The answers of dubious coinage. Many of the movies unknown. As usual with this theme clue type I never catch on even after the puzzle is done. Kept me busy tho.
This one was ridiculous.
Term unstoned = lame
6A - packed with juice, as in a child’s school lunch!
8
Ah!!!!!!
It’s 10:50 edt and I cannot find my error. Any thoughts? Anyone?
Ugh I got it. SMH.
1
Loved this puzzle! Groaned when I finally got PBANDJ with juice (kept trying to put canned fruits in there) and found the theme easy to figure out, fun to solve and clever
I just want to add that the one clue I didn’t get was NONET until I just searched the comments. I knew it was a reference to Pluto’s reclassification, but I didn’t get it until I saw one comment that referred to it and it’s correlation to “octet”. I then looked up NONET and discovered it is a reference to something with nine parts.
Happy Easter!
2
I thoroughly enjoyed this fine puzzle from Grant Thackray. The PICTURE IN PICTURE theme was original and fun. The Ring from 52A is a really good film. Just don't watch it alone. And not at night.
Yesterday ROADER and REALER. Today PETITER! And ASPISH!? 😖 Loved STRINE, though!
Still, I liked the puzzle and thought the themers were clever. Yes, the clues were somewhat tortured, but to combine two movies into one entry, what do you expect!?
Kudos, Mr. Thackray!
@Ron You recorded my thoughts exactly. I would add TSARDOM to the list of dubious words.
@Tony Santucci
If STARDOM, why not TSARDOM? Right?
4
Too many silly words/glues in this Sunday puzzle.
3
OK, I take it back.
@MP Well, that was a quick turnaround.
2
@Diane I just want to be nice on Easter Sunday :-)
BONUS CLUE:
Who has *even more* trouble reaching a windshield to place a ticket?
THE PETITER METER MAID
7
@Andrew - that was Rita Skeeter before she wrote for the Daily Prophet - lovely Rita Skeeter Petiter Meter Maid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJl96LYFGC8
3
@David Connell
Lovely!
1
Fun puzzle, challenging. Took me 28:20, several minutes longer than my average.
@Bellevue Bob
That was *almost* my time ... except I had several more hours attached to those minutes and seconds ;-) ... hours that I do not regret for a second!
7
Peanut butter and Jam is the standard, fast and easy lunch you pack for your kids, often along with a juice box or milk carton. PB and J is the short version.
2
Doctors wallet range?
Please explain
2
DOCTOR S(WALL-E)TRANGE.
WALL-E within DOCTOR STRANGE.
WALL-E: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/
DOCTOR STRANGE: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1211837/
3
If that was not the needed explanation, note that a range of wallets for doctors is a "Selection of billfolds for medical professionals."
2
The intersection of 59A and 54D added 15 min. to my solve time. I had already first entered NONET for the grouping of 9 described in the clue for 59A, but "corrected" it to NONUT when I got to 54D. On about my third pass through the filled grid searching for problems, I googled NONUT for confirmation and learned of a disturbing male pastime in November but nothing relevant to the clue. Happy music played when I corrected back to NONET.
But TERN?
A search for "No turn unstoned" yields some *interesting* entries in urban dictionary, but "No tern unstoned" returns more scholarly results referring to Ogden Nash and others as well as the avian definition that was previously unknown to me.
The puzzle never fails to educate, especially late in the week.
5
@Brian Drumm thank goodness I wasn’t the only one hung up on this. I knew NONUT looked stupid but never thought of TERN...until I tried it in desperation as I was going through clue by clue trying to figure out which square I’d filled in wrong
3
Not sure if this bothered anyone else, but there was *almost* a theme to the chosen movies but not quite. Lots of horror/sci fi and then random movies that just "fit." How impressive (and less aggravating) if the movies stayed on a genre theme.
I quite liked this puzzle. I thought the clues were fun and it was easy to figure out where he was going. I even liked the BOTHERING RAT because it reminded me of Annoying Orange. He is SO annoying. And the spoonerism made me smile because my mother (gone 17 yrs today) used to say her exercise class left no stern untoned.
8
I have three out-and-out quarrels with the puzzle: 17A -- The only relationship between CDs and MP3s is that they're both methods of reproducing sound digitally. "Forerunner" implies that MP3s replaced CDs, an assertion to which any audiophile would strenuously object. 31A -- the clue is logically incoherent. "Disclaim any involvement," perhaps. 39A -- agree with the contention already stated that this is simply wrong, at least as applied to baseball, and (according to my brief research) hockey. I see there are also references to minor league football, but at least some of those teams also describe themselves as professional.
