Iconic basketball move of Kobe Bryant / MON 3-3-25 / 1980 disaster comedy film with an exclamation point in its title / Thought of and considered / Nickname for Yale attendees / Enticing one

Constructor: Harrison Walden

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday, solved Downs-only)

THEME: PRNDL — i.e. automatic transmission automobile gears: theme answers begin with PARK, REVERSE, NEUTRAL, DRIVE, and LOW, respectively: 

Theme answers:

• PARK RANGER (17A: Authority figure in Yellowstone or Grand Teton)
• REVERSE DUNK (25A: Iconic basketball move of Kobe Bryant)
• NEUTRAL COLORS (37A: Hues unlikely to cause clashes)
• DRIVE INSANE (52A: Annoy to a maddening extent)
• LOW SPIRITS (61A: Downer feeling)

Word of the Day: DENISE Richards (32A: Actress Richards of "The World Is Not Enough") —

Denise Lee Richards (born February 17, 1971) is an American actress, television personality, and model.^[2] She rose to prominence with roles in the science fiction film Starship Troopers (1997), the erotic thriller film Wild Things (1998), and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999). Her performance as Bond girl Christmas Jones, though criticized, granted Richards her mainstream breakthrough.

Richards has appeared in films such as the comedies Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), Undercover Brother (2002), Scary Movie 3 (2003), Love Actually (2003), and Madea's Witness Protection (2012), the slasher Valentine (2001), the dramas Edmond (2005) and Jolene (2008), and the musical thriller American Satan (2017). Her television roles include the sitcom Blue Mountain State (2010–2011), the mystery thriller series Twisted (2013–2014), and the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful (2019–2022).

Richards has starred on reality series such as Denise Richards: It's Complicated (2008–2009), The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2019–2020, 2023–2024), and the upcoming series Denise Richards & Her Wild Things (2025). In 2011, she published a memoir, The Real Girl Next Door, which became a New York Times Best Seller. (wikipedia)

• • •

[3D: 1980 disaster comedy film with an exclamation point in its title]

Hello and welcome to the Oscars™ Edition of Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle. Sadly, that does not mean that this post will feature movie stars and musical numbers, only that, for the first time in a long long time, I stayed up late (well past 10!) watching the Academy Awards broadcast to the very end, and so now am sitting here paying for it at 4:15 in the morning. Thus, the write-up will be abbreviated. I think. Or else I'll go into a delirious underslept rambling and I'll fill up the usual amount of space, but god knows with what? Anyway, congrats to ANORA, which deserved everything it won, and which will now definitely be in crosswords for, well, eons. Prepare yourself. 

As for this puzzle, it's PRNDL. That's it. I think that's it. I've definitely seen PRNDL-themed puzzles before, probably not exactly like this. Slightly weird to see a Monday puzzle with no revealer (I assume there will be at least some small number of people wondering what the theme is), but why crowd the grid with a revealer that's fairly obvious and not that exciting (PRNDL shows up as fill sometimes, to no one's great joy)? It's hard to talk pluses / negatives with this theme. It just is. There they are, five phrases that start with those five words. I think they're reasonably colorful phrases on their own. Solving Downs-only, it took me slightly longer than it usually takes to parse them. All of them. The RANGERS, DUNK, COLORS, and LOW parts all took some hacking away at (I didn't really "see" the theme until I was all done). My worst hold-up / slow-down involved imagining that the middle themer was NEUTRAL CORNER (you know, like in boxing?). Also, it took me a few beats to convince myself that LURER was a thing (still not convinced, frankly) (5D: Enticing one), and a few more beats to get 45D: Dexterous (ADROIT) when I couldn't get ADEPT to fit.

The worst struggle, however, was probably the same for anyone solving Downs-only (certainly true for both my wife and me), and that was: IN MIND (12D: Thought of and considered). So many issues, not least of which is that the clue looks like a verb phrase (whereas "Thought of" and "considered" are being used semi-adjectivally here, i.e something IN MIND has been (or is being) "thought of" and "considered"). Parsing that baby was rough. All kinds of awkwardness there, esp. for a Monday. But this will only be jarring only if you're solving Downs-only. Otherwise, probably just a weirdness blip. No biggie.

