The Griffin's Riddle

The Griffin's Riddle
by Suzanne Selfors
Recommended Ages: 10+

For their own reasons, Ben and Pearl, apprentices to Imaginary Veterinary Dr. Emerald Woo, are having a bad mood day. It's frankly not a good look for them. But wait till they meet the Griffin, the giant half-eagle, half-lion who's the king of the Imaginary World. His moods actually affect the weather. And if he doesn't like them, he could keep them from going back to Buttonville forever.

Failure is not an option on this mission. Almost everybody in town, including Dr. Woo, has come down with a case of troll tonsillitis. It's extremely contagious and it makes your face swell up like, well, a troll's. Luckily, both Ben and Pearl have already had their tonsils taken out, so they're immune. That leaves only them to travel to the king's, er, palace. Them and Dr. Woo's quirky assistant, Mr. Tabby, who (you may not be surprised to learn) turns into a cat whenever he goes to the Imaginary World. His feline behavior is really unhelpful when they've got to persuade a temperamental Griffin to give them one of his feathers, which is the only cure to troll tonsillitis. Even less helpful is the nefarious Maximus Steele, an evil imaginary creatures poacher who menaces the kids during their urgent mission.

With this fifth book in the "Imaginary Veterinary" series, I'm only one book away from being completely caught up on the series; and that book is The Fairy Swarm. The fact that all six of these books were written about a decade ago puts me in a bit of a bad mood (to continue the theme), since it means it's unlikely the series will continue past the next book, and I'm really enjoying it. The hero kids have flaws and feelings that I can sympathize with. They're growing and achieving bigger things than they would expect of themselves, than most people they know would expect of them. They're fun to hang around with, and each of their adventures is loaded with magic, danger and hilarity. I'll be sorry to take leave of them. But Suzanne Selfors has other books to explore, such as a "Smells Like" trilogy featuring a dog, a bunch of "Ever After High" books including "Fairy's Got Talent, a trilogy about a dog and a guinea pig named Wedgie and Gizmo, multiple stand-alone books and a couple of upcoming "Willow's Woods" stories, due for release in 2025.

The Lonely Lake Monster

The Lonely Lake Monster
by Suzanne Selfors
Recommended Ages: 10+

In this second book of "The Imaginary Veterinary" series, city boy Ben and small-town girl Pearl, aged 10, begin their apprenticeship at Dr. Woo's Worm Hospital with a simple but icky assignment: trimming the Sasquatch's toenails. Pretty soon, Pearl gets distracted, as she does. You can't blame her, because the distraction takes the form of a lake monster, like the Loch Ness Monster except in sharper focus. She's another creature from the Imaginary World, crossed over into the Known World to seek treatment by Dr. Woo. But she isn't harmless. When the kids run down to the lake shore for a closer look, she kidnaps Ben and tries to keep him as a pet on an island in the middle of the lake.

Pearl doesn't want to lose the boy who just might prove to be her best friend. She doesn't want to lose her job. But getting Ben back from the lake monster without getting caught will require her to break all the rules laid down at the beginning of their internship. She'll have to leave the building, obviously. She'll have to take a magical being out into the Known World. And she'll have to risk revealing Dr. Woo's secrets to the nosiest busybody in town, the horrid Welcome Wagon lady who keeps pounding on the locked gate, demanding to be shown around the place. Also, the magical creature she calls upon for help is one that hates humans and, to force him to help her, she must do the thing that'll definitely make him mad. Like stealing a leprechaun's gold. Exactly like that.

This is part 2 of a series of which I've already read books 1, 3 and 4. Like the other installments, it's effervesces with laughter, magic and a compassion for all kinds of people (except, perhaps, nosy busybodies). It throws a girl with a talent for trouble together with a boy who's known to worry, hesitate and, when backed into a corner, make up whoppers. They make a great team and play off of each other wonderfully, growing as characters as a result. And the cast of zany characters inhabiting the tiny, depressed town of Buttonville only adds to the fun.

For those of you reading the books in order, the next installment will be The Rain Dragon Rescue. For me, it'll be (or rather, already was) book 5, The Griffin's Riddle. Selfors' other titles include Smells Like Dog and its two sequels, a bunch of "Ever After High" books including A Semi-Charming Kind of Life and Hero Training and several other books, including Fortune's Magic Farm and The Sweetest Spell.

A Nose for Adventure

A Nose for Adventure
by Richard Scrimger
Recommended Ages: 11+

In The Nose from Jupiter, a Canadian boy named Alan Dingwall faced loneliness, alienation, bullying and intramural sports with the help of a tiny, wisecracking alien named Norbert who, for a while, parked his spaceship in Alan's nose. A year later, Alan is a nervous flyer coming in for a landing at LaGuardia Airport, worrying that his dad (who now lives in New York) will forget to meet him at the airport. Well, he's right about that, but what's even worse is that someone immediately tries to kidnap the snotty, wheelchair-bound girl who sat next to him on the flight, and before he knows it, the two of them plus a stray dog are on a perilous adventure across Manhattan. And that makes four of them, because (as I may have forgotten to mention), Norbert is back.

It's an adventure involving scary goons, stolen goods, a charlatan, gullible rich people, public transit, a friendly street kid who seems happy all by himself, and a couple of unhappy kids – one rich, one not so much – who desperately want to feel their parents' love. And also, the always hilarious voice of Norbert, which now seems to be coming out of the nose of a dog named Sally. You can never predict what he'll say next, except that it will be funny on some level. And there are a lot of levels to this beautifully, intelligently written book.

Alan, at times, seems to be an extremely smart kid. His internal musings are vivid, colorful, keenly insightful, and emotionally compelling – not to mention loaded with historical and literary references that you'd be surprised to find occupying the mind of a 15-year-old kid from a small city in Canada who (apparently) doesn't know anything about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. At other times, he's amazingly obtuse and unobservant, failing (for instance) to remember what a car looked like that was involved in his own kidnapping. Sometimes it's as if the author's intellect runs away with his average-kid narrator. But it's an inconsistency that you're willing to live with because it enables you to enjoy this as, again, a beautifully and intelligently written book that both touches your heart and tickles your funny bone.

This is the second book of the "Nose" trilogy, which continues with Noses Are Red. Scrimger is also the author or co-author of something like 18 other books, including The Way to Schenectady, Of Mice and Nutrcackers, Me & Death, Zomboy, Downside Up and At the Speed of Gus, as well as a companion book to this series, titled The Boy from Earth, in which Alan travels to Jupiter. The more Alan and Norbert, the better.

