Ailee Yoshida’s New York Times crossword— Sophia’s write-up
Theme: COFFEE BREAK – The grid contains the names of four coffee orders, “broken” between two answers.
New York Times, 12 16 2024, By Ailee Yoshida
- 17a [Sound of an unfortunate bird poop landing]/18a [Blab] – SPLAT/TELL
- 22a [Hi-___ image] / 23a [Department handling media inquiries] – RES/PRESS OFFICE
- 48a [Competition whose winner gets a tiara and sash] / 52[Gesture of approval] – MISS AMERICA/NOD
- 56a [Muppet with his own “world” on “Sesame Street”] / 57a [Blingy piece of neckwear] – ELMO/CHAIN
- 34a [Timeout at work … as represented visually by this puzzle’s circled letters] – COFFEE BREAK
Anyone else have “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter stuck in their head after solving this one? I think this theme and revealer is super effective. COFFEE BREAK is a fun phrase on its own, and perfectly explains what’s going on here. All of the answers included in the coffee phrases are solid, with PRESS OFFICE and MISS AMERICA as the standouts (although I did try to fill in “beauty pageant” at first).
The thing with hidden word puzzles is that the rest of the fill needs to be strong enough to withstand the fact that there aren’t necessarily long theme entries – the puzzle can very easily become full of short, boring fill. But that’s not what happened here! There’s a lot of fun fill, like CHIA SEED, ELEGANCE, ARTISTIC, AVOCADO, SO I HEAR. There are a few pieces of fill that are suboptimal (ILIUM, IF I), but overall everything works.
Random other thoughts: I enjoy how much cookie related content is in this puzzle – the BEAR-shaped Teddy Grahams, Double STUF Oreos, and cookies in a SLEEVE. The hardest part of the puzzle for me was the bottom middle, since I didn’t know Phil SIMMS. And some clue highights: [This stinks!] for ODOR, [Like lines / that rhyme / and keep / good time] for POETIC.
Happy Monday all!
Fred Raker & Andrea Carla Michaels’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Recasting”—Jim’s review
Debut puzzle for ACMe’s co-constructor, so congrats are in order. Theme answers are well-known film titles where one of the words is also the surname of a well-known actor. Clues then imagine that actor being recast in the film.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Recasting” · Fred Raker & Andrea Carla Michaels · Mon., 12.16.24
- 20a. [1989 Kevin Costner film recast with Sally?] FIELD OF DREAMS.
- 35a. [1941 Orson Welles film recast with Carol?] CITIZEN KANE.
- 40a. [2015 Steve Carell film recast with Martin?] THE BIG SHORT.
- 53a. [2008 Jeremy Renner film recast with William?] THE HURT LOCKER.
Easy and breezy Monday grid to get the week started. All of these are big-name films and all the actors are equally famous, so it should be readily accessible to even those who aren’t film buffs.
I’m not sure I buy the premise about recasting though. After all, a film is not going to be titled after one of its actors unless it’s about that actor. It would make more sense to me if the clues went the more traditional wacky route. For example, [Film about actress Carol performing her civic duties?] or [Film about actor Martin’s rise in comedy?].
SOY MILK, SHED A TEAR, and CLASSMATE top the fill. A few examples of crosswordese (OLEO, MUS, TREO) are scattered around the grid, but for the most part, they’re easily gotten past.
Clue of note: 5d. [It’s full of holes]. GOLF. I don’t know about “full” but I do like this clue.
3.25 stars.