A few more things:

• 25A: Iconic basketball move of Kobe Bryant (REVERSE DUNK) — weird. I watched him play a few times over the years, I don't remember the REVERSE DUNK being "iconic" for him. I'm sure it's got some truth to it, it's just ... if it were truly "iconic" (like Kareem's skyhook, or Jordan's dunk where he takes off from about the freethrow line), then I would expect it to leap out at me.
• 28A: "The ___" (Tyler Perry series set in the White House) ("OVAL") — sometimes it's good to solve Downs-only, as you don't get tripped up by pop culture stuff you don't know. I would've been stumped here (though I'm always happy for the opportunity to remind people that TYLER PERRY made his first appearance in the NYTXW in one of my puzzles) (the same puzzle in which I debuted AMYPOEHLER and PORTLANDIA) (Jun. 21, 2013)

• 69A: "___ of the D'Urbervilles" (Thomas Hardy novel) ("TESS") — the parenthetical feels redundant. I mean, if you don't know TESS from the title alone, then saying it's a "Thomas Hardy novel" is not going to help you. Why not [Hardy heroine]? It's so neat and compact. And alliterative, for those of you who like that.
• 26D: Part of a microscope or telescope (EYE LENS) — as with LURER, I balked at this one. Are there lenses for *other* parts of your body. A TOE LENS, maybe? EYE LENS feels ridiculously redundant.
• 59D: Author and lawyer ___ Stanley Gardner (ERLE) — I like that they stuck "lawyer" in there. It's true! And it was very relevant to the creation of all his detective novels, particularly the Perry Mason ones. If you're going to bring back old-school crosswordese, sure, give us a little added trivia. I like that.

See you next time. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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One tapped by leadership? / SUN 3-2-25 / Armada vessel / Sydneysider's salutation / ___ Rebellion (19th-century Chinese conflict) / Encryption code, in computer science lingo / Spinoff of a popular lecture series / Expecting, informally / Binary pronoun options / "Don't take offense," nowadays / On the safe side, nautically / Super Mario character also known as King Koopa / Modest bouquet

Constructor: Adam Wagner

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Rainbow Connection" — seven colored vertical lines appear in the grid (one for each color of the rainbow: RED ORANGE YELLOW GREEN BLUE INDIGO VIOLET); in order to solve the Acrosses that cross those lines, you have to add the letters from the colors, as if the names of those colors appeared INSIDE THE LINES (113A: Tidy way to color ... and where seven words are hiding in this puzzle?):

Theme answers: 

• BURG (1A: Town)
• ASEA (19A: Mid-voyage)
• NODS (23A: Go-ahead responses)
•    SOHO (16A: N.Y.C. neighborhood where the Cronut was invented)
•    IRAN (22A: Neighbor of Pakistan)
•    EASE (26A: Move gingerly)
•    GNAT (30A: Winged pest)
•  PREGGO (35A: Expecting, informally)
• GALLEON (42A: Armada vessel)
•     GYRATE (49A: Go in circles)
•     REEF (55A: Maritime hazard)
•     ALPE (61A: Mont Blanc, par exemple)
•     PLOT (68A: Narrative arc)
•     POSY (73A: Modest bouquet)
• ROYALWE (77A: Pompous "I")
•  MAGNET (56A: It's simultaneously attractive and repulsive)
•   GRAY (62A: Like much limestone)
•  MEETS (69A: Athletic competitions)
•  ALEE (74A: On the safe side, nautically)
• GRINDS (79A: Makes mincemeat of)
•   ABBA (70A: Band whose name is a rhyme scheme)
•   COLT (75A: Derby entry)
•   TRUE (81A: Verifiable)
• TWINES (85A: Packaging cords)
• TAIPING (92A: ___ Rebellion (19th-century Chinese conflict))
• ORNATE (101A: Showy)
• TEDX (106A: Spinoff of a popular lecture series)
• ATIT (112A: Fighting)
• LOGO (116A: Nike's swoosh or McDonald's golden arches)
• SOON (120A: Not quite yet)
• CANTEVEN (97A: Is too overwhelmed with emotion to speak)
•     SIRI (105A: iPhone speaker?)
•     COON (111A: Actress Carrie of HBO's "The Leftovers")
•     OLDE (115A: Word on a shoppe sign)
•     PEER (119A: Equal)
•     ETDS (123A: Some flight tracker data, for short)

Word of the Day: TAIPING Rebellion (92A: ___ Rebellion (19th-century Chinese conflict)) —

The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which they had renamed Tianjing "heavenly capital"—in 1864. The last rebel forces were defeated in August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 and 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population at that time. While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.

