withdrawal symptoms. Fortunately, last night’s exciting bout between the Morristown Corporal Punishers and the Backyard Bullies visiting from Westchester County satisfied thoroughly.

In an opening power jam #60 Leggy Fleming, assisted by well-coordinated blocking by her team-members, put 23 points on the board for the Bullies. Bullies jammer #33 Force Majuere then showed her name was well-chosen (if idiosyncratically spelled), powering through Punishers blocking by force majeure. At the end of only two jams the Bullies led 44 -14.  It had the look of a runaway night for the Bullies. The look was deceiving. Punishers jams by #22 Apocelyse, #8 Lil Mo Peep, and #3684 CaliforniKate filled in the gap. #1 LL Kill J put the Punishers into the lead 77-70 at 15 minutes into the first half. The lead then see-sawed, with the first half ending with Bullies in a slim 104 – 99 lead.

At the opening of the second half it was anyone’s game. Power jams, notably one by #451 Tear’n’Fight, and very effective blocking by the Bullies opened up a sizable lead, but once again the Punishers clawed back to a threatening position at 127 to the Bullies’ 139. The Bullies pushed back; they were able to exploit power jams and build solid blocking walls and thereby re-open their lead. Punishers blocking stiffened, taking down #33 Force Majuere hard at one point. Doom Hilda and Beast Witherspoon notably checked Bullies jammers at key moments. It wasn’t enough. Redoubled efforts by the Bullies showed up on the score board, as the whistle blew with a final score of 219 – 153 in favor of the Bullies.

MVPs:

For Corporal Punishers – Beast Witherspoon as blocker, Apocelyse as jammer

For Backyard Bullies – Leggy Fleming as blocker, Mz. AfterMath as jammer

Sights and Sounds

Mini-reviews of four looks and listens from the past week:

Mr. Nobody (2009, sort of)

The qualifier on the date of this scifi film comes from its delayed release. It was shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2009 but wasn’t in general release until 2013.

The film is set in 2092 when “telomerization” has ended death by aging – except for the decrepit 118-year-old Nemo Nobody. As the “last of the mortals,” his rapidly approaching demise has become a media event. A reporter sneaks past security and interviews Nemo about his life. Nemo decides to cooperate but, to the reporter’s exasperation, relates several distinct and mutually exclusive life histories. Nemo insists that all are true and valid until he closes his options by choosing among them. Though he never explicitly says so, the parallel is plainly to elementary particles each of which follows multiple paths until you look at it.

Nemo has a car accident and doesn’t, has a motorcycle accident and doesn’t, is hospitalized and isn’t. Three women figure prominently in Nemo’s lives; he has known all of them since childhood. Nemo and the girls/women are played by different actors at different life stages. The adult Nemo, including the heavily made-up 118-y.o. version, is played by Jared Leto. One of Nemo’s lives is with Jean; on this life path he is extraordinarily successful materially but is emotionally empty. Nemo simultaneously has a middle class life with nice kids but a nightmarish marriage with the mentally ill Elise. Then there is his materially unsuccessful (at one point homeless) life that nonetheless includes true love with Anna; the teenage version of Anna is played by Juno Temple who, as usual, steals scenes. The alternate lifelines are shaped to some degree by obviously key events, such as during his childhood when he does and doesn’t choose to live with his mother when his parents divorce. However they also are deflected by butterfly effects, which is to say that seemingly insignificant alterations in decisions or happenstances nonetheless lead to radically different outcomes.

The movie has some points to make and the surreal elements work. Yes (*partial spoiler*), Nemo does at the end collapse the probability wave.

Thumbs Up.

**

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Wow. This is an awful movie…and yet… It is bad in the way the Flash Gordon serials of the 30s were bad, which, despite the completely over-the-top special effects and whiz-bang action of Jupiter Ascending, is the comparison that kept going through my head. There is some fun to be had in the badness.