3
@Drew Trott - I don't agree with the point you made regarding CDs and MP3s. A forerunner doesn't necessarily need to be replaced by something that came after for it to be called that. It simply needed to come before and MP3s definitely came after CDs, so CDs were a forerunner. Most people who listen to music are not audiophiles either.
MP3s haven't really replaced CDs in a few senses. People used to rip their music from CDs to MP3 so they don't have to lug around CDs and have a very portal MP3 player to carry around. But of course, you need CDs in the first place to rip them to CDs.
Of course, then there was the illegal sharing of MP3s which allowed people to not buy the CDs, but that was illegal. At that point in the Internet history, high bandwidth was still expensive, and MP3's significant but lossy compression certainly made it the format of choice for sharing. From an audiophile perspective, I could see why you might object to the suggestion that MP3s replaced CDs, because MP3 sound quality loss from their CD source is significant. But I don't think the clue suggests replacement.
1
@Wen On further reflection I'll yield the point, though it still annoys me. "CD" refers to a medium, whereas MP3 is a file format. A CD can contain any kind of file, including MP3s. And while "forerunner" does not strictly denote a line of descent, it strongly connotes that or something pretty close to it.
Great theme!
1
Loved the theme (especially once I caught on, of course), and it's the first time I think I've ever done a puzzle beyond a Monday without once looking up a clue or consulting Deb or Caitlin's commentary (maybe the theme helped).
Thanks and God Påske!
10
@Dennis B
Congratulations. You're on your way.
2
Las Meninas might be in one’s prada, might it not. I mean if one was an art thief. This small error vexed me.
Recovering from last nights Peep pizza that also included shredded green coconut and jelly beans (with ANISE). Sauce was an egg custard. I will be sending Ms 420 (aka our hostess Deb) the recipe. All i can say is I saw amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty. See David Frye album with Nixon in prison for a cultural reference.
Any UC San Diego grads recall the Easter Beer hunts.
Happy Easter
@dk
Peeps are a Passover tradition in our family. You know they are Kosher, right?
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0RMlmUScT4jnIi8WD0EWtdMGg#Cambridge,_MA
1
@dk Oh, dear, my first thought at the words "Peeps pizza" was a rather apocalyptic vision of peeps melting down a la the cheese in a regular pizza. Eek.
2
SPELLING BEE THREAD
34 words 155 Points 1 Pangram (I think)
4 5 6 7 8 9 TOTAL
A 2 1 1 4
B 8 8 4 1 21
C 4 1 1 6
E 1 1
H 1 1
L 1 1
Y 0 //
34 Total
27
@Liane
Usual inconsistent acceptance of words ending with the same suffix. Nonacceptance of B-L (9) is inexplicable. It's a commonly accepted compound word without a hyphen. As usually, skip the dried cod! And only one form of the mysticism is allowed, so you have to guess which one if that accepted word isn't in your memory yet.
14
@Liane Made it to QB with your excellent help. Thank you! I am in total agreement about the B-L (about halfway through, I commented to my spouse that the number of words not allowed made no sense at all). Do you think they do it just to watch us grumble?
4
@Liane
But we've come to expect that, haven't we? There's also a 10-letter B-E word relating to laundry that appears in the dictionary but is not accepted here. While it might not be an everyday word, it's certainly more common than some we've seen lately (here's looking at you, LAMELLAE).
11
I am falling in the middle here (kind of apropos) of the two camps. The theme answers made me chuckle and the theme itself aided in the solve, which to me is a big part of whether I enjoy the solve. But it went fast and the fill was not up to par. My favorite clue/answer pair is PBANDJ, because it is packed with (a) juice (box). Now I can TERN my attention to the Spiral, one of my favorites of the variety puzzles.
2
I thought it was bloody brilliant construction and a fun fast solve, even if I am in the minority. Loved the films within films. Caught on pretty early. Some nicely tortured clues for a Sunday too.
14
Usually a joy, this was a job. Too precious by half. I do admire the work of creating. Wish it offered more pleasure.
2
For this theme to be fun, the made-up phrases have to be sparkling or zippy or amusing or something. But I mean BOTHERING RAT????? DOCTOR'S WALLET RANGE???? GETS CREAM OUT???? Give me a break! And then there are the clues to these silly phrases. Pretty tortured, I'd say.
