Unofficial 1984 Olympics anthem / SAT 10-7-23 / Pou ___ (vantage point) / One who's served admirally? / Detective in high-grossing films of 1984, 1987 and 1994 / Weapon now known as an LGM-118 Peacekeeper / Liquor brand in a blue bottle / Neighborhood near Tarzana / Heroine in a legendary franchise

Constructor: Alex Vratsanos

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: pou STO (55D: Pou ___ (vantage point)) —

: a standing place or vantage point : BASE, BASIS // Etymology: Greek pou stō where I may stand; from a statement attributed (in various forms) to Archimedes, "Give me a place to stand (literally, where I may stand) and I will move the earth" (merriam-webster.com)

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The grid looks pretty nice, but solving this was a slog. Lots of trivia and lots of trying-*very*-hard clues. What they're trying *very* hard to do is be clever and misleading, and while they mostly succeed on the latter point, the former point ... I dunno. Sometimes, maybe. Like, OK, Sigourney Weaver was in the movie ALIENS so [Weaver's work?] was cute, but [Swing state?] for MOOD? Er... I get that you are punning on "mood swings" here, but the swing itself is not a "state" so ... it seems like MOOD is what you're in before or after the swing. Like, with mood swings, there's MOODs on either end, and a swing between, so the clue seems inherently contradictory somehow. Maybe the idea is that you swing ... from one of these states (MOOD) into this another one of these states (another MOOD)? The tightness and electoral misdirection of the surface meaning of the clue must've been too irresistible. I just think it's a bad clue for MOOD. Also, the clue on PIZZA BOX seems to be getting away with lots of shenanigans just to make its "math" "joke." "Perfect" is doing a lot of work. A regular-ass square shape is what a PIZZA BOX is. Also, "circumference," yeesh. You don't just put the "circumference" of your (pizza) pie in the box, you put the whole-ass pizza in there. Did you just order the crust? "One pizza, hold all SAUCE, cheese, toppings ