Here's a fun fact - if you total up Colum's solve times for Monday through Friday of this week, and add about two minutes, you get the time it took me to solve today's puzzle. :)
"The Inside Story" today is movie titles. Each theme answer is a PICTUREINPICTURE, turned into a new phrase, and clued accordingly. I am so in awe of the idea itself that I am loath to complain about the less good ones like BO[THERING]RAT (52A: Traitor who gets on one's nerves? [2006, 2002]). It's just so absurd. And what about PET[IT]ERPAN (77D: Smaller piece of cookware? [1953, 2017])? I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say "petiter."
My favorite might be THELITTLEM[ET]ERMAID (24A: Who has trouble reaching a windshield to place a ticket? [1989, 1982]). That one works well.
It's Easter today, and I'm sitting here in the house I grew up in, with my Dad and my sister and one brother, Huygens, and Frannie. We had a nice dinner, and now we're sitting around in the living room talking. It's a little difficult to concentrate on writing a review.
So I'll just mention a couple that I did like. MARCO (38A: Shout at a pool) brought back good memories of playing in the pool at our cousin's house, ROME (66A: Long building project, in a cliché) took a minute to get, and SLOP (117A: School cafeteria food, pejoratively) was amusing.
Things I had never heard of: STRINE (120A: Broad Australian accent, informally), and MIRIAM (115A: Sister of Moses).
OK, that's all I can manage. It's chaos here. I hope you're all having a lovely day.
- Horace
27:51
ReplyDeleteSince it took me about 39 seconds longer to solve than it took for Horace, one would need to do about the same thing to Colum's cumulative times for the week to get to my own for today's, more-or-less. That said, this still went a little too quickly for my liking for a Sunday. I think that the well-done theme makes up for the less-than-desirable fill in spots (TRIB, YMA, NONET). And there were quite a few gems, like WETWIPE, MIMOSAS, TSARDOM, DOIDARE, NIHAO, RIPSAW, CHESTER, ARRIBA, VOLARE, SAWSLOGS and RUBES. Also, I liked that "Contact" was represented in C[RAY]ONTACT, and that "Star Wars" was in there with the slightly awkward S[T]AR[TED]WARS, where the first circled "T" is unrelated to the across. I'd give this an overall thumbs up, even with SPIT in there.