Add to that the rest of the fill -- much of it groaning with pop culture. The fictional company crossing the Cheetos mascot crossing the Weekend Update anchor was the final straw. Despite the obvious effort that went into constructing this puzzle, it resulted in a resoundingly unenjoyable solving experience for me.
18
There are certainly puzzles where I think to myself “this is all ridiculously obscure” and I come to the comments to find everyone else enjoyed it. One person’s poison is another person’s pleasure. The clues you mentioned provided some of my favorite answers and gave me the confidence to press on.
CHESTER Cheetah was my first certain answer and made me grin (I have a deep relationship with Cheetos). I smiled again at seeing Michael CHE’s name because Weekend Update is my only “must-see” segment of SNL. Finally, ACME called to mind years of failed traps set by Wile E. Coyote in his attempts to best the Roadrunner.
16
@LisaMarie -- My age is showing. Weekend Update used to be my only "must-see" segment of SNL too, but I haven't watched it in years and years and thus have never seen Michael CHE.
The ultimate in Weekend Update for me? Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtin, co-anchors. I'll always remember the running gag: "Jane, you ignorant slut..." If you've never seen it, Lisa Marie, go to YouTube. You'll have a lot of fun, I promise.
1
@Nancy
I loved that segment too. As I recall, it was a takeoff on an existing news show (Point-Counterpoint perhaps?) and may not be as funny to those who had not seen the original show that was parodied.
I found a technical issue frustrating. Since nobody else has mentioned it, though, perhaps it's unique to me. Here it is -- when I'm on a particular answer, the blue highlighting obscures the shading of the squares. So I found myself constantly moving off of the theme answers so I could see which squares were shaded. But then of course the clue for the theme answer was no longer displayed.
It's always been true for puzzles with shaded squares that the highlighting makes the shading difficult to see, but for some reason it hasn't been bothersome until this puzzle. Probably because I really was relying on the shading to solve the theme answers rather than using them at the end to determine a revealer. At any rate, I found it annoying to have to keep moving on and off of the answers to look at the shading, then the clue, then the shading again.
I should note that the puzzle itself was great. I enjoyed the theme despite my technical issues.
34
@Bess
No, same issue here and did seem more problematic with this puzzle than many others. This was on the app. Not sure if it would have been the same on the laptop.
3
@Bess
I also found it annoying, but not annoying enough to comment on.. :)
2
@Bess,
Thanks for pointing that out. I experienced the same problem too.
3
I was hampered a bit because I'm not much of a film goer so didn't recognize a few of the titles. The first one I had filled in was 42A and I didn't know either of those. I've already forgotten which one gave me the theme, but things looked up at that point. As always I'm in awe of how the constructors make these ingenious themes work.
Like another commenter, I was surprised to see DOCTOR STRANGE sans love and like many I didn't get the packed lunch clue until reading the comments.
I'm off to take a walk on the Harrogate Stray to enjoy the best cherry blossom trees in the world. ( that includes Japan)!
5
I did not enjoy this puzzle at all, for all the reasons stated before by fellow solvers. This is the first time I didn’t even want to bother finishing it, except I didn’t want to lose my streak.
6
I think I just struggled with this one a bit too much to offer a fair judgment. A few of the referenced films being unknown to me also contributed to the frustration. Seems like a fine puzzle and I'll defer to the majority opinion - I just spent way too long working on it and kind of got bored after a while.
After I was done, it struck me that some of the films in the puzzle (plus one that was obliquely referenced) could work with a different kind of trick - adding a possessive to the title. e.g. "Doctor's Strange Love," "Peter's Pan" and "Star's wars." (maybe "Con's tact" too?). Not sure exactly how you'd work that into a theme or what the reveal could possibly be. I'm guessing there's probably nothing there.
Anyway... after that, I thought - oh, probably lots of film titles that would work like that, so I started thinking of movies. Then I went and looked at lists. And... I could not come up with any other possibilities. Seems like an odd coincidence with the films in the theme.
Am I done? I'm done.
10
Rich,
I like your theme idea.
For the revealer, "Possession" (1981).
6
This was my favorite puzzle in memory. I am often in awe of the creators of these puzzles but to be able to create answers that combine one movie within another is fantastic. I didn't see it until I was almost done but THE LITTLE METERMAID tipped me off. To be able to do this with very few neologisms (petiter, tsardom) is stunning, to me.
13
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, though I only got the inside theme! I am not a big movie goer but recognized all of these. Went fast for a Sunday, which is nice occasionally. I have been doing past Sundays this week; totally stumped by a couple without going to Google.