The uprising was led by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka who had proclaimed himself to be the brother of Jesus Christ. Hong sought the religious conversion of the Han people to his syncretic version of Christianity, as well as the political overthrow of the Qing dynasty, and a general transformation of the mechanisms of state. Rather than supplanting China's ruling class, the Taiping rebels sought to entirely upend the country's social order. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom located at Nanjing managed to seize control of significant portions of southern China. At its peak, the Heavenly Kingdom ruled over a population of nearly 30 million people. (wikipedia)

• • •

This puzzle was basically over ... here:

The first few Acrosses in the NW wouldn't work, so I got the Downs and a couple more Acrosses and I could immediately see what was up. After that, the whole theme was transparent, and the whole puzzle a little bit easier, as I had ... what is that? 33 letters, just handed to me by the grid? Nothing left to discover. Just the revealer—which is fine, but not exactly thrilling. The puzzle was diverting, I guess. But on the whole it was too easy and way way Way too full of 3- and 4-letter answers. It's such a weirdly-built grid, with these loooong narrow sections, and then complete non-connectivity between the SW and NE corners and the adjacent S and N sections, respectively. If you solve by working off crosses you already have (as I do—it's efficient), then you have to climb So Far to get back out of the SW and into the rest of the grid. If you're down at SO(O)N (the very bottom of the grid in the SW), you have to go all the way back up to GRATE (above the equator!) before you can find a way back down into the southern part of the grid. Here, I've drawn red lines to show what I mean:

That makes the SW and NE the most bizarrely cut-off / sequestered / isolated corners I've ever seen in a grid. Might as well be wholly separate puzzles. Those red lines highlight the corridor-like structure of the grid, which in turn highlights just how many short answers there were—a brutal amount of short stuff, truly. The idea here is cute, I think, and the revealer is right on the money, in terms of representing what's actually going on with the theme. I appreciate that all the color-crossing Acrosses make totally plausible (unclued) answers without the letters from the colors in place, and I also appreciate that the colors of the rainbow are basically in order, reading L to R, top to bottom (RO up top, YGB in the center section, and IV down below). But this puzzle had no sustain. The theme reveals itself all at once, early, and you're left with the rather workmanlike task of filling in a bunch of mostly 3- and 4-letter answers, one letter of which has already been provided with you. Not exactly peak thrills.

[95A: Something to chew on]

I got in precisely two jams while solving this one, neither of which lasted long, the first of which was much worse than the second. The first ... was the "WHY IS IT?" (!?!?!?!) / DILI / TAIPING smash-up in the SW. I could not bring myself to accept "WHY IS IT?" as a question. What is the context for that question? It does not read like a plausible standalone question, and it especially doesn't seem a strong enough question to be worthy of a wacky "?" clue (67D: Line of questioning?). Is "Line of questioning?" just ... a line ... you say ... when you question something? Isn't any question a "line of questioning?" So bad / weak / strange. As for DILI, shrug, just forgot it. It's been in the puzzle before, but it's pretty obscure, as world capitals go (83A: Capital of East Timor). And as for TAIPING, that's on me, I really should know what the hell that is, but tbh I did not. I looked it up and I can't believe I was wholly unaware of what seems to be a major even in world history. Sometimes the holes in our knowledge are gaping. Most of us don't confess them to the world, but ... that's what I've signed on for, so now you know: my knowledge of Chinese history is (apparently) very poor. The other sticky spot for me in the grid was HASH (!?) / ADD FUEL, the first part of which was just whatever, coding blah blah I'll just trust you on that (96D: Encryption code, in computer science lingo), but the last part of which, ugh, horrible (103A: What "E" on a gauge means). "E" means "Empty." It absolutely does not mean "ADD FUEL." You ADD FUEL before you get to "E." Just a cheap, stupid trick to say that "E" means "ADD FUEL." Your car might have an "ADD FUEL" warning message, but, still, that's not what "E" means. Hey, did you know ADD FUEL is also (per wikipedia) the moniker of "Portuguese visual artist and illustrator Diogo Machado (born 1980)"? He's a graffiti / street artist. His work looks very cool, actually. Lots of blue & white patterns, and the occasional freaky creature.