For some strange reason, futuristic and alien civilizations commonly have medieval political arrangements. No exception to the rule will be found here. Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a lowly toilet cleaner in Chicago, by virtue of her genetic pattern is told she is the heir to the throne of the galaxy. It comes as a surprise to her. Becoming the queen would seem only fair compensation for that horrible name were it not for the lethal intentions of her aristocratic siblings who aren’t keen on sharing their inheritance which includes the earth. Naturally, Jupiter has a bad boy would-be protector (Channing Tatum) with whom she can argue and make goo-goo eyes while they combat space-baddies. There is one difference between medieval rulers and Jupiter’s family. Medieval aristocrats and monarchs didn’t actually harvest their subjects. Yes, humans on earth are not indigenous after all; they were seeded here (and blended with native life, as they were on many other planets) so that one day they could be harvested and processed into anti-aging bath oils for the galactic one-percenters. Really.

Don’t try to make sense of it. Just watch the spaceships explode and cities crumble while Jupiter repeatedly escapes in the nick of time. There is a lot of that. A lot.

I can’t possibly give this a thumbs up. But it is a Thumbs Sideways. I personally enjoyed the badness for one viewing. Unlike the ‘30s Flash Gordons, however, which I still can re-watch with pleasure, I can’t imagine enjoying Jupiter Ascending twice.

**

Veronika Decides to Die (2009)

OK, I admit it. When I alit on this movie during a channel-surf I stayed on it solely because it starred the fetching Sarah Michelle Gellar. That is a legitimate reason to watch it. Sadly, there aren’t many others.

Veronika (Gellar) is an attractive young woman with good health, a good job, and good prospects. Yet she is depressed. She feels her life – and life in general – lacks meaning, and she has had enough of it. She seeks a symbol of pointlessness online and quickly finds one in an article on fashion. She posts a comment: “I want people to know that I'm killing myself rather than participate in the collective madness of this world we are all living in.” She then gobbles pills.

Veronika’s suicide attempt fails and she wakes up in a private mental institution where her parents have installed her. Veronika is told that she damaged her arteries in her attempt and that she will die in a matter of weeks if not sooner. “I have to wait that long?” she asks. As the movie drags on, soon we the audience ask the same question. Her shrink is determined to get her to appreciate life before she dies. His methods are not merely unethical but criminal. She interacts with other patients, in particular the weird young man Edward (Jonathan Tucker) who hasn’t talked since his fiancé died in a crash in which he was the driver. Given the set-up, it can’t be much of a spoiler to say that Veronika slowly does learn to appreciate life. I don’t think anyone will be surprised by the ending.

Gellar and the other actors do a serviceable job with the material they have, but the material is weak. Girl Interrupted, which this movie inevitably brings to mind, remains by far the superior choice. Thumbs Down.

**

Human (2015) – Three Days Grace

For years there has been a singles vs. albums debate on the future of music. There isn’t much to debate. Singles have won hands down. Singles always were strong contestants, going back to the old 45 RPM format (or, for that matter, Edison’s cylinders) and continuing through the '80s when we self-assembled mixed tapes. But there was a time (high point early 70s) when double-albums were likely to hit just as big as any singles on them. That era is long gone. Digital formats just lend themselves better to individual song-by-song downloads. A generational divide exists, with under 40s seldom buying albums and over 40s still doing it.

Well, I’m over 40 and I still do it for much the same reason I like to become familiar with a favorite author’s body of work, not just his or her best-seller. Sometimes the lesser known tales are junk and sometimes they’re gems – usually they’re a hodge-podge of both. But, whatever they may be, you get to know the author’s mind better, and that is rarely unrewarding. So, too, with musical artists.

The Canadian “alternative metal” band Three Days Grace has been around since 1997 and has turned out solid if unremarkable sounds ever since. (Their best known single might be I Hate Everything about You.) Their fifth and latest album is Human, the first since lead singer Adam Gontier was replaced by Matt Walst for health reasons. It is still very much the same band, with an album that once again is fairly good but not exceptionally good. Painkiller is the track getting the most radio airtime. That said, if this is among your preferred genres and if, along with your stand-by favorites, you’d like to load something less old and crusty into the CD tray– if you’re buying albums you’re probably still playing CDs on a stereo – you could err worse than Human. Thumbs Sideways.

