Wednesday, December 10, 2025

AV Club 6:55 (Amy) [2.30 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
LAT 5:35 (Gareth) [2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT untimed (Amy) [3.62 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 3:12 (Kyle) [4.43 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 6:50 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 7:08 (Eric) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Andrea Carla Michaels’ Wall Street Journal Crossword “Vivid Pictures” — Eric’s Review

Andrea Carla Michaels’ Wall Street Journal Crossword “Vivid Pictures” — 12/10/25

I’m always down for a movie theme, even when it’s one that I’ve played around with myself. And it’s educational!

The vivid pictures:

• 18A [1984 film that won Prince the Oscar for Best Original Score] PURPLE RAIN
• 28A [First superhero film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture] BLACK PANTHER
• 36A [1916 film innovation, and a punny hint to this puzzle’s theme] TECHNICOLOR “Punny” because (I guess) the titles all have colors. I’d have just said it’s a hint and left it at that.
• 45A [2011 Ryan Reynolds superhero film] GREEN LANTERN
• 59A [David Lynch film that features a Bobby Vinton song on the soundtrack] BLUE VELVET

“The Gulf Between” (1917), the first publicly shown Technicolor film

I’ve seen half these movies and was familiar with the ones I hadn’t seen, so the theme answers were easy for me to get. I expect that solvers who are not big movie fans might be able to use the theme to help them get some of those titles.

The 1916 date in the the clue for TECHNICOLOR seemed 20 or so years early to me. But it’s not; Process 1, the first Technicolor process, was introduced over 100 years ago. Only one movie was ever made using that process.

Other stuff:

• 22A [“The Merry Widow” composer] Franz LEHAR A gimme; that waltz figures prominently in one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, Shadow of a Doubt.
• 50A [Last bit of Bordeaux?] SILENT X I almost never get answers of that sort from that kind of clue.
• 65A [Architect Saarinen] EERO Another gimme and not just from crosswords; his TWA terminal at JFK Airport, the main terminal at Dulles International Airport and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis are iconic works of modern architecture.
• 2D [Breathtaking views] EYEFULS/4D [Offering breathtaking views] SCENIC To me, EYEFUL is more suggestive of a visually striking person, not a vista.
• 12D [Italian physicist Tonelli] GUIDO That’s a new name for me. He’s a living particle physicist who was involved with the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. (I have heard of both particle and the particle accelerator, though.)
• 30D [Scottish town on the Moray Firth] NAIRN Another new name for me. It’s small (less than 10,000 people) and is primarily known as a seaside resort.
• 48D [Pencil that may not be sharpened any further] NUB I take issue with that clue. When I worked for the Texas Legislature, we marked up drafts with erasable color pencils. I used many pencils well into nub-hood and could sharpen them as long as there was something to hold onto when I put in the pencil sharpener.

Kareem Ayas’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 12/10/25 – no. 1210

Interesting, an asymmetrical theme (albeit in a symmetrical grid, it’s not chaos). The revealer is UNDER REPAIR, and there are three entries that might be out of order, with the entries above containing RE RE, a “RE pair”:

• 23A. [OUT OF ORDER! 🚫🚫🚫 PAPER TRAY REQUIRES MAINTENANCE!], PRINTER. Above, PRE-RECORDED.
• 44A. [OUT OF ORDER! 🚫🚫🚫 USE STAIRS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!], ESCALATOR. Above, NATURE RESERVES.
• 69A. [OUT OF ORDER! 🚫🚫🚫 USE SECOND-FLOOR BATHROOM INSTEAD!], TOILET. Above, ROSES ARE RED.

I hate an out-of-order escalator! They’re just weird to walk up.

Fave fill: RICE PADDY, RUPAUL, VEGGIE BACON. Don’t really know the sportsy term EVENER ([Game-tying goal]), which feels a little clunky, like SEEDER and SWAT AT.

3.75 stars from me.

Peter Gwin & Karen Lurie’s AV Club Classic crossword, “If You Have to Ask…”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 12/10/25 – “If You Have to Ask…”

The theme centers on 41a. [Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year, and the enumeration for 21-, 29-, 50-, and 59-Across], SIX SEVEN. Those are 13-letter entries, with 6- and 7-letter words:

• 21a. [Digital list that can be helpful or incriminating], SEARCH HISTORY.
• 29a. [Fixture that’s ideally wet on one side and dry on the other], SHOWER CURTAIN.
• 50a. [What’s added to LaCroix but not to Hint], CARBON DIOXIDE. Seltzer vs still water.
• 59a. [What 41-Across means, and what aptly connects this puzzle’s theme answers], MOSTLY NOTHING. Schoolkids like to shriek “six seven!!” upon getting someone else (like a teacher or parent) to say something with those numbers, such as “I can be there in six, seven minutes.” It’s meaningless and somehow a zillion kids have signaled their membership in their generation via that. (Much of what I learned about “six seven,” I learned from watching a recent South Park episode. Educational! It’s also taught me about the obsequiousness of ChatGPT, Charlie Kirk, and ICE recruitment.)

