discomforting

As Minnesota marched down the field late in the fourth quarter, bleeding away second after second, squeezing USC’s defense for all it was worth, the warm welcome had worn well off, giving way to the discomforting realization that USC’s hopes of a special season were quickly slipping away into a suddenly chilly night.

After a series of movies about the darker corners of Australian history, filmmaker Justin Kurzel turns his unblinking, discomforting sensibility toward America with “The Order,” following a small cadre of neo-Nazis in the Pacific Northwest in the early ’80s who were responsible for a string of bank robberies and the murder of Denver talk-radio host Alan Berg.

“Slave Play,” which Harris wrote during his first year as a graduate student at Yale University, revolves around three modern-day interracial couples participating in “antebellum sexual performance therapy” at a former plantation in Virginia, where discomforting themes of racial trauma, slavery, sexual identity and power are explored.

That calmed worries that had built on Wall Street that the inflation data could show a discomforting reacceleration.

It also shows how the skills acquired in a field of study often matter more than the school’s prestige — a relief for those who can’t go to an elite university, and discomforting for some of those who already have.