The Sasquatch Escape

The Sasquatch Escape
by Suzanne Selfors
Recommended Ages: 10+

I got things out of order by reading books 3 and 4 of this series first, but this is book 1 so I guess I'm starting to work that out. I've already met them, but if you do it right, this is where you'll get to know Ben Silverstein – a boy from Los Angeles with a habit of making up stories and boy, some of them are whoppers! He's come to Buttonville for the summer to stay with his grandpa because his parents are having some marital issues. There isn't much to do in a town where most families moved away when the button factory closed. But on his first day there, he and a girl named Pearl Petal, who lives above the Dollar Store, witness what looks like a dragon flying overhad. Nah, couldn't be ... could it?

Then grandpa's evil cat brings home something strange. A tiny, injured creature with wings like a bat, but instead of fur it has scales. And a long, nobbly tail. And it breathes fire. The little thing needs medical attention, stat. But where can Ben and Pearl turn, other than the strange veterinarian, supposedly specializing in worms, who has taken up residence in the abandoned button factory? Maybe, they think, she knows something about baby dragons as well as worms. After all, there's a big dragon living on her roof.

Perhaps disappointingly, they don't get to follow through on what happens to the baby dragon, or rather wyvern, after they entrust it to Dr. Woo and her bizarre assistant, Mr. Tabby. But that isn't to say they don't have an adventure. In fact, they're practically forced into it, when Ben mistakenly leaves the front door unlocked and lets a sasquatch escape. Now the streets of Buttonville are haunted by a strange raccoon that sorts garbage by color, and the nearsighted residents of the old folks' home are visited by a nice doggy who takes an interest in Pudding Day. To hustle the sasquatch out of the old folks' home and back to Dr. Woo's Worm Hospital will call for tons of skill, mainly of the improvisational variety, as Pearl and Ben find creative ways to escape detection by the town's nosiest busybody and her nasty, tale-bearing daughter.

The magic of creatures from the world of imagination has never been funnier and more down to earth than in this book and the series that follows it. Honestly, I laughed the hardest at some of the nonsense that comes out of Ben and Pearl's mouths, like (in this book) a line about taking worms for walks and giving them baths, and (in one of the sequels) their advice to listen for pet worms coughing. Everybody is relatably flawed, and some characters are just bonkers. Like Mr. Tabby, for instance, who has a tail. I'm on board to read all six books in this series, out of order but so what? Next up is The Lonely Lake Monster.

Dude, Where's My Spaceship?

Dude, Where's My Spaceship?
by Dan Greenburg
Recommended Ages: 8+

In this thin, goofy and charmingly illustrated book, we meet alien siblings Klatu, Lek and Ploo, joyriding around the galaxy in their little spaceship just after Klatu (the eldest) earned his flying license. Unfortunately, Klatu is a varna, which is alien for a klutz, and they end up crashed in the Nevada desert, not far from Area 51. Worse, Ploo gets caught by some army guys, and even using her ESP abilities she's unable to persuade them to let her go. So Klatu and Lek must follow, chewing English language gum and transforming their big-eyed, big-headed, gray alien bodies into the look of children from a bygone era (because their school books on Earth are out of date). And despite not knowing that the cardboard box isn't an edible part of the pizza, they rely on a purloined pizza delivery as their ruse to get into the top secret government installation.

Ploo, meanwhile, has befriended a nice little girl whose father, Major Paine, is determined to save Earth from the alien threat. Ploo's escape depends on the bumbling boys and her own social skills, but that's only the start of their adventure because now, they have to find a mechanic – an earthling mind you – who can fix their banged-up flying saucer. Good luck!

This book, whose title is inspired by the 2000 comedy film Dude, Where's My Car? (and I'm sighing to think I have to explain this), is the first of six installments in the Weird Planet series, which continues in Lost in Las Vegas, Chilling with the Great Ones, Attack of the Evil Elvises, Lights Camera ... Liftoff! and Thrills, Spills, and Cosmic Chills. The edition I read was illustrated by Macky Pemintuan. Dan Greenburg, an author I'd never heard of before I laid eyes on this book, is a surprisingly prolific fellow, credited with the Max Segal trilogy (Love Kills etc.), 30 "Zack Files" books (A Ghost Named Wanda among them), eight "Maximum Boys" books (How I Became a Superhero etc.), eight "Secrets of Dripping Fang" books (including Please Don't Eat the Children), and about a dozen other novels including Green Eggs and Dinosaurs. He doesn't seem to have put out any new books since about the mid-2010s, but he has a big catalog going back to about 1968, so if Ploo and her brothers amuse you, you'll have your used book shopping cut out for you.

Cry Wolf!

Cry Wolf!
by Sienna Mercer
Recommended Ages: !2+

Justin Packer has a secret kept so well, even his identical twin brother, Daniel, doesn't know about it. As a naturally athletic kid with a human mom and a werewolf dad, he's expected to wolf out on the first moon on or after his 13th birthday. He's looking forward to it, really. After all, the next day he's starting school at Pine Wood Junior High, and the football tryouts are right after school, and all the other boys on the offensive line are werewolves, too. It's part of what makes them hard to beat. Only ... when the moon rises that night, it isn't Justin who turns. And Daniel has no idea what's happening to him.

It's hard enough to be going through puberty, but "hair growth in unexpected places" isn't the half of it. Though one brother is into football and the other is trying to start a rock band, they have this much in common: when the girl they like is looking at them, they get tongue-tied. Only, in Daniel's case, his teeth and fingernails start to grow, his hands get hairy, and sometimes an uncontrollable howl escapes from his throat. He feels like a freak. Maybe you can relate.

The imagination that brought you "My Sister the Vampire" is at work again. In fact, there's even a character who moved from the town where all that middle school weirdness went down. And there's another gang of boys called the Beasts, only instead of lame-brained teenage Vampires, they're lupine (that means wolfen) jocks who hit hard on the field, munch extremely rare burgers and hear a lot of "Get a grip, cub" from their coach. So, while Daniel worries about whether his band's lead singer will figure out his secret, Justin just has to survive practices where his own teammates are scarier than the other side.

It's a cute, teen romance slash coping-with-the-changes-of-adolescence melodrama, with a strong dash of laughter and a goofy take on the paranormal. You'll probably roll your eyes a bit at the twins' cluelessness when it comes to talking to the opposite sex, but then reflect, how much better at it were you at their age? And as so often happens, you'll also wonder why everbody doesn't just tell the truth (for example, Justin to his teammates, Daniel to his bandmates, to say nothing of "louping" Daniel in on the family secret) but, I guess, things like being a werewolf probably are the sort of thing you'd keep under as tight a lid as possible.

It's book 1 of a quartet, which continues in Puppy Love!, Howl-oween! and Tail Spin. Don't forget to check out Sienna Mercer's sister/vampire series, which runs for 18 books and includes such titles as Stake Out! and Spooktacular!. And watch where you sling that garlic, or that silver necklace, or whatever. Some people might be allergic!