Second Law

I have a sweatshirt that says “Made in 1952 All Original Parts.” The assertion is true only to the extent one would expect if said of an automobile of the same vintage. Even if nothing on a particular ’52 Chevy has been replaced (other than, say, tires, which we’ll count as non-integral, akin to shoes), the car almost surely is no stranger to body putty, sanding, and paint. Equivalently, while I still have 32 teeth – or at least underlying portions of them – most are capped and all but a few of the rest have at least one filling. Cars rust. So do people. Without some maintenance both fall apart sooner rather than later. But all fall apart eventually. The cars can last longer.

OK, the pumpkin-head isn't original

Old Physics joke:

First Law of Thermodynamics: You can’t win.

Second Law of Thermodynamics: You can’t break even.

Entropy affects everything. My house was built in 1978, which doesn’t strike me as very long ago. (It probably does to those born after 1978.) Yet I must constantly push back against loose tiles, rot on exterior wooden steps, disintegrating roof shingles, seal leakage on the double-glaze windows which creates a cloud between the panes, peeling parge coats, mechanical failures (e.g. furnace, water heater, pressure tank) and so on. So far I’m almost holding my own. Almost.

In his book Rust: The Longest War Jonathan Waldman emphasizes metallic corrosion, but he also has in mind this broader sense of decay and the ultimately doomed fight against it. It is not just radioactive elements that have half-lives, he tells us. All metals do in the sense that they oxidize over time or otherwise alter in response to their environment. He quotes a Roman general in Egypt complaining that catapult hooks weakened by rust (ferrum corrumpitur) “are causing more casualties to our own army than to the enemy.” The problem remains today. The Pentagon spends billions annually combatting corrosion on vehicles, ships, and aircraft. Yet, helicopters crash when rotor bolts rust, rusted electrical contacts bring down aircraft, and several F18s have had alarming landings due to corrosion of landing gear parts. On average, military aircraft are out of action three weeks per year over corrosion issues. All ships need endless chipping and painting. So, too, ground vehicles.

In civilian life bridges, train tracks, and brake lines fail from rust. While rust can be delayed by various treatments, it cannot be stopped. Rust-induced failures always will happen and can be reduced (not eliminated) only by timely replacement of parts. Those of us who are old enough can remember the refurbishing of the Statue of Liberty in the 1980s, which was almost too late. The frame and cladding proved to be in poorer and more dangerous shape than anyone had imagined.

Waldman spends chapters on the humble beverage can, which most of us take for granted. Back in the 1950s crushing an empty beer can by hand took considerable strength. This sounds odd today when we are used to cans that crush if you drop your mail on them, but at the time the cans were steel. Moreover, they had to be thick enough to withstand chemical assault from the contents inside and from oxygen on the outside long enough for the product to be used. Aluminum, if anything, is trickier than steel. Today’s thin aluminum cans rely on epoxy interior coatings (tailored to the beverage to be contained) to keep the inside away from the outside. Even so, they do fail, most typically in the trunk of a car parked under direct summer sunshine; the issue in that case, however, isn’t corrosion.

In the end, what can one say but that nothing is permanent, least of all ourselves? There are only different degrees of impermanence. In some respects that is just as well. That which is in decay is literally decadent, and that has a pleasant ring to it. All the same, I wonder if an epoxy coating would work for me?

Steam Powered Giraffe - I'll Rust with You

The Red Light Incivility

An excursion to the post office this morning generated angry shouts and fingered gestures from the driver in back of me when I failed to accelerate through a yellow light but instead stopped just as it turned red. His car actually shook from his interior motions and pounding of his dashboard. It certainly wasn’t my intent to enrage anyone. It was my intent to avoid either an accident or a ticket. However, I must admit to a certain degree of satisfaction that the other driver’s rage apparently was causing him so much distress. Uncivil of me.