Nice work!
Last week, we were made aware of the fact that the NYT paid off Jeff Chen in order not to use a puzzle they had already bought because another puzzle with the same theme had come in, and it was a Sunday size. Will Shortz told Jeff that since they only had four Sunday puzzles in the pipeline, they needed to use the Sunday version of the theme, so Jeff was free to shop his version to other outlets.
This puzzle makes it abundantly clear how thin the Sunday stack is.
Two dupes: WET ONES and WET WIPES (the former being a brand name of the latter); RIPSAW and SAWS LOGS.
A Down themer crossing an Across themer at the spot where the inner movie lay for the Down; thus STARTED WARS has the first T highlighted (circled, shaded, depending on your platform) for the Down while not being part of the Across inner movie. We knew to ignore it, but it shouldn't have been there.
The answer for "Major leagues" (39A) was THE PROS, which is out-and-out wrong. Minor leagues are also professional, so if a player has made it to the majors, he (or she) has not just joined the pros. The non-answer that should have been the answer was THE SHOW, which is a well-known nickname for Major League Baseball (vis-a-vis Minor League Baseball). Lest you say, maybe they didn't mean baseball, which other sport has major leagueS?
Of course, this does not make this puzzle invalid. It just means it's not at the expected level for a NYT Sunday puzzle.
27
@Steve L
I had the SHOW first based on having seen Bull Durham a few times over the years. (Young girls, they do get woolly.) Way too much "colorful" language to post any clips. Then tried the BIGS.
5
Steve,
I hope the editor has spoken to the publisher; greater pay differential needed for Sundays.
3
@Steve L
I had the same initial reaction as you to THEPROS, but on further reflection give it a pass because the clue is "Major leagues" — the lowercase "L" indicating that we are not necessarily talking strictly about baseball but rather about sports in general. And in that context, I believe the answer as given in the puzzle is perfectly cromulent. As always, reasonable minds can differ.
7
Clever theme idea, and I imagine it's hard to come up with theme answers, Rex's PULPIT FICTION notwithstanding. Any puzzle with my dog's name (CHESTER) gets my thumb up.
One answer over another gave me a new and elegant way to say "water break": AGUA SEGUE.
And I loved loved loved PETITER. You can bet your sweet patootie I did. I don't care how much dislike it engenders among the commenters today (and there's been a bit). I love how it feels to say, and the possibilities it brings. PETITER PAN sounds like a utensil for making hash browns. You say PETITER and I'll say PETOTTER. This word is a terrific springboard. A most lovely holiday gift!
12
@Lewis
It's funny how people's experiences with words can be so different! I like to post about my daily "scrunchy face" word from time to time. It's the entry that makes me wrinkle my nose and go, "eeew". PETITER was today's winner. :) Added to the fact that the whole entry glaringly broke the theme (with the extra shaded "T") made that a bad section for me overall. Perhaps I'm just a grumpy guy tho...
P.S. Did your Universal grid yesterday. Nice work as always!
3
@Lewis
I RELISHed your comment more than the puzzle.
3
Petiter Petiper peticked a peteck of petickled peteppers.
"et" cetera
5
LETTER BOXED THREAD
This one was fun for me - I punched in the first thing that occurred to me, tried to make sense of what was left - then restarted to use the parts I couldn’t fit. Iterated a few times and there it was.
B-T(5),T-S(8).
Yesterday I had SPACIER RHOMBUS and recalled my daughter referring to a lively horse as PACEY. Tried the comparative form and had the minimal solution.
Enjoy!
2
@Kevin Sparks
I have N-R (8) R-C(6). Have to see if I can find yours.
Same as you yesterday, although I can't imagine saying "pacier " rather than "more pace"
(Thanks for the nice birthday greeting yesterday)
1
@Kevin Sparks
I have the same initial letters, but different and longer words. At least it makes for a sensible phrase: B-T (6) T-S (9). I expect multiple solutions again today, but have no time for experimenting. Too many possibilities.
Yesterday I had EPOCH HERBARIUMS (which frankly I thought was silly when I tried it because I would have expected it to be only herbaria. That's what happens when you try!)
@Kevin Sparks
There's also a B-S(6), S-N(7) 13L solution.
Silly rabbit! PB&J is packed with juice in a kid’s lunchbox!
14
BOLTDOWN? Perhaps in woodworking, but eating? I was stuck with WOLF until I finally had to check the answer. Otherwise, a very enjoyable Sunday puzzle of perfect difficulty.