But yeah, beyond the "WHY IS IT?" and ADD FUEL sections, not a struggle point anywhere. All the ink on my print-out is concentrated on those two areas. I think I had some hesitation around HE OR SHE (32A: Binary pronoun options) because it's not a formulation I've heard in a while, and also I thought it might be HE OR HIM ... like, some extended way of saying your pronouns are "he/him." Wish there had been some (any) context on the clue for SIT ONE OUT (11D: Take a breather). One what? Dance? Give me some color, clue! Make me see it.

What else?:

• 9A: "Don't take offense," nowadays ("NO SHADE") — "No offense" turned into this phrase a while back, among people younger than ... well, me, that's for sure. Still, very familiar to me, for many years, unlike "NO CAP" ("no lie," "for real"), which I learned only just last year, from a crossword (I think) and then my students, who confirmed, yes, old man, it's a thing. (They didn't say the "old man" part, and if they thought it, I'm sure it was affectionate)
• 16A: N.Y.C. neighborhood where the Cronut was invented (SOHO) — are cronuts still things? For like six months there, everyone was all cronut this, cronut that, but now ... the very term feels like a relic. A 2010s relic. "Time magazine named the Cronut one of the best inventions of 2013," LOL "invention."
• 24A: The humanities, traditionally (ARTS AND LETTERS) — been in the humanities (specifically, English departments) my entire adult life and yet this phrase did not come naturally at all. ARTS AND SCIENCES wouldn't fit ... and so I was stuck until I got some crosses. I realize that "sciences" are not "humanities," but if you Match Game me with "ARTS AND ___," there's only one word I'm going to want. Well, two. There's ARTS AND CRAFTS, but that doesn't seem to fit the context, somehow.

• 44A: One tapped by leadership? (SIR) — think "knight," as in "I dub thee, SIR Mix-A-Lot, Defender of Big Butts" or whatever, and then tap tap with a sword on either shoulder, and then rise and assume your title.
• 74A: On the safe side, nautically (ALEE) — one of the weirdest things about the extended NYT Games universe is that ALEE is ultra-common in the crossword, but Spelling Bee does not recognize its existence.
• 111A: Actress Carrie of HBO's "The Leftovers" (COON) — would've been a massive "???" to me except I listen occasionally to Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast and she was a very recent guest on that show (Feb. 24), so even though I haven't listened to that interview yet, her name was right in front of my face, and somehow it stuck.

• 16D: Longtime host Robert of NPR's "All Things Considered" (SIEGEL) — good memories of a time I was still able to listen to NPR (I gave up almost all news-related and even news-adjacent radio and TV, including any and all late night shows, the moment the Creep came to power in 2016—it's hard for me even to listen to my local classical station, as I have to remember to turn the channel at the top of every hour so I don't have to endure hearing about whatever inevitable horror the day has to offer) (I'll fill myself in, on my own time, in as brief a way as possible). (note: Sebastian STAN is stealth Creep content (82A: Actor Sebastian ___ of the "Avengers" movies)—he's up for Best Actor (tonight!) for playing a young Creep in last year's The Apprentice).
• 42D: Sydneysider's salutation ("G'DAY, MATES") — a little weird in the plural, maybe, but I'll allow it, if only for the experience of the word "Sydneysider," which would be a *good* debut, if you could manage to squeeze it into a grid.
• 48D: Super Mario character also known as King Koopa (BOWSER) — ... and the Nintendification of the puzzle continued unabated ...
• 79D: Single-player and multiplayer, for two (GAME MODES) — a little weird in the plural, once again, but this video game term, I didn't mind, as it did not require me to be proficient in any single video game's lore. 
• 114D: Popular wood for American whiskey barrels until a 20th-century blight (ELM) — huh. I did not know this. Oak is the most common wood for such barrels today.  Always up for some whiskey history in my puzzle. I assume the "blight" in question is "Dutch Elm Disease" 

Have a Roy G. Beautiful day. I'm gonna go try to do my 5-mile walk in 9-degree weather :( See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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