Two movies mashed together and clued to make some sense, as
in 22A: Double feature about the Arctic Ocean? (FROZENWATERWORLD), or 96A: … about an insomniac? (ROCKYSLEEPER). Not terribly hilarious,
or novel, but sometimes that’s the way it is. “38A: … about the search for
extraterrestrial life” (ALIENCONTACT)
is a little weird, because “Contact” already is about that subject, but I guess
just one movie title wouldn’t fit the theme.
1A: Really tiny (ATOMIC),
I’ll give a B. I actually like the 115A answer to the same clue slightly better
(ITSY). I kind of wish “15A: Over yonder” had been “thar” instead of AFAR, but I loved “36A: Actor who was
lionized in the 1930s?” for LAHR. We
both got it immediately, but we still loved it. I also enjoyed the irreverent SHAFT (46A: Unfair treatment, with
“the”). Heh. Combine that with AROUSE and
MISTRESS and you’ve got quite the
racy puzzle!
Others in the plus column are 60D: Sides of a quadrangle,
maybe (DORMS) and 113A: They lose
their heads over time (BEERS).
Tricky! And I chuckled at “10A: What may follow a breakdown” (TOW), and SCALP (33D: Where your roots are) was pretty clever, too. Speaking
of SCALP, I was scratching mine about AMFAR
(1D: H.I.V. research org.) and GNMA (32D:
Fed. lending agency). I don’t believe I’m familiar with either acronym. And
what are we to make of UTAHN (52D:
Pioneer Day celebrant) showing up just a day or two after “Utahan” was in the
grid? I didn’t much like the longer version, and I like this new one even less.
So in all, I guess I give this puzzle a tepid thumbs up. It
had enough fun stuff to balance out the lukewarm theme and the ORLE, TYES, ASYE, MEIS, and EEE-type stuff.
Looking forward to starting it all up again tomorrow!
- Horace
Meh. Seen it before, and none of the theme answers were funny enough to grab me. I too wanted "thar" for AFAR! If only. UTAHN and UTAHAN are both acceptable, but I wish they would just settle on one out there in the southwest.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a little while to figure out the theme, but the puzzle in all took within my 45-60 minute preferred range for a Sunday. Horace forgets ANAL (or deliberately left it out, more likely) in his "racy" category above. My favorite theme answer was SAWTHEDEPARTED. MEATCASE: gross. Loved the quote for SCIENCE at 44D It "never solves a problem without raising 10 more," per George Bernard Shaw.
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