4
BOLT DOWN is pretty unusual usage for sure. But for some reason I had it in my head that it was ok and that I'd seen it somewhere. I found it in Moby Dick, but I doubt that's where I remember it from.
https://books.google.com/books?id=2RdeCw2TDE8C&lpg=PT478&dq=bolt%20down&pg=PT478#v=onepage&q=bolt%20down&f=false
3
Until I saw there weren't enough spaces, I thought we were going to revisit the whole Scarf/Snarf issue.
5
@Bill in Yokohama
BOLT DOWN sounds like a reasonable idiom for eating fast. Maybe it's regional or generational.
2
This is OT and trivia, so you may want to skip this. I post this here only because many people who do crosswords find a variety of things interesting.
My birthday is today, on Easter Sunday and I remember that my birthday was on Easter when I was young. Therefore, I was curious of how often Easter fell on April 21st. https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Acb897795-3a48-4e89-a0e4-6dc06b034534
3
@ColoradoZ Since the whole link did not get hyper -linked, you will have to copy and paste. I include again in case it works this time
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Acb897795-3a48-4e89-a0e4-6dc06b034534
1
@ColoradoZ
Happy Birthday. Here are two links, one with the number of times Easter falls on April 21 over 10,000 years, and the other explaining that Easter can fall on any date between March 22 and April 25, with most days in that range having about a 3% chance of being Easter Sunday in any given year (also, who knew that Easter repeats on a 5.7 million year cycle based on complex rules created by early Christian clergy through which Easter usually, but not always, falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox?):
https://www.projectpluto.com/easter.htm
https://www.projectpluto.com/easter.htm#Apr21
2
Happy Birthday!! My grandson’s birthday is today as well. Now I’ve got a bit of trivia for him - thanks!
3
I initially thought that "little screen in big screen" meant that the greyed squares would contain a TV show, surrounded by a movie.
9
@PaulSFO..,
Me too, for most of the puzzle
1
THELITTLEM(ET)ERMAID was my favorite clue.
9
@Stephanie
Mine too. It's the mental image.
1
I'm going to be one of the few naysayers -- Mr. Thackray's puzzle didn't thrill me. I of course expect to see in any puzzle some pop culture mixed in with other areas of knowledge like sports, history, literature, etc. But this was too heavy a dose of just one thing for my taste.
The years in which the films were released were of no help to me in the cluing as I can't begin to recite such datum, even for films that I enjoy. Also, once I understood the theme, I found myself trying to solve the themers by parsing the component films rather than deciphering the mashup phrases. But that strategy can be dicey if I've never heard of one of the films, as was the case with RAY in CRAYON TACT and GET OUT in GETS CREAM OUT.
This was also one of the Sunday grids that I had to flyspeck for errors upon completion. Entries like SIKES, YMA, and STRINE were no-knows for me but I was pretty sure they were right from the crossings. It TERNed out that I got tripped up by the Spoonerism at 54-D and had TURN instead. I know, what's NO NUT for 59-A, you might ask? Well, until I changed the U to an E, I was hoping to find out in Caitlin's column.
9
re: YMA - I learned about her in NYT crosswords and then subsequent lookups. She has shown up in NYT crosswords every year, sometimes several times a year. So her name is one that should be committed to memory.
She's known for her voice range and singing. Her name is unusual for sure, but very memorable. When each part of her name is reversed, they becomes AMY CAMUS and there is an urban legend around it.
Whenever I see SUMAC (such as on Tuesday), I think of the poisonous plant and her name.
6
I should qualify "every year" as in since 1994. Her name has shown up 100 times in NYT crosswords, 67 times in the Shortz era.
3
@Henry Su Interesting you never heard of either of these Oscar Winning Black Movies.
3
I'm really surprised by the lack of love for the theme. I thought it was brilliant. Maybe it's because I'm fairly new with my crossword addiction (nine months or so), but I enjoyed very much.
TSE held me up for the longest time because TZU kept messing up my down entries.
16
@Mark
"I'm really surprised by the lack of love for the theme."
I was particularly surprised by the lack of LOVE at the end of DOCTOR STRANGE. Did not know of the un-loved Dr. Strange
8
@Mark
Agree, this was awesome, brilliant, genius!
Loved it!
I recall reading about a review of an Isaac Stern concert saying that the maestro "left no tone unsterned," but the story, as good as it is, may be apocryphal.