Three more things:

• 49a. [Showbiz accomplishment pursued by Tracy Jordan], EGOT. That’s the 30 Rock character played by Tracy Morgan, who popularized the term “EGOT.”
• 71a. [Caterpillar product], SILK. Not Caterpillar tractors, but a silkworm’s product.
• 2d. [Common follower], LAW. As in the phrase common law husband.

Four stars from me.

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword – Kyle’s write-up

The New Yorker solution grid – Patrick Berry – Wednesday 12/10/2025

Thanks Patrick for today’s puzzle. Quick notes from my solve:

• 1A [Beachside shade structure], six letters: is it cabana or palapa? Crossings gave me CABANA. I believe there is a bar somewhere along the Chicago Riverwalk with an outdoor seating area called ‘The Palapa’, which is why it came to mind so quickly. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it thus:

Palapa (n.)

1. An open-sided dwelling with a thatched roof made of dried palm leaves.

2. A structure, such as a bar or restaurant in a tropical resort, that is open-sided and thatched with palm leaves.

Photo credit: Christian Frausto Bernal via Flickr under CC-BY-SA 2.0 license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/34608250@N00/274034374

• 14D – never heard the expression “YOU’RE ALL WET!” meaning [“That couldn’t be more wrong!”]
• 45A [Venetian Renaissance painter with a namesake orange-red color] TITIAN.
• 37A [Facts and figures, casually] INFO. Another trip-up point where I first entered data, having missed the “casually” hint.
• 34A SERIAL COMMA, also known as the “Oxford comma”…or apparently, per Wikipedia, the “Harvard comma”.

CJ Tan’s Universal crossword, “Cash In” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 12/10/25 • Wed • “Cash In” • Tan • solution • 20251210

The circled squares in the middle of the theme phrases, they spell names of currency.

• 34a^R [Wall Street, e.g., or a theme hint] FINANCIAL CENTER.
• 16a. [Contradictory signoff on a walkie-talkie] OVER AND OUT (rand).
• 23a. [Many a fairy tale has one] HAPPY ENDING (yen).
• 45a. [“My fingers are also crossed!”] I HOPE SO TOO (peso).
• 54a. [“That’s just not true!”] YOU’RE A LIAR (real).

I’m not too excited about this theme, because it feels as if it’s been done so many times. The execution is competent, however.

• 2d [Perspective, briefly] POV, point of view.
• 4d [South American home of the world’s highest permanent settlement, La Rinconada] PERU. Good trivia.
• 5d [Like the function y = 3x] LINEAR. 6d [Make sense] ADD UP.
• 7d [Not tread lightly] STOMP. Mistakenly put in STAMP and spent some time at the end hunting up the error.
• 22d [Word before “edit” or “wave”] RADIO. Interesting clue choice.
  
• 54d [Evergreen that sounds like a pronoun] YEW. So I glossed the clue, assumed it said ‘preposition’, and put in FIR.
• 1a [Each] A POP. 41a [Slightly] A TAD.
  
• 58a [Samberg of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”] ANDY. 25d [Comedian Andre] ERIC. Don’t really know either’s oeuvre, but I did know the names.
• 60a [Mammal that annoys gardeners] NEIGHBOR MOLE.
  

Peggy Sue Marlin’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

LA Times 101225

Peggy Sue Marlin features four two-part phrases where a British and an American synonym pair are smooshed together to make a made-up phrase. We get…

• [Rental unit with zero personality…], FLATAPARTMENT
• [One who forgot insect repellant for a walk in the park], BUGGYSTROLLER
• [Five star frank?], BANGERSAUSAGE
• [Salad special at Cape Canaveral cafe], ROCKETARUGULA

Gareth

Prasanna Keshava’s USA Today Crossword, “Forwarded Messages” — Emily’s write-up

Are you a blue bubble or green?

USA Today, December 10, 2025, “Forwarded Messages” by Prasanna Keshava

Theme: each themer contains –TEXT–

Themers:

• 19a. [Perfect case in point], TEXTBOOKEXAMPLE
• 24a. [Perished like the woolly mammoths], WENTEXTINCT
• 44a. [In large measure], TOAGREATEXTENT
• 50a. [How some pull quotes might be taken], OUTOFCONTEXT

This themer set is strong with four today: TEXTBOOKEXAMPLE, WENTEXTINCT, TOAGREATEXTENT, and OUTOFCONTEXT. Only the last was an insta-fill for me today though the rest were easy enough with fair crossings. Plus, it’s delightful how TEXT moves from the far left to the far right–a very apt title hint indeed!

Favorite fill: SNOUT, STARR, WALK, and XENA

Stumpers: UMNO (“nope” came to mind first), TOETOTOE (needed crossings), and VEY (my atrocious spelling ability got in my way of this one today though I knew the entry right away)

Loved today’s puzzle, theme and themer set, plus the grid design. It had a great flow for me and was a smooth solve. Lots of great fill and especially lengthy bonus ones too. I also always enjoy a set of four when they are so cohesive as well. Nicely done!

4.25 stars

~Emily