The Order of the Unicorn

The Order of the Unicorn
by Suzanne Selfors
Recommended Ages: 10+

In this fourth installment of "The Imaginary Veterinary," Buttonville's girl troublemaker Pearl Petal and her summer-visitor bestie, Ben Silverman, get a second chance, as mere apprentices to magical creatures vet Dr. Woo, to travel to the Imaginary World. This time, it's to rescue a missing unicorn colt, who has somehow strayed into the forbidden Dark Forest, which in the first place, is dark (like, duh), and in the second place, is populated by predatory plants. So, it's a bad place. And only Pearl can go in there, because unicorns trust little girls if they're pure in heart. She just has to work on the pure in heart part, what with her nemesis – Little Miss Perfect, Victoria Mullbery – being awarded a membership in the town's prestigious Red Wagon Club. Oooh, does that burn!

I almost forgot the mention "in the third place," which is that the enemy of all imaginary creatures, a certain Maximus Steele, is trying to catch a unicorn for his own nefarious purposes. We learn a bit more about him in this book, and actually see him about his nasty work. Even in a town as sleepy as Buttonville, there's more to being an apprentice with an imaginary veterinary than trimming Sasquatch nose hairs and playing fetch with a juvenile dragon.

While I wouldn't exactly call this a gripping thriller, it is a fun story with gentle characters upholding gentle values – like Dr. Woo's pronouncement that all creatures deserve medical care, even monsters that eat children. Who's to judge? (I forgot to mention the children-eating monster. But I wouldn't want to spoil every surprise, would I?) Ben and Pearl's friendship, the funny quirks of their personalities, the little bit of sadness about them that goes to your heart – like the fact that, apparently, Ben is staying with his grandpa because his parents are getting a divorce – make them real in your heart; real enough to believe in the fantastic things they experience.

There are more fantastic experiences to follow, with six books in this series including (next in line) The Griffin's Riddle, and many other books by Suzanne Selfors, such as Next Top Villain, Science and Sorcery, Coffeehouse Angel and Mad Love.

The Rain Dragon Rescue

The Rain Dragon Rescue
by Suzanne Selfors
Recommended Ages: 10+

Someone or something is stealing metallic items from the residents of Buttonville. Ben, a boy known more for making up stories than for bravery who's visiting his grandpa in the small town, knows it's a something and, more importantly, what it is: a dragon. But he can't tell, because he's been sworn to keep his lips zipped about the imaginary creatures that Dr. Emerald Woo treats at her so-called worm hospital in the abandoned button factory at the edge of town. She's a veterinarian who specializes in treating creatures from the Imaginary World, and Ben is one of her two apprentices – together with a trouble-prone girl named Pearl.

And now Ben and Pearl know there's a dragon living on the roof of the Imaginary Veterinary. They meet him. They make friends with him. He's only terrifying if you don't know him. But that same day, they have to treat a much bigger dragon who lives in the Imaginary World, and who won't be living much longer if they don't get to her soon. They don't have time to wait for Dr. Woo or a more qualified member of her staff. They have to break some rules, stretch their wings, and travel for the first time to the Imaginary World, not knowing what they will find when they arrive.

Well, it isn't what you'd expect either. So the adventure is as much yours as theirs as they encounter a creature almost unimaginably immense, and the damage caused by an evil so monstrous that it can only be human. I have a feeling this Maximus Steele they learn about on this adventure will become something of a nemesis in the books to follow. But let this synopsis so far succice to tease your curiosity about a magical adventure sprinkled with chills, laughs and breathtaking wonder. I also recommend the extras in the back of the book, including the background of the legendary creatures features in this book, some prompts for readers to use their own imagination and think up stories of their own, a science project and a creativity challenge (kind of an art project). Clearly, author Selfors is on a mission to encourage kids to stretch their imagination.

This is book 3 of "The Imaginary Veterinary," whose other titles include The Sasquatch Escape, The Lonely Lake Monster, The Order of the Unicorn, The Griffin's Riddle and The Fairy Swarm. I don't usually like to start reading a series in the middle, but I had to becuase books 3 and 4 were the only ones my local bookstore had; but I've ordered the rest, so that's all right. Selfors is also the author of the "Smells Like..." trilogy, 10 "Ever After High" books, three "Wedgie & Gizmo" books, the "Willow's Wood" books Sam Squirrel and Rosey Stink Badger, two "Spirit Riding Free" books, and 8-10 other novels, including To Catch a Mermaid, Fortune's Magic Farm, The Sweetest Spell and Wish upon a Sleepover. Her latest book is called Ratty and I'm told it's about a boy cursed to look like a rodent. So perhaps that gives you an idea of the kind of imagination she's working with. I'm interested in seeing more.

Vampalicious!

Vampalicious!
by Sienna Mercer
Recommended Ages: 11+

In this fourth installment in the 18-book "My Sister the Vampire" series, separated-as-infants twins Ivy and Olivia – a vampire and a cheerleader, respectively – have just learned that their biological father is actually Ivy's supposedly adoptive dad, and that somehow they are the offspring of a forbidden vampire-human love story. But immediately, they're faced with a new problem. Charles, their father, has decided to move to, like, Luxembourg with Ivy, separating the girls as swiftly as they found each other. They can't let this happen. But how can they stop it?

Well, that's what this book is about. Of course, hilarity ensues. Like when the girls set Charles up on a blind date with a completely incompatible woman. But this story also runs a little deeper than the previous installments, as you might guess from its slightly thicker page count. Olivia wants to know why her vampire father rejected his human daughter. Didn't he love her? Does he blame her for her mother's death? Desperate to spend time with him, she swaps places with Ivy (again), leading to more hijinks but also introducing her (and us) to some of vampire society's Christmas traditions, like decorating the tree with Christmas Bites (kind of like Hershey's Kisses, but filled with blood) and whispering your wishes to the Christmas Bat.

So, it's family drama and middle school adventure blended with a little ghoulish magic, some attempted romance and a lot of light-hearted fun. I'm already headed into the fifth book in the series, Take Two, and I've made an investment in Sienna Mercer's other series, the "My Brother the Werewolf" quartet.

Reagan

I thought I had missed my chance to see this movie in a theater. Last weekend, when I chose Beetlejuice Beetlejuice over it, turned out to be the end of its run in my town and the nearest other town with a movie theater. But last night, as I came home from work, I followed a whim to look at the showtimes for the bigger town a bit farther away, and lo, Reagan was still playing there. In fact, I think today is its last day.