10
@Wags
That leaves one to wonder whether it was a good review or a bad review...
1
@Andrew A bad review of an Isaac Stern concert? Really? As if...
1
@Wags
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, my puzzle-loving dad and his puzzle-loving cousin sent each other cryptograms of (I thought) their own creations and the one I remember best had to do with "Fiddler Isaac leaving no tone unsterned".
4
I liked this puzzle. It had a good amount of challenge, misdirection, and interesting themers. I eventually figured out why “packed with juice” was PB AND J, as it could have been packed with chips or fruit, or something else that would go with a lunch; and realized that STRINE was a very elided “Australian”. I had only a few footholds at first, but gradually started getting things filled in, and crossings were helpful in many cases. I discovered the trick with the themes about a third of the way through, and that added a bit of help in getting finished.
4
@JayTee
and 33A was a gimme.
PB&J is, of course, packed in a kid’s lunch box with a box of juice.
8
A cultural potpourri, and very enjoyable for me.
5
Interesting that "50 before" is TEN PAST, while "50-Across before" would be TET PAST, making 100-Across the dubious but not insane I SAID TO.
2
@Jordan
“Dubious but not insane”. My memoir title.
7
@Jordan
TEN is also PAST 8 and 9. And the clue number for this is 89 Down. And if you notice 8D and 9D are ALES NAMES. On of the most famous ALE'S NAME in Canada is Labatt's 50, which brings us back to TET...
This is almost as freaky as that whole Moses - Miriam thing reported earlier.
1
I'm not sure if it's actual STRINE but the Australian pronunciation that causes me the most ANGST is "think" for "thing" as in "Somethink isn't right." Can you think of anythink worse? It drives me MAD.
I was also flummoxed by PBANDJ. Thanks, Puzzlemucker, for flicking the light bulb on. I prefer peanut butter with honey myself.
2
My old-school Baltimore aunties said "anythink" etc. Also, didn't anyone else pack a jillion lunches for their young kids in the 90s with pbj and a juice box?
2006 must have been a year of ANGST for Pluto fans. sad to see the NONET become only an Octet!
6
Must have driven Pluto fans goofy!
23
@Doug - that was some kinda Mickey Mouse comment.
5
@judy t — Thank you! Until I read your "octet" reference I was flummoxed by NONET. This puzzle is so pop-culture suffused, I thought surely 59A had something to do with an absence of "ET", but the 2006 clue baffled me. I feel much better now, despite a tummy ache from so much entertainment-industry sugar.
1
Was stuck guessing letters to complete the SE corner. Had never heard of STRINE and somehow always thought abrade was spelled abraid. Also, I must have come across ID EST before, but didn’t even recognize it when I had it today, figured it was an old-timey word. Didst thou wash your hands, son. Yes, father, idest. :-)
5
@Tom Kara ID EST is what i.e. stands for. I expect you have come across that from time to time.
1
For 6a it means in the lunch box I believe. In the bag or box your juice would be alongside the PBANDJ.
5
I recognized most of the shaded squares as names of movies, but didn’t get the “picture in picture” part until I read Caitlin’s column. Not a very exciting theme, IMO, and understanding it wasn’t needed to solve the puzzle.
I found the puzzle to be straightforward, despite not knowing many of the names (RUSS, SIKES, CHESTER, DRE, EWEN, CHE) and a few of the other answers (NIHAO, STRINE, SKOR). All of these were easily gleaned from the crossers.
I finished in 70% of my average Sunday time, but honestly the puzzle didn’t thrill me. At least we had a great puzzle on Saturday.
3
Fill 'er up. Is there a record for 3 and 4 letter entries?
Quite a letdown after yesterday.
A beautiful construct with little impact on solving process.
Still below avg despite 10% lost tracking down a one-character overstrike. Bah humbug.
Btw, Caitlin: When I learned the difference between crosscut and rip saws, the power came from elbow grease.
7
In perhaps the strangest timing/coincidence ever while doing a crossword, I had The Ten Commandments on tv and when I got to the "Sister if Moses" clue, and there was a scene with Moses meeting said sister and the actress was literally saying "I'm Miriam" at the exact moment I was reading the clue!! Made my night!
38
@Mary B
That is pretty amazing! The actress who played MIRIAM had both a given name and a stage name made for a crossword puzzle: Olive Deering, née (?) Olive Corn. She was married to Leo Penn, Sean Penn’s father. According to her bio, she was inspired to become an actor when she was five years old and saw her brother play one of the lost boys in PETER PAN:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214392/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
12
@Mary B
That really is amazing; just reading your comment made my day.
