meta DNF*/0:01
hello, and welcome to episode #879 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 1 puzzle from called “Good Times”. i tried and failed to solve this puzzle without the instructions. what are the theme answers: it’s a very unusual grid size (14×20) with many grid-spanning movie titles, each containing one or more numbers:
- {2012 Best Picture nominee} ZERO DARK THIRTY.
- {2018 Spielberg movie} READY PLAYER ONE.
- {1981 Carol Burnett/Alan Alda romcom} THE FOUR SEASONS. not familiar with this one.
- {With “The”: 2000 crime comedy starring Bruce Willis} WHOLE NINE YARDS.
- {1984 John Hughes comedy} SIXTEEN CANDLES.
- {With 68-Across: 2018 drama based on a controversial 2003 book} A MILLION LITTLE / PiECES, split up between two grid entries (curiously out of order, but sometimes that’s what the grid allows).
what do these have in common? well, they all contain numbers, and although not all of the numbers are perfect squares, each movie title does contain a perfect square. ZERO DARK THIRTY has both ZERO, which is a perfect square, and THIRTY, which isn’t. i don’t know if THIRTY is or isn’t participating in the meta mechanism; i would guess it not, because it doesn’t fit in with the others due to its non-squareness. but since i don’t actually know what the meta mechanism is, i can’t really rule it out.
the square roots of the perfect squares are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1000. that’s very much almost a pattern … and then abruptly very much not. they are in increasing order, for what it’s worth.
my initial thought is that we’re supposed to find a meta answer that describes this set of movies, rather than figure out what is missing from this set, or even something like using the square root to index into something (which obviously doesn’t work with 0 or 1000). but i don’t see anything. if SQUARE or something like that were in the grid, i’d be more excited about this line of thinking.
on the other hand, perhaps the prompt is something like “the meta answer is a 19__ film that would have been a good theme answer in this grid”, in which case i don’t really have much of a chance other than a random flyer. i guess i can’t really think of many other movie titles containing perfect squares. nothing is coming to mind with 25, 36, 49, 64, or 81. there’s probably something with 100, but nothing off the top of my head. oh, okay, there’s the hundred-foot journey, a movie i have actually seen (thanks to my sister-in-law) about two neighboring restaurants in france. speaking of france, the four hundred blows is a french movie of some renown (that i haven’t seen). if there’s a movie with “2025” in the title, that would be kind of a fun place for this to land, because 2025 is 45 squared… but i can’t think of one. the last perfect-square year before this one was 44^2 = 1936, which is similarly not in any movie title i can think of.
thinking about the title, i do like the idea of a movie title with a year in it, as “times” suggests both multiplying (a number by itself, say) and also chronology. many of the films in the theme are not exactly feel-good films, so the surface sense is probably not the most useful one.
yeah, okay, i’m going to have to look at the directions—this is probably not happening otherwise. “This week’s contest answer is a famous game show that doesn’t have a number in its title.” well, okay, fine—that’s hollywood squares. i don’t think there’s any way i could have made that leap without looking at the instructions, at least not with any confidence—this is just one thing the answer could have been among a sea of possibilities. so that’s kind of not a great feeling—i probably just wasted a chunk of my time on an unsolvable puzzle. maybe it’s time for me to stop trying week 1 without the instructions.
on the other hand, the puzzle on its own merits, with the instructions, is pretty good. “hollywood squares” would have been an absolutely perfect title for this puzzle if it had not been a meta. i think it would have been stronger without ZERO DARK THIRTY with the THIRTY in there muddying the waters. A MILLION LITTLE PIECES is funny, too, but i appreciate how clearly it rules out any possibility that you’re supposed to try to use the numbers to interact with the grid or clues in any way, as well as trying to continue the sequence.
that’s all i’ve got this week. it was nice to see many of you in stamford last weekend! on the other hand, matt, it’s been too long. we’ve got to get you back to a live tournament sooner or later.
Thanks, Joon — 437 correct entries this week, 394 of which were solo solves.
I pledge to make it to a live tournament in the next 12 months!
My solve went like this.
I figured out the perfect squares angle, but I had not looked at the meta question/instruction. I went on to work on the WSJ meta.
While I was doing that, a friend had texted me asking what do the numbers mean?
When I went to get my phone to submit the WSJ answer, I saw the text and wrote him back.
He responded, “Hollywood Squares!”
I looked at the meta instruction, then wrote him back, “That’s a great guess!”
I’ve never really understood the “solve it without the instructions” mindset. Sure, “it’s your puzzle, solve it how you want,” but the risk of encountering a situation like this always seems to outweigh the feeling-extra-smart reward.