Scarcely a day goes by without an article on the “incivility crisis” in America. They turn up both in left and right wing publications though naturally each tends to list the misdeeds of the other ideological group as examples. It goes far beyond politics though. According to a Weber Shandwick poll, 65% of Americans think incivility is a “major problem” that has worsened in the past decade, whether driving, shopping, working, or, of course, posting online. That doesn’t prevent 59% from admitting in a KRC Research survey to being uncivil themselves.

I’ve breathed the atmospheres of enough decades to have some basis for comparison, and it is my general sense that there really has been a trend toward more casual rudeness, but that the trend has been not nearly so significant as the change in our experience of it, particularly online. Without social media, we previously didn’t have the opportunity to experience as much casual cruelty from so many different people in so short a time. Often it is dressed up as candor. Tennessee Williams: “All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.” For anyone in the public eye, abuse arrives in a cascade. Sarah Jessica Parker recently said she does not read anything posted online about her because of “random cruelty.” Let’s be clear that rudeness is cruelty.

In the wild, aggression is necessary for survival. We didn’t rid our instinct for it by moving from the wild to the suburbs. Aggression directed outward easily crosses the line into sadism and directed inward crosses into masochism. According to Freud both arise out of the death instinct. Nietzsche tied aggression to the Will to Power. Envy is particularly effective at bringing out the worst in us. All social animals make social comparisons and jockey for relative position; if we can’t raise ourselves up we are tempted to take others down. Researcher Hidehiko Takahashi found by means of fMRI scans that envy activates the same portions of the anterior cortex that are triggered by physical pain; conversely the pleasure centers light up when the envied folk face trouble. We are prewired for schadenfreude. Gore Vidal: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

To say it is normal to have such feelings, however, is not to say we need act in accordance with them. In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud argued that restraining our destructiveness was necessarily a cause of individual unhappiness but was the price of civilization. We don’t have to look far to see what happens when people fail to make that trade-off. Freud himself wasn’t too confident about the long-term prospects: “The fateful question of the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent the cultural process developed in it will succeed in mastering the derangements of communal life caused by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction.” He had hopes for the more constructive set of instincts associated with Eros. They do sound like more fun. To what extent common incivility and petty cruelty – as opposed to outright criminality – thwarts them is open to debate, but they probably don’t help.

I feel the temptation, though, to go for another drive. This time I think I’ll stop for two red lights.

Placebo: Every You, Every Me opening track to Cruel Intentions (1999)

Beyond the Sales

Memorial Day Weekend, the “unofficial start of summer,” is here. It did not start out as an automobile sales promotion. It began back in 1868 as Decoration Day. The decoration Congress had in mind was flowers for the graves of Civil War dead. By convention, the decorations expanded over the years to include the graves of casualties from later wars, the graves of former service members who were not war casualties, and, eventually, any and all civilian graves as well. Some of this still goes on, but not as much as in the past. People used to visit and decorate cemeteries more often than they commonly do today, not least because more of one’s family tended to be there – and at younger ages. May 30 still was Decoration Day when I was a kid, though the term “Memorial Day” was informally in use, too. Congress officially changed the name to Memorial Day in 1967 and in 1971 specified it would fall on a Monday. Auto sales aside, the primary focus continues to be on the deceased who had served in the military, but others among the departed are not excluded.

I’ve never been big on visiting cemeteries, even though I personally know an alarming number of the permanent residents at the nearby one on Hilltop Road. My mom (d. 2001) always told me, “Give your flowers to people while they’re alive. They don’t know it later.” It always struck me as sound advice. However, if gravesite visits or decorations make some of the living feel better, there surely is no harm in it for them.

On Memorial Days for the past couple of decades there has been an especial emphasis on remembrances of the GI Generation, alias Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation.” The GI Generation is diminishing rapidly, constituting less than 1% of the current US population, but they are the Boomers’ parents, and the Boomers still vie with Millennials for being the largest generation in raw numbers; Millennials definitively will surpass Boomers this year thanks to attrition among our aging ranks. So, while we don’t wield as much clout as we did in the 1960s when Boomers were 40% (!) of the population, we still wield a lot, and at present we are very nostalgic about our parents and their contemporaries.