6
@Mary B
Good luck I sure the least appreciated aspect of brilliance.
It took me a little while before I caught on to the theme. I had to look a second time at the puzzle title before I got what was going on, and after that things went pretty smoothly. This despite the fact that I didn't recognize several of the movie titles (IT, TED, THE RING, DOCTOR STRANGE) and haven't seen most of the ones I did know. It was fun solve, regardless.
Growing up in the '50s, VOLARE came easily. About a third of my home town were Italian American, and I imagine that in a lot of those homes Italian was the first language. I don't speak Italian, but I remember being appalled at the English adaptation (NOT translation) that followed the original.
This was one of my faster Sundays - well below average time. I caught on to the theme almost immediately with CRAYON TACT. I would have been much faster but the final top edge - PB AND J, DRE and NAMES had me stumped. I wasn't sure if it would be Lao TSE or TSU and I could not place the Dickens character. So a lot of time was spent on a relatively insignificant corner.
I don't know if it is just in Canada but WET ONES are actually a brand of WET WIPES, so the duplication is pretty extreme I find. I got VOLARE immediately because I was one of those who was misled a couple of weeks ago by the (DOOK?) entry SORARE. I was sure to get it right this time.
Yesterday there was some question about the word REALER. Today I think that the word PETITER is even UNREALER.
14
@Andrew
Agree about PETITER.
3
@vaer
Also, WET ONE for slobbery kiss makes me vaguely queasy. Doesn't pass the breakfast test for me. I had SMOOCH first. And (stock) QUOTES for ticker lines instead of AORTAS, even though a Q in that location of the puzzle made no sense.
4
@vaer
Feeling “definitely queasy” is REALER than feeling “vaguely queasy”. (Forgive me, I’m trying to use previously unknown words in sentences as a way of reinforcing my newly acquired crossword knowledge. Please don’t think any PETITER of me.).
2
Comment 1(wearing puzzle solver’s hat): Enjoyed puzzling through it. Enough speedbumps and challenging clues to make it feel like Sunday. Theme aided the solve. Some AHA moments. Yay!
Comment 2 (wearing puzzle critic’s hat): I found the puzzle very theme dependent because of the lack of jazzy fill (TOP HATS, SAWS LOGS, and FRONT LINES excepted). I appreciated the theme more in theory than in execution, except for MINI CARSONS and CRAYON TACT, both of which I loved, and to a lesser extent, GETS CREAM OUT and LITTLE METERMAID (on the fence about both, but leaning toward like). So, perhaps 2 in the love column, 2 in The like column, 2 in indifferent column (PETITER PAN and STARTS WARS), and 2 in the did not like column (BOTHERING RAT and DOCTORS WALLET RANGE. Those last two were too forced for the payoff, IMO.
Comment 3 (me): Glad to be alive. Glad the Comments section is alive. Glad for Grant Thackray and other brilliant people, young and old, who enjoy constructing crossword puzzles. And, glad my nascent streak remains alive!
26
Bloodsport is a pretty well-known film.
1
Doug,
Are you disagreeing with Grant Thackray, or did you not read what he wrote?
(From the Constructor Notes: I considered the Jean-Claude Van Damme cult classic “Bloodsport” for a little bit, but I figured that was too niche.)
@Barry Ancona
I think Doug is saying that he believes Bloodsport to be a pretty well-known film and not "too niche" as the Constructor believes it to be.
6
Andrew,
I could guess too, but I thought I'd ask Doug. If he had referenced the notes when making his comment, we'd know for sure.
1
I'm surprised I did this one so quickly, since I seldom go to movies and more and more don't even catch up with them elsewhere. But I was familiar with most of the ones in the puzzle, or at least with their titles. (Well, maybe not "WALLE.")
2
@Deadline
Oops. Somehow hitting "submit" made everything go kablooey before I had finished my comment.
Never heard of STRINE. Followed Caitlin's link, but didn't really manage to get very far with it. Hope I never hear STRINE again. (And if I were Australian, I daresay I would find it offensive, but I'm not, so I can't be sure.)
Is SAKE CUP A Thing, or a green paint?
Financial types: Is UNPEG as clued for real?
Confess I do have a (small) problem with the dupe of WET ONES and WET WIPE.
Nice to see a shout-out to my late beloved CHESTER, one of the greatest cats of all time. (Didn't know the Cheetos mascot had a name, but it's a nice one.)
