Whammy & Jinx

whammy







Y

D



–noun, plural -mies. Informal. 

1. the evil eye; jinx.

2. bad luck or misfortune.

3. a devastating blow, setback, or catastrophe: The drought and the high price of fertilizer are a double whammy to farmers.  



—Idiom

4. put the whammy on, 

a. to give the evil eye to; jinx.

b. to destroy, end, or eradicate: New controls will put the whammy on irresponsible spending.  

 



　

Rachel Weisz is riveting as the manipulative Evelyn, whose motivation provides the type of concluding emotional whammy that LaBute favors. Paul Rudd communicates the emotional and psychological toll Adam's ugly-duckling transformation takes on him, while never abandoning the character's essential goodness (or dorkiness).





liturgical

thaumaturgical

dramaturgy

sorcery

If John’s illness resembles the [curse] put on Sleeping Beauty by an evil [sorcerer], 

amulet

talisman

It doesn't remake Shakespeare so much as [evoke] him as a talisman

The whole reveals itself, and then you may return to it like a [talisman].

mascot

The mascot of Ridgemont [High] is the wolf, which is the same mascot of Van Nuys High School, where most of the school scenes were shot.

ankh

It's an ankh. It's Egyptian. Miriam gave it to me.



incantation

The attractions of impromptu ritual are [a] constant in Me and You, in the incantatory [recitations] Christine records for her videos

repetitious wordiness to conceal a lack of content, obfuscation

Her prose too often resorts to [incantation].  

Veda

mantra

Lynch’s frequently updated Twitter stream flows like a stilted [algorithm] for transcendental meditation mantras (”Don’t look at the big pile.”)

Chiwetel Ejiofer portrays Mike Terry whose mantra is that "There is always an escape."

litany

of a series of invocations or supplications

We heard the [whole] litany of their complaints. 

Caden has begun suffering from a litany of physical [maladies]



harridan

coven

Does this mean that the original film’s spawn of Satan storyline and the [coven] would be excluded?

Polanski's main present to his producer was a naked coven of elderly [witches],

hag

Was she an old hag with a mole on her face with hair growing out of it?

Hierophant





annihilation

deracinate

decimate 

cf. desiccate



juggernaut

highly popular expose of the junk food [juggernaut] in the United States



cf. abettor

abattoir

The scenes of the [abattoir] are dismaying in the tradition of Upton Sinclair’s "The Jungle," but the movie is halfhearted, fragmentary, unachieved.

shamble(s)

to turn cities into shamble[s]

Her desk is [a] shamble[s]  

cf. carnal

carnage

The irony is that, under the [carnage], "Eastern Promises" is an old-fashioned picture,

Anderson is equally strong on some of the film's visual concepts, [namely] a twisted [carnival] ride filled with highway [carnage],

Dissipate