There is irony in this. In the 1960s we were extraordinarily rude to our folks, prompting talk about an unbridgeable “Generation Gap,” which sounds like a geological feature. True, a generation gap exists in every era. In 1935 a 69-year-old HG Wells wrote, “Always, as long as I can remember, there have been a dispute and invidious comparisons between the old and the young.” Nonetheless, we widened it more than usual, blaming our parents for all the faults in society as though they had invented racism, militarism, sexism, and poverty. In fact they were responsible (with the help of the Silent Generation, b. 1929-45) for rolling back all four far more than we ever were able to do when we picked up the reins; if they didn’t go further, it was because they started so much further back. Our attitudes flip-flopped in the 1990s when we began to lose our parents in substantial numbers. Suddenly we got all mushy and started calling them the “Greatest Generation” and all the rest of it. We’ve been at it ever since. Perhaps we’re hoping the Millennials will do the same for us in another decade or two. I wouldn’t count on it.

Also, once we surpassed the age our parents were when we were at our rudest, it dawned on us that they had had youths of which we knew little. We’d always thought of them as middle-aged or older. They were young, of course, and they were pretty wild. The 1940s were a far more revolutionary decade in cultural mores than the 1960s – a fact that was obscured for us by the strange socially conservative reaction that took hold in the 1950s. The teen pregnancy rate, for example, was higher in 1940 than it is today, and the divorce rate of the 1940s wasn’t equaled again until 1973. Women poured into factories and the professions. The music was better. And, of course, there was the War – the one war in which we’re sure we were on the right side. During the war the GI Generation turned long-distance romance into an art form, sometimes literally in the form of bomber nose art.

Following my mom’s dictum, I won’t be putting any flowers over at Hilltop this weekend. Instead, I’ll post some pics of my parents being young in the 1940s. It’s a part of their lives I never knew, but their long distance romance turned out to be a fortuitous one for me. All the photos are from 1945 when they were 19 and 17.

On the 5 Inch

Liberty Ship "Mary Ashley Townsend"

Mom's Locket

Vamping it up for the locker pic

Open Conspirators

100 years isn’t so very long. Anyone past the age of 30 knows how fast a decade goes past, and it’s only 10 of those. Yet it is long enough to replace the entire population of Earth barring a few centenarians. The oldest verified lifespan ever, Jeanne Calment (1875-1997), was 122, so let’s allow 130 years to eliminate every last straggler; claims for higher ages crop up, but so far have been unconvincing. The cultural elite turns over much more frequently than that – for most practical purposes 50 years since the early part of one’s lifespan is consumed by education and the late segment by survival. True, there are exceptional teen prodigies as well as nonagenarian overachievers (e.g. Henry Kissinger), but there is a vanishingly small chance of the same person being both.

The musings of previous elites are often a curious mix of the still relevant and the obsolete. Those merely 100 years old (more or less) were at a time when modern industrial economies were well-established as were the core elements of modern life. Many of those musings – not by rabble-rousers but by respected intellectuals – are unsettlingly honest. Examples are two books I read earlier this week, both originally from 1928: The Open Conspiracy by HG Wells, and the Propaganda by Edward Bernays.

Starting with the title, it is hard to imagine a book better designed to confirm the worst fears of conspiracy theorists than The Open Conspiracy. Yet, the book needs to be seen in context. World War I had been such a colossal calamity that it convinced many people including HG that the world could not go on as before with its old national and religious rivalries. Without a “New World Order” the ongoing advance in the science and technology of war threatened civilization itself. All the while, that same science and tech held a potential for a new egalitarian prosperity. HG saw a solution in the evolution of a broadly socialist global governance. He rejected doctrinaire Marxism, which was so 19^th century, “But as soon as the Socialist or Communist can be got to realize that his repudiation of private monopolization is not a complete programme but just a preliminary principle, he is ripe for the ampler concepts of the modern outlook.” HG foresaw governance and economic organization run on a “scientific basis” by enlightened folk such as himself. “It [the Open Conspiracy] does not want to destroy existing controls but either to supersede or amalgamate them into a common world directorate.” The duties of these future social-scientist/directors will include eugenics: “There is a clear hope that, later, directed breeding will come within his scope.” The primary strategy of the Open Conspiracy is propaganda: spread the mores and values consistent with this new society through education, re-education, and persuasion. Change in the correct direction necessarily will follow. Whether one finds HG’s Conspiracy appealing or appalling, it is at least…well…Open. Except for eugenics, which is no longer fashionable (aloud anyway), these views are far from absent among the current crop of Western intellectuals.