The movie stars Dennis Quaid as 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan – who, on a personal note, was the first president elected after I started being interested in presidential history and current events, when I was in second grade. Quaid plays a progressively aged Ronnie, a.k.a. Dutch (only once in the movie does someone call him "the Gipper," and he gets a weird look from others in the scene), looking and sometimes sounding like a victim of facial paralysis thanks, I hope, to an excess of makeup, despite which he only faintly resembles the late president. Nevertheless, he does a good job bringing to life the tenderness between Ronnie and Nancy, played by Penelope Ann Miller. His portrayal, in scenes from later in Reagan's life, also hints poignantly at his progressive loss of mental sharpness, making his last horseback ride an emotionally touching place to end the movie (not counting closing credits photos and video clips from the real Reagan's life and funeral). Quaid also nails the firm character, eloquent oratory and communism-fighting commitment of the president who told Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" (in Berlin) and called the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

The movie movies through a lot of material at a brisk pace. It selects, compresses and tightly arranges the events and themes of Reagan's life and career around a unified purpose – to present Reagan as the American leader who took down the Soviet Union. Using a framing narrative technique, it dramatizes this – unexpectedly? ironically? – as an elderly Soviet spy's memoir of the tragedy of the USSR's downfall, told with mingled regret and admiration to a younger spy. Scenes from early in Reagan's life lend an element of destiny, or perhaps of divine mission, to Reagan's career. If you missed the fact, revealed in the opening titles, that the movie is adapted from a book called The Crusader, you won't fail to notice that Reagan's characterization as a crusader is an important theme throughout the film.

The movie has superb production values. It balances things, a bit, by incorporating almost the entire music video to Genesis' "Land of Confusion," acknowledging Reagan's villainous reputation in popular culture. But overall it presents the sometime actor turned politician as a man who showed bold leadership, courage and firmness of mind during a very dangerous time in our world's recent history, and through his rapport with Gorbachev, reduced the danger of worldwide nuclear annihilation.

The cast is big and big-time. Kevin Sorbo plays Reagan's boyhood pastor. Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) is House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Kevin Dillon (Entourage) appears as studio head Jack Warner. Mena Suvari (American Beauty, American Pie) plays Reagan's first wife, Jane Wyman. Jon Voight plays the older Russian spy who more or less narrates the movie, sharing scenes with Alex Sparrow, a.k.a. Alexey Vorobyov, a sometime Eurovision singer known for appearances in Unreal and Space Force. Lesley-Anne Down (North and South) plays Margaret Thatcher. Robert Davi, whom I remember as the older and uglier FBI Agent Johnson in Die Hard, plays Brezhnev. Elya Baskin, a character actor you'd immediately recognize if you saw him, plays a Russian defector whose presentation at Reagan's boyhood church alters the course of his life. You see Nick Searcy (Justified), C. Thomas Howell (Soul Man), Trevor Donovan (every fifth Hallmark movie), Xander Berkeley (24), Amanda Righetti (The Mentalist), Justin Chatwin (Tom Cruise's son in War of the Worlds) and Mark Moses (Mad Men) as various Reagan staffers and family members, Olek Krupa (Behind Enemy Lines) as Gorby, David Henrie (Wizards of Waverly Place) as a teenaged Reagan, Scott Stapp of Creed as Frank Sinatra, and if that last name-bomb doesn't blow your mind, there's a scene in which Pat Boone is present when a minister prophesies that Reagan will become president, and Pat Boone plays the minister while Blaine, Minnesota, city council member Chris Massoglia, who played the title character in The Vampire's Assistant, plays Boone.

It's a very entertaining, moving, thoughtfully structured and visually striking film. I doubt it'll win any Oscars because, you know, politics. But the Screen Actors Guild ought to give some love to a movie that depicts Reagan's role in keeping the actors' union independent. Other than that, the Three Scenes That Made It For Me are: (1) Reagan, rushed into surgery after being shot, wakes up long enough to say to the attending medics, "Please tell me you're all Republicans." This got the biggest laugh in the theater I saw it in. (2) Reagan cuts through the diplomatic wrangling at his first summit with Gorbachev by suggesting that the two leaders take a walk in the fresh air. (3) Reagan refuses to snap the nuclear football when the Soviets come within seconds of triggering global nuclear war over a flight of geese. There's a moment where he imagines the bombs coming down on a U.S. city and for a moment you want to touch yourself to confirm that you still exist and that this version of reality didn't happen.

I could mention a couple things I missed from this movie, but I won't because honestly, it's long enough – 2 hours, 21 minutes – and it owes the fact that I'm not complaining about its length to the narrowness of its focus, the clarity of its purpose, the tightness of its argument and the brisk pace I've mentioned. When it feels like it's racing ahead of you, your butt doesn't notice that it's bonding, possibly inextricably, with the seat under you. Add the fact that I ended the movie with tears on my cheeks and it's clear that I like this movie, and will recommended it anytime it's mentioned in my presence.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

I remember who introduced me to the original Beetlejuice movie: It was my late godfather, a native of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who got a particular kick out of the scene in which the Ghost with the Most turns a dinner party into a flesh puppet show set to Harry Belafonte's tune "Day-O." Everything about that movie worked where I was concerned. Well, it has a sequel now, complete with a scene in which Beetlejuice makes a roomful of people dance and sing to a golden oldie – this time, it's Richard Harris singing "MacArthur Park," the Donna Summer cover of which turns up in the closing credits – and while I don't dislike Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I think the MacArthur Park gag goes on too long and stops being funny before it's over, and in some ways that's a thread that ties this whole movie together.

Time has passed. Think about it. Beetlejuice came out in 1988. That amount of time. 36 years! Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton and Catherine O'Hara still have it (more or less). Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux, Santiago Cabrera and Danny DeVito add their entertaining bits (more or less). Actually Dafoe is probably the most hilarious member of the cast, and Bellucci is underutilized. Decades after almost being forced to marry a ghost/demon named Beetlejuice, former Goth girl Lydia Deetz (Ryder) has made a fortune as a reality TV ghost whisperer, but she's still (cough) haunted by the experience that opened her sensorium to the paranormal. She has a teenage daughter (Jenna Ortega) who, not being a believer, exists in an ironic sort of rebellion against her twitchy, sensitive mum. But now Lydia's dad has died (a hilariously horrible death depicted in a way that creatively skirts around the absence of Jeffrey Jones), and the whole family has to return to "the Ghost House" where it all happened to, um, artistically mourn, and Lydia's shmuck producer/boyfriend chooses that moment to make a public proposal of marriage (so it can be all about him). Meanwhile, back in the afterlife, Beetlejuice still wants to tie the knot with Lydia, more than ever now that his (literally) soul-sucking wife is back. Throw in a ghoulish love interest for Astrid (the daughter), and a subplot about Astrid's dad dying but suspiciously failing to haunt the family, and a bunch of shrunken-headed zombies (notably "Bob"), and a B-movie actor who died doing his own stunts and spends his afterlife living out (if that's the correct verb) the tough cop fantasy of his signature role, and various methods by which characters come and go from the afterlife, and you have a rough roadmap of the overly complicated, sometimes farcelike adventure this movie houses.

I like the off-bubble teen romance angle. I dig Dafoe's rogue cop-wannabe antics. I enjoy seeing Theroux's shmuck-fiance character get his comeuppance. I kind of adore Bob. Poor Bob! And of course the bureaucratic nightmare of the afterlife is still kind of funny. But not as funny as the original 1988 film. In fact, that's pretty much thematic for why and how this movie falls short of its forerunner. The macabre surrealism of the "Neitherland" (?) and the so-idyllic-it-makes-your-flesh-crawl, "American Gothic" quality of the town of Winter River are still there, but the spare-no-one, cutting social satire of spoiled rich people is gone. Could that be because Tim Burton has grown so successful?

The purgatorial quality of the waiting room and the "take a number" line for the information desk in the afterlife are diminished. The incomprehensibility, to the point of uselessness, of The Handbook for the Recently Deceased has gone by the board, conveniently for plot purposes. The sandworms of the Saturnian moon of Titan are back in their original stop-motion-animation glory, but they contribute materially to the plot rather than just being a weird and threatening detail of the landscape for the dead. Delia Deetz's bizarre modern art is back (and how!) but its contrast to the Maitlands' salt-of-the-earth aesthetic is lost; which also, strangely, blurs the boundary between the real world and the afterlife. The Maitlands' model of Winter River is still up in the attic but the Maitlands are gone, meaning you have to sympathize with twisted people (like the Deetzes) because there's no one else.

All the things about the 1988 movie that made you think, "Ouch, that cut where it hurts," have given way to pure whimsy and fantasy. The only thing that has kept its purity is the subversive, lovably loathable character of Beetlejuice himself. I don't know what it'll take to make a third movie work (because, obviously, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice") but I hope one thing they think about is re-establishing a point-of-view that joins the audience in its fear and trembling at the weird, wonderful, wicked and ultimately hilarious netherworld from which a Beetlejuice might arise.

Alert viewers might recognize Burn Gorman (the local minister), who played Owen on Torchwood. Astrid's love interest is played by Arthur Conti, a grandson of Tom Conti. Amy Nuttall, playing the real estate agent who is champing at the bit to sell the Ghost House, was on Downton Abbey for a minute. For the rest of the cast, you're on your own.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Astrid realizes Jeremy, the local boy she's been bonding with, is a ghost – a discovery you've been waiting for her to make because isn't it suspicious how his parents don't turn to look when he introduces her to them? (2) The shmuck producer-boyfriend takes a syringe of truth serum in the neck and, again, confirms what you've long since guessed, in a way that perfectly sets up his eloquent fate. (3) The newspaper Beetlejuice is reading in his office, which I'd like to have more time to read!

Re-Vamped!

Re-Vamped!
by Sienna Mercer
Recommended Ages: 11+

Olivia is a pink-wearing, perky cheerleader. Ivy is a Goth who happens to be a vampire. Now the whole world knows they're twin sisters who were separated as babies, and who found each other in middle school. They'd still like to know who their real parents are (they were both adopted) and, maybe, how it's possible for one identical twin to be a "bunny" (vanilla human) and the other to be a vamp. But while they sneak around, looking for evidence to explain this, they have bigger problems. For example, Ivy's dad, who refuses to meet Olivia apparently because he is prejudiced against humans, has accepted a job offer from, like, Luxembourg. And then there's the fact that Olivia knows the Blood Secret, which no mortal is supposed to know, and the secret of her knowing the secret is bound to get out sooner or later. The consequences of the vampire world finding out she's in on it could be, um, deadly. And not in the fun, vampire-slangy way.

It's a thin synopsis, I know. But it's also a thin, kids' chapter book and I don't want to overspill. This third adventure in the "My Sister the Vampire" series is loaded with ghoulish humor, teen drama and a bit of spooky suspense. It also presents the sisters and their closest friends with some new revelations that may shake the foundations of what they know and believe, dovetailing directly into book 4 of the series, Vampalicious! For further titles in this 18-book series and the thematically related "My Brother the Werewolf" series, check this out.

Robbie's Kilominx Tutorial

My 3D twisty puzzle collection jumped to 30 toys this past week. Omitting two duplicates – the stickered FTO and my original 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube ‐ my puzzling repertoire in progress includes, front row from left: the Skewb, Square-1, Dino Cube, Ivy Cube, Redi Cube; row 2: FTO, CTO, ETO, Skewb Diamond, 3-, 4- and 5-Layer Pentahedron; row 3: 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6- and 7-Cube, Master Pyraminx, Pyramorphix, Pyraminx and 2x2x4 Tower; back row: Kilominx, Megaminx, Skewb Ultimate, Master Kilominx, Gigaminx and the immovable object itself, Evgeniy's Icosahedron. I've been having a ball teaching myself how to solve the newest additions. I figured out Dino, Ivy and Redi with no trouble at all and spent a night and a day grappling with Square-1, despite pouring over a video tutorial and a solution guide. But that's not what we're here to talk about.

When I learned the Megaminx (below, at right), I reckoned I was mastering the basic, dodecahedral version of the Rubik's Cube. It's kind of a 3x3x3 puzzle, with each pentagonal side lined with iterations of two three-colored corner pieces and one two-colored edge piece, all the way around. The idea was to make the corners and edges of all 12 pentagons align with the non-moving center pieces of the same color, like on the 3-Cube. You were faced with pretty much the same problems in the same order: solving the first side, building rows of matching edges and corners layer by layer from there, then orienting and permuting the corners and edges of the last layer to clinch the solve. Labor intensive, a little strategic, a little intuitive, fraught with a few algorithms/procedures that take a minute (ha) to learn by heart, and best enjoyed by someone who doesn't mind practicing their moves over and over because they will screw up numerous times before they can reliably do it right, it's essentially the same experience only with 12 pentagons instead of six squares. And still, after months of practice, fun to do!

But then I found out about the Kilominx (at left), and I realized there was actually a simpler 12-sided twisty puzzle designed along the same principle. It's to the 3x3x3 Megaminx what the 2-Cube is to the 3-Cube: a face-turning dodecahedron with two corner pieces on each edge – in other words, no edge pieces as such. A step in the simpler direction from the Megaminx, the Kilominx also doesn't have colored centers – not that the Megaminx's centers moved or anything, but the centers of the Kilominx's sides are even more trivial, with a neutral color such as black or white throughout; or more basically, just some of the exposed guts of the puzzle showing between the moving pieces. It's the 2-cube of Minxes; it's a 2x2x2 dodecahedron. Funnily enough, this both liberates you and challenges you in a new way, as you move from Mega- to Kilominx: It allows you to build your first side wherever the heck you want; but as the sides still need to go together in a certain order, it forces you to arrange them without the helpful hint that the Megaminx's unmoving centers provide. Which way you need to twist the corner you're trying to slot into place depends on which direction its "top" color's side is in; but when there are no pieces, even a center, of that color to guide you, you often have to make a leap without a net under you. You could call it thrilling.

Now it turns out, both Minxes are at the bottom end of parallel series of puzzles with an increasing number of layers or axes of rotation. The even-numbered puzzles ascend from the Kilominx, such as the 4-layer Master Kilominx pictured below at the far left. The odd-numbered ones rise from the Megaminx, like the 5-layer Gigaminx below at the far right.

Actually, they're pretty much the same series of puzzles, apart from the bizarre manner in which they're named. It's just that, like the cube-shaped puzzles, the ones with even numbers of layers don't have fixed centers, requiring you to manage the color order of the sides for yourself, while the odd-layered puzzles offer just that little bit more help. (EDIT: Just noticed that the Master Kilominx in my photo does actually have colored centers. Oops.) For your information (and thank you, Wikipedia), the names of some higher-level variants include the 6-layer Elite Kilominx, the 7-layer Teraminx, the 8-layer Royal Kilominx, the 9-layer Petaminx, the 11-layer Examinx, the 13-layer Zettaminx, the 15-layer Yottaminx, the 19-layer Quettaminx and the 21-layer Minx of Madness, which like the 21-Cube is where mass production currently tops out. I don't know why, but the even-numbered sequence seems to end at the 8x8 level, at least as far as my sources go.

Digging a little deeper (and delaying getting to the tutorial part of this tutorial), the Kilominx was invented in 2008 by David Litwin. It has 20 corner pieces, and like, that's it. Early versions of the Kilominx were marketed as the Flowerminx, and it's apparently similar to the Impossiball puzzle of the 1980s. According to Grubiks.com, this puzzle can be scrambled almost 23.6 septillion ways – that's a 26-digit number. Nevertheless, it's not too hard to solve; easier than the Megaminx, really. I taught myself to solve it without looking at a solution guide or a tutorial, based on my prior experience with the Megaminx (one way the analogy to the 3-Cube vs. 2-Cube relationship breaks down). It's practically the same puzzle but with fewer steps, thanks to the omission of edge pieces. It isn't a sanctioned speed cubing event, but again pace Grubiks, the unofficial record for fastest solve is 9.17 seconds. Ready now? OK, let's go.

First, scramble the sucker. I recommend this scrambler, which is bookmarked on my phone. Here's a screenshot showing which silhouette to pick from the graphic menu (that little black dingus above the text). Note that, like cube-shaped puzzles, you're meant to start your scramble with the darker green side at front and white on top.

It takes an oddly long time for it to generate a scramble, compared to some of the other puzzles. Also interesting to note, the Kilominx scramble uses standard(-ish) cubing notation instead of the R++/D-- stuff developed for scrambling the Megaminx. Look at this scramble, for instance:

Notice that there are some notational oddities that you don't see on cube-shaped puzzles. For example, you can do either a U2 or a U2' move, because two 72-degree turns only twist the "up" layer 2/5 of the way around, clockwise or counterclockwise; whereas on the cube, a U2 move turns the top layer 180 degrees regardless of which direction you go. Also, those BL and BR moves, as distinguished from L and R, assume that you're holding a face (not an edge) toward you; L and R are the sides immediately to the left and right of F (front), while BL and BR are toward the back. And finally, see that x2 move in the middle of the scramble? Yeah, you get at least one of those every time. And to save you having to look up what an x2 move is, I'll tell you right here that it means flip the whole puzzle over 180 degrees, turning in the direction of a standard cube R move (i.e., around an axis of rotation running horizontally from left to right). Trust me, I clicked on the x2 on the scrambler and it was apparent from the where the animation froze at that point, compared to the prevous step, that this is what x2 means. Or check it out for yourself. It's neat. Don't worry, the scrambler won't make you do any y or z moves, so you only need to remember what whole-puzzle rotation x stands for.

So, I attempted to do that exact scramble, shown above, and got the result below. It doesn't look quite right, but that might be because I bought a puzzle with the "bright" color theme. Or maybe I goofed it up. No matter, a scramble is a scramble unless you're competing at a sanctioned event, and the Kilominx isn't a sanctioned event anyway.

Here is a series of pictures showing how I put the first layer together (solving the white side, which we'll think about as the bottom of the puzzle even when it sometimes isn't). First, I lign up one white-orange edge to dial in next to the other, using a U'-R-U-R' move that assumes the dark blue side will go to the right. Missing those centers yet?

Looks like that worked (below). If it didn't (and believe me, my first guess didn't always work), there's always backing up and doing over.

Now I'm dialing in the other blue-white corner, using the same algorithm because red, which is at the top of the corner piece, belongs to the right (see below).

You might sometimes have to dial a corner piece around a bit to get the color you want at the top. Or there's always that corner-flip algorithm to fall back on: R-U'-R'-U-R-U'-R'-U. (Can't abbreviate that with an "x2" anymore, for reasons you now know.) For example, the fourth white corner (below) came in with the white side at the top, which needs to end up at the bottom:

After doing that corner-flip algorithm, it's now ready for the U'-R-U-R', slotting the green side toward the right. Remember, though, if the top color goes to the left, the move is U-R-U'-R'. Megaminx basics.

That just leaves one corner out of the bottom layer:

Which, of course, was completed in a trice.

You then just keep applying those same algorithms to complete the sides going around the lower half of the puzzle, as shown (without further comment) in the series of photos below. Just be alert to the fact that without center pieces, getting these corners in the right order will require some spatial reasoning, critical thinking and strategy. Either that or a bunch of trial and error, or a flawless memory for the order in which the colors go around the sides of the puzzle.

Finally, you're left with the top layer, which most likely, won't have all five gray sides facing up.

The first thing to do is the Megaminx procedure for orienting the top corners – the one where you put an unsolved corner at top-front-right, chant "down, down, up, up" to yourself while alternately turning the R and DR layers, and repeat until the gray side is up, then twist the top layer to the next unsolved corner and do it again, etc. Result:

The last step, then, is permuting the top corners, which was the last Megaminx step as well. That's where you dial one of the corners out of the way, replace it with a dummy piece, and very carefully twist the top layer to put the corner where it belongs above it, then swap it with whatever piece is there, etc. What makes this step extra spooky, right on the point of solving the puzzle, is that you don't have any edge pieces to help you figure out which corner you're shooting for. This way you kind of miss those edge pieces despite the steps saved by not having to solve them. What I suggest is picking at least one to coner to be "solved" and starting this step with that corner right where it belongs. Then dial a corner that belongs next to it out of the way, twist the top layer and swap it into where it belongs, and continue from there, reasoning out where each corner should go. It gets easier the more solved the top layer is, until:

It's quite satisfying to see it all come together, innit.

I reckon I'll keep going back to the Megaminx when I want to occupy myself with a puzzle for a while. I repeat once again, I'm no speed cuber. I'm in this to enjoy solving puzzles, not to set speed records. So I'll embrace all those fiddly edge pieces and their long-ass algorithms, and the extra steps they bring to solving the last layer, for the sake of passing time and stimulating my brain. But I can also see myself doing the Kilominx quite often when I can only snatch a few moments here and there from other stuff going on, or maybe to relax my mind at the end of a long day. It has just a few wrinkles that need one's full attention – like deciding whether or not the last corner or two in the middle layers need to be solved on the top layer, to avoid re-scrambling something you've already solved. I'm not sure that's necessary in all cases, on the Kilominx — but it sometimes seems to help. It's a puzzle that you'll get through quickly, during one of those fits where you scramble every puzzle you have and then solve them one at a time. That isn't just me, is it? Or an easy, but not too easy, solve to clear your mind when you're banging your head against that d****d Square-1, about which more another time. I like it. It's a keeper.

Trap

This past weekend, I went to the last possible showing (locally) of this M. Night Shyamalan movie starring Josh Hartnett in a leading role that, in my opinion, solidifies his comeback as a movie star started in last year's Oppenheimer. Here he plays Cooper, a man with a double life: a Dad of the Year who rewards his teenage daughter for a good report card by taking her to a big concert featuring her favorite pop star, and a psychopathic serial killer who realizes he's been caught in a trap. The feds and the local police are all over the concert venue, looking for him, because somehow they know he's going to be there – and now he has to sneak around, looking for a way out, without raising his daughter's suspicions. It's a thriller worthy of Hitchcock, with a legit pop concert embedded in it and some gruesome shocks, hold-your-breath moments of suspense and twists, twists and counter-twists galore.

The cast features Hayley Mills, most recognized for her role as identical twins in the 1961 version of Parent Trap, as a veteran FBI profiler; Allison Pill, whom I recognized for her role as Agnes Jurati on Star Trek: Picard, as the killer's (ahem) oblivious wife, Rachel; singer-songwriter Saleka Night Shyamalan (the director's daugther) as pop star Lady Raven, who not only wrote and performed a whole concert worth of material for the first act of the movie but also takes on a surprisingly important role in the second act; and real-life musical artists Russ and Kid Cudi as fictional musical artists similar to themselves.

I thought it was an effective thriller. It did what it says on the label. Rather than give away too many plot points, I'm going to restrict my synopsis to what I've already stated, plus the following Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The whole second act, in which Cooper strong-arms Lady Raven into helping him but she turns the tables and retakes control. (2) The third-act battle of wits between Cooper and Rachel, who maybe isn't as oblivious as she seemed. (3) The bit where Cooper and Lady Raven find themselves, and their limo, surrounded by a crowd.

Of course, it would hardly be an M. Night Shyamalan movie without a macabre twist at the end, a cameo appearance by the director and a bonus scene a little way into the end credits. He doesn't take it over the top or transgress the bounds of good taste. Without being overly flashy, Trap might score up there with his earliest and best films, like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs.

But what you really want to know is whether Josh Hartnett can command the screen in this creepy role, and the answer is: He absolutely can and does. You can buy into the way he fools people around him into thinking he's one of the good guys, without taking anything away from the evil that you see in him when nobody is looking. Plot twist-wise, he has a chilling knack for blending in, for remaining in control even while walking into a crowd of cops who are looking for him, for escaping what seems to be an inescapable trap. But when he loses it, he's just terrifying. And the final gleam in his eyes, before the credits roll, are worthy of Anthony – Perkins or Hopkins, you pick. Also, when his shirt comes off, you'll notice that the passage of years hasn't destroyed his hunkiness. It has to be said.

5-Cube, Revisited

Here's the current state of my Rubik's cube-type puzzle collection, most of which are in the rotation of puzzles that I regularly solve. Some, however, I only touch once in a while, and a couple of them still intimidate me enough that I'm going to let them hang for a bit before I attempt to learn my way around them. But with only a couple of exceptions, which I shall note in a moment, I only have one of each kind of puzzle and I mean to keep it that way. I'm not in this to have a huge collection of all the different 3x3s ever mass-produced, or what have you.

In the foreground, in starring position if you will, is the 5-cube, the main subject of today's update. However, joing us on the patio for just a little sunlight are all its friends. There are five octahedral puzzles at the left. From front to back, they include two Face Turning Octahedra (FTOs), one of which is stickerless and moves very smoothly, the other a stickered model whose movement is very stiff and apt to lock up, and whose stickers started peeling off; I actually peeled off all the stickers on the blue side and tried painting those pieces, with somewhat unsatisfactory results. Third from the front is the 3x3 Edge Turning Octahedron (ETO), which I haven't learned to solve. Don't look at me like that. I just got it last week, and the minute I laid hands on it, some of the tiniest stickers started peeling off. Also, it's even harder to turn than the stickered FTO. In fourth position is the Diamond Skewb, sort of a 2x2 FTO but super-easy to solve, once you have the knack of it. Like the other skewb products on this table, it's designed so that each turn rotates half of the puzzle at a time. Finally, in the back left corner, is the 4-layer Corner Turning Octahedron (CTO), which is also a bastard to turn and, at times, a bitch to solve, but I've learned a way to do it and I'm working on improving my technique. It's actually not so much that it's hard to figure out how to solve it as the three very simple algorithms require a certain amount of strategic thinking that, in one particular case, catches me in a vicious cycle that I can only escape by scrambling it and starting over. I intend to explain my strategies for solving the FTO and CTO in the near future, but not today; it's hot on that patio and I don't fancy shooting more pictures out there.

In the third row in from the left are three dodecahedra: from front to back, the Megaminx, the Skewb Ultimate and the Gigaminx. The Megaminx is a gloriously fun puzzle to do, with 12 pentagonal faces that ... well, I've already covered it on this blog, haven't I? It was the first direction in which I branched out from cube-shaped puzzles, and I still find it most diverting. The Skewb Ultimate, whose moves (once again) rotate half of the puzzle at a time, is one that I've learned how to solve but haven't kept in practice, and now I'm afraid I'll have to learn it all over again if I'm to make any progress on it. The Gigaminx is literally just the Megaminx with an extra layer of moving pieces added all the way around. I haven't started learning to solve it yet but I'm aware that there is also a Kilominx (scaling the concept down to a single layer of corner pieces with no center), with scaled-up versions called a Master Kilominx (with one additional layer all the way around), an Elite Kilominx (with two such added layers) and an "8x8" Kilominx (with three), while the Megaminx-Gigaminx pattern holds with additional layers producing the Teraminx, Petaminx, Examinx, Zettaminx, Yottaminx, Quettaminx and Minx of Madness, which corresponds to a 21x21x21 cube. I'm in no hurry to size up. I still haven't learned my way around the Gigaminx, after all.

The cluster of cube-shaped puzzles at the center of the collection include (at front) the 2-cube, with a smooth-moving 3-cube behind it and a Skewb on top of that, whose funky diagonal turns I'm still learning. I mean, I can solve it, but I still need to build confidence with it. Next to that stack is the stiffer-moving Rubik's-brand 3-cube that started it all, for me, on top of my beloved 4-cube. Behind them are the 6-cube on top of the 7-cube, with which I've become pretty comfortable. The big honker next to them is Evgeniy's Icosahedron, a cheap-ass 20-sided puzzle that I'm pretty much going to display on a shelf from here on. I really wanted an icosahedral puzzle, at least to complete my collection of Platonic solids, but when it arrived last week (in the same shipment as the ETO) I discovered that it's the worst turning piece of junk I own. Dreadful movement, with flimsy plastic pieces and stickers that I'm afraid to manhandle too much. Ere I learn how to solve a corner-turning icosahedron, I'm going to need a better model.

Next to that, in front, is the three-layer pentahedron, with the 2x2x4 Rubik's Tower behind it. They're the only non-Platonic solid puzzles in my collection so far. I've just gotten my hands on the Tower, so I'll start learning it soon. The 3x5 dealie is perhaps the most comfortable puzzle in this collection to hold in the hand; I haven't played with it very much, but I should. At the far right are my three tetrahedral puzzles. At front is the Pyramorphix, a.k.a. Rubik's Pyramid, with the 3-layer Pyraminx behind it and the 4-layer Master Pyraminx, a.k.a. Tetraminx, behind it. I've had lots of fun with, and become pretty good at, the latter two. I was reluctant to get the Pyramorphix because I thought it would only twist at the tips, making it not much of a puzzle, but it turns out to be a shape-changing gadget that turns completely differently from the two pyraminxes. I still have a lot of work to do on it, but I've solved it a few times.

And so, as promised way back here, I have an update about solving the Last Two Edges (L2E) on the 5-cube. I had mentioned that the L2E algorithm for the 4-cube – put problem edges on the front at left and right, then do Uw' R U R' F R' F' R Uw – isn't worth a damn on the 5-cube. I even posted a link to a two-page guide to 5-cube L2E algorithms tailored to every conceivable case. But I really hoped and prayed that I could come up with a solution that I'd be able to carry in my brain without having to memorize all those ridiculous algorithms. You may remember there was also a two-page guide to Last Two Centers algorithms, which my 6- and 7-cube tutorials showed you actually don't need because there's an easy-to-learn, intuitive procedure for solving every possible L2C case, and that also applies to the 5-cube. This gave me hope that I could finally put this L2E problem to rest. That and the fact that I learned that the 4-cube's L2E algorithm actually does work on the 6- and 7-cubes, if you set up the move correctly. So, as I demonstrate how this works on the 5-cube, bear in mind that this procedure can be extended to 6-, 7- and higher cubes.

First, to minimize distraction, I'll show this process on a minimally scrambled cube. Basically, I did the L2E algorithm on the solved cube, and the extent to which it messed up the cube (beyond the edges we're concerned with) will show you that this move does more than just swap a few pieces between the last two edges. There's a reason you do this before you start solving the cube like a 3x3x3; it shuffles a few other things around as well. But it also rotates three crucial pieces between the two edges in question. So, here's the left edge of the two, at front:

And here's the right one:

You'll see that the green and red edge at the top of the stack on the left needs to move over to somewhere on the right edge, where there's a green-and-orange edge piece that needs to move to the left. Well, a very carefully applied version of the 4-cube's L2E algorithm will actually rotate three of these edge pieces clockwise: The top left, top right and bottom right pieces. Which will put all three exactly where you want them, correctly oriented too (so you won't have to repair the edge-parity case that seems to be developing at the right). Here's how.

First, be sure to position the two edges so that the three pieces needing to be rotated are in the correct places, with two matching pieces opposite each other in one of the top layers. This is super-important. If the top left and top right edge pieces don't both belong on the right, you're not going to end up with the desired result. You may have to flip one of the edges to set this up. There's actually an edge-flip algorithm for the right-front edge that's the same as the L2E only without the Uw' and Uw moves that bookend it, but I'm so over that algorithm. All you have to do is dial one of the edges onto the top layer, twist it around 180 degrees and bring it back down on the other side of the other edge. Think, McFly! I mean, "work smarter, not harder." Second, do that initial Uw' move OR just a slice move (u') on the layer where those two matching edge pieces are facing each other. On the 5-cube that'll simply be the U-slice layer, but on the 6- and 7-cubes it could be one or both of two different layers above the equator of the cube; so, twist advisedly.

Then, complete the L2E algorithm with the usual R U R' F R' F' R, and reverse the initial U wide or slice move. The result, if you've done it right:

The other algorithm, and I think (fingers crossed) maybe the only other one you'll need from that two-page guide to 5-cube L2E cases, is where the piece in question is right in the center, which can happen on either the 5- or the 7-cube or, I suppose, any cube with an odd number of layers going up to infinity. Here's what the case looks like with the two problem edges to the left and right of front:

Well, the algorithm I memorized for this calls for those two edges to be at the front and back of the top layer. I suppose this can be adapted to the orientation used for the previous algorithm, but I don't feel like doing it so, pfbt. I mean, rotate the cube to put the two edges on top at front and back.

Then do an Rw2 move (for 7-cubes and up, that means turning all the layers to the right of center), then F2 U2 Rw2 (with the same caveat), then U2 F2 Rw2 (ditto). Result:

For my final update, I'd like to acquaint you with a new (to me) puzzle scrambler that I've bookmarked on my phone, and that I find much more helpful than the one to which I previously linked. Look at this beautiful graphic interface:

It's even more helpful than it looks. For one thing, not only does it show an animation of all the steps to achieve the randomly-generated scramble, but it also shows you what the state of the puzzle should look like at every step, if you click or tap on it. Also, it provides scrambles for some puzzles that my previous scrambler of choice didn't. Here's the menu, which you get to by touching the silhouette of the puzzle above the steps.

One caveat: the Megaminx scramble squeezes that icon off the screen, so you have to reload the site to get another scramble. So, top row from left, you have scramblers for the 3-cube, 2-cube, 4-cube, 5-cube and 6-cube; second row, 7-cube, a 3-cube blindfolded competition, 3-cube fewest moves competition, 3-cube one-handed competition, and the Rubik's Clock puzzle; third row, Megaminx, Pyraminx, Skewb, Square One (a shape-changer I haven't adopted yet), and 4-cube blindfolded; fourth row, 5-cube blindfolded, FTO (the reason I bookmarked this scrambler), Master Pyraminx, Kilominx and something called the Redi Cube, a corner-turning cube I knew nothing about until I reached this sentence. I can already see where my next few shopping trips to the Speed Cube Shop are going to take me. (Another toy I'm drooling over is the Master FTO, which – you guessed it – adds a layer all the way around 3-layer FTO.) Yeah, they saw me coming. And to think this all started when a YouTube video about how to solve a Rubik's Cube caught my eye. Hoo doggy!