I don't think the PHRASING of the clue for 12D is all that awkward, at least no more so than many other things I've seen here.
Two incorrect entries: THE BIGS before PROS, and GIMLETS before MIMOSAS.
TIL I learned that Moses had a sister named MIRIAM.
"Big UPS"? Really? Please say it isn't so.
I'm not gonna try to find it, but a while back there was something about a note from Will S that was in a Notepad (in AL) and on xwordinfo, and from the conversation I thought it was going to be a regular thing. Then it disappeared. Now I see it's back today at xwordinfo, but no Notepad, and it doesn't seem to have to do with the solve. Can someone explain?
That was fun, but if I go to see a double feature (remember those?) I want to see them serially, not simultaneously. I'm easily confused.
2
"Financial types: Is UNPEG as clued for real?"
Deadline,
Yes, it's for real. Currencies can be pegged and unpegged.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currency-peg.asp
4
Also, SAKE CUP is a specific thing for which the clue is appropriate.
(Green tea perhaps, but not green paint.)
2
Dear Caitlin:
First, I share your fear of power tools and heights. It feels good to see your admission in print. How did you feel at the end of "The Man Who Would Be King"?
Last week Conan O'Brien broadcast his show from Australia. In one bit, he enlists a dialect coach to help him learn Australian slang. She insists that no one there would say "Let's put another shrimp on the barbie": it's prawns to them.
In another unwitting allusion to this puzzle, Conan manufactures his own slang when he says he has been sleeping: "sawsing some loggies."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L94M4xQcPYk
3
I found this one a bit more challenging than recent Sundays, which I appreciated. One awkward bit of the bit: the crossing of themers at 77D and 102A has one tinted/circled (whatever in your format) square in 102A that is *not* part of the 102A picture in picture. This is, admittedly, a PETITER PAN.
15
@Barry Ancona
Agree! It's the only one where one of the down interior flicks crosses one of the across exterior ones, leaving this one little lonely letter all by itself.
I kept hoping there would be some explanation, some super-clever reason for this. There wasn't.
7
@Barry Ancona Haven’t you ever heard of the film, “Sar Wars”? :-)
4
@Barry Ancona I thought the same thing. While this was a "smart" theme, I wish it hadn't had that one crossing since it wasn't clear if the shaded box was only for the DOWN clue or the ACROSS clue, or both. I prefer the theme answers to be placed symmetrically in a grid, too.
1
As a child of the 50s/60s, I always thought the phrase was “leave no turn unstoned”, vs “tern”; but no matter!
7
Leave no stone unturned is the original phrase. Today we are clued with a Spooner ism. I don't know the link from Spooner to jocular phrase.
1
Digicate,
My take was that Robert understood the original adage, but had assumed (since childhood) that the Spoonerism used "turn" rather than "tern."
1
Once in Iceland my husband and I were repeatedly dive bombed by Arctic Terns. We might have been tempted to stone them.
7
An all-time favorite T-shirt saying, glimpsed on someone's torso many years ago: DISREGARD PREVIOUS T-SHIRT.
17
Caitlin,
“Packed with juice”, as in a lunchbox or brown paper bag or whatever kids have their PB AND J lunches packed in these days. Think Juicy Juice in its little carton with a sippy straw (or organic pomegranate juice in an edible “box” with a straw made of hemp). I was trying to make “PBA something” work for a long time, thinking “juice” was somehow police-related slang.
(Did puzzle in the paper and then transcribed on iPad . . . will check back later for comments).
22
@Puzzlemucker
Well, overall I'd guess your theory is at least as good as Caitlin's. Maybe better. And both are preferable to my complete mystification. Since this came right at the beginning of the puzzle and was so totally mystifying to me, part of my mind was rolling around in a corner trying to figure it out the whole time I was doing the rest of the puzzle. Also, I spent most of the time trying to think of something associated with electricity or energy of some sort.
I do like, pm, that your theory seems to indicate that, like me, you associate both PB AND J and juice boxes with children's fare. I know that some adults consume them, but I can't understand it! (Again, my personal opinion.)
1
@Puzzlemucker
That top edge was my very last holdup after a fairly quick solve. I finally came to the same conclusion as you concerning the clue for PBANDJ. It helps having had kids fairly recently, otherwise I don't think I would have caught on. Then again, up here PB is no longer acceptable for school lunches due to peanut allergies so...
3
Thank you! I couldn’t see how how “packed” was being used, and was hoping someone would help me in the comments! :)
1