It is no surprise that Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud’s nephew) quotes HG Wells in his classic book Propaganda, which describes the tools that every persuader and re-educator needs. Bernays doesn’t use the term “propaganda” in a pejorative sense, but in its technical neutral sense; the term is independent of whether the propagated information is true, false, helpful, or harmful. He had plenty of first-hand experience with propaganda in his work for governments and businesses, making especial use of what we nowadays would call “cool by association.” On behalf of tobacco companies he organized Torch of Liberty Brigade marches that helped popularize cigarettes among women by associating them with suffragists. He pioneered the modern PR news release that manipulates news media into treating advertising as legitimate news. He saw the possibilities of new media and of inherent messages in them: “The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today.” He was well aware that truth wasn’t a central tenet of the toolkit: “But even supposing a certain propaganda is untrue or dishonest, we cannot on that account reject the methods of propaganda as such.” Bernays had no qualms about any of it. On the contrary. He saw the work of the few manipulating the many as essential and beneficial: “Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”

True enough, trouble can arise where a free (or relatively free) press propagandizes in opposing directions. This can disrupt that smoothly functioning society. He acknowledges this but concludes nonetheless, “Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help bring order out of chaos.”

Surprisingly, one issue Bernays does not address is the risk of propagandists being taken in by their own propaganda, an all too common eventuality with dire consequences in his own day and serious ones in our own. A nephew of Sig should have recognized the danger. Perhaps he did, but for propagandistic reasons passed over it.

Overall, both books are stunningly candid. Whatever one thinks of their messages, that was and is their value.

The Offspring: Conspiracy of One

Pics Picks

Five more midnight movie reviews:

Home Sweet Hell (2015)

I’ve always liked Katherine Heigl. Her TV roles have been hard to fault. While in the teen soap Roswell she was the favorite alien of every straight teenage boy. Later, she had broad appeal as Dr. Izzie Stevens in Grey’s Anatomy. I wish I could say as much for her movies. Oh, she was adorable way back in 1994 in My Father the Hero, but since then her films have ranged from dreadful to “eh.” A few were commercially successful, e.g. Knocked Up and The Ugly Truth, but, strangely, these were among the most dreadful ones. The best of the bunch might have been Bride of Chucky, which pretty much says it all. So, I suppose it is almost a compliment to say that Home Sweet Hell is nearer than most to “eh.” “Almost” means it’s not.

In this self-styled comedy Mona (Heigl) has goals – specific goals that she pastes in a scrapbook. They all have to do with meeting or exceeding the standards of an affluent suburban lifestyle. She and her hapless husband Don (Patrick Wilson) own a furniture store; the capital for the business and for their kids’ private school came from Mona’s well-to-do parents. Mona lets Don run the store. More accurately she requires him to do so since she needs to focus on her goals; she schedules everything in her life including (six times per year) sex with Don. Don hires an attractive and spontaneous young salesperson named Dusty (Jordana Brewster) who has no trouble seducing Don. She also has no trouble blackmailing Don by claiming she is pregnant and threatening to tell Mona. Don decides the least bad option is to come clean with Mona himself. Mona coolly decides they should kill Dusty so they can stay on track toward their goals. Are you feeling the humor yet? Me neither. Dusty has accomplices so other murders ensue.

I have no trouble with dark humor. Two of my favorite authors are Robert Bloch (Psycho) and Jeff Lindsay (the Dexter novels). I like Arsenic and Old Lace, Heathers, Serial Mom, and To Die For. I even like Psychos in Love in a so-bad-it’s-good sort of way. This film, though, is neither sufficiently dark nor sufficiently humorous. It is, at best, “eh.”

“Eh” doesn’t cut it. Thumbs down.

Miss Meadows (2014)

Overly proper female killers must be in vogue. We have another one in the substitute teacher Miss Meadows (Katie Holmes). Due to a childhood trauma she has become a vigilante. Imagine Death Wish if Paul Kersey were Mary Poppins. No don’t. That makes this movie sound too good. There is little suspense and (oddly) not enough action, even in the climactic scene. The pacing is sluggish and the romance with the cop unconvincing.

Another “eh.” Thumbs down.

The Babadook (2014)

Amelia is a struggling single mother of Samuel, a boy who is by the kindest description difficult. The last thing she needs is a scary entity messing with her head. She gets one anyway.

Suspend disbelief for a moment. What if there really were a type of existence on different principles than the usual ones? What if some entity exists on another plane that only partly intersects ours? Suppose a creature of this sort thereby has limited (not zero, but limited) ability to interact with ordinary matter directly, so it must get most of what it wants by influencing the behavior of people, primarily by scaring them. Though this movie doesn’t try to explain what the Babadook is, what I just described fits the bill. As you might imagine, police and others don’t find Amelia credible when she tries to explain her predicament, and it doesn’t help that her son’s behavioral problems seem to provide a better explanation for any disruptions in her household. She can’t even run away, not just for financial reasons but because the entity has latched onto her personally, at one point manifesting itself while she is driving, with unfortunate results.

This low-budget Australian film is well-written, well-acted, and unconventional. If you like your horror movies with copious blood and gore, this isn’t the right movie. If you regard eeriness and suspense more highly, it is. Thumbs up.

Everly (2014)

Everly (Salma Hayek) while wearing lingerie shoots and bashes bad guys in an apartment. That’s pretty much the whole movie. There is the barest excuse for an explanation: she is a prostitute who has ratted out her yakuza boss, so her boss wants her dead. A parade of would-be killers try, but somehow Hayek proves to be an amazing expert at any and all weaponry and at hand-to-hand combat, so the bodies pile up. Unlike the similarly violent Kill Bill!, which had character backstories that were intriguing even if silly, this movie offers little else but the violence. It quickly grows numbingly repetitive. Thumbs Down.

Laggies (2014)

Laggies is aimed primarily at twentysomething Millennials disturbed by the all too rapid approach of age 30. Millennials have a reputation for lagging behind previous generations at adopting an adult lifestyle. Since neither Boomers nor Xers were very quick off the mark, that is saying something. Generational generalizations of this sort by their nature are unfair. All age-groups contain a mix of early-achievers, late-bloomers, perennial Peter Pans, and the pre-maturely middle-aged. Yet, the numbers do tell us something. The median age at which Millennials get drivers licenses, finish college, get full-time jobs, get married (if they ever do), and buy property really is higher, and no one is more aware of it than Millennials themselves.

Megan (Keira Knightley) is in her late 20s and has a degree as a therapist, but she works for her father by holding a street sign. Her relationship to her parents is more like that of a college freshman just back from the dorm than like anything more adult. She lives noncommittally with her boyfriend Anthony whose maturity isn’t noticeably higher than hers. She still hangs out with her old high school friends. One is married and pregnant while another is soon to be married, yet they aren’t exactly mature either; they are shallow and seem to regard marriage the way they would dates to the prom. Then Anthony proposes to Megan. She accepts but has major reservations. Her reservations are as much about the step toward adulthood as about Anthony.

Megan encounters some high school kids outside a liquor store. She finds she has more in common with them than with her own circle of friends. Megan tells Anthony she will be away at a career conference but instead stays with Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz), one of the teens. Annika’s single dad is not happy to discover a grown woman staying over with his teen daughter.

In a sense this is a coming-of-age story, but it is Megan’s story, not Annika’s, and thus it comes about a decade late by past reckonings. The ending is far far too facile, but it doesn’t altogether ruin what went before, especially the interesting friendship between Annika and Megan.

Lynn Shelton’s film is flawed and, like the lead character, insufficiently ambitious. But it is good enough for a Thumbs Up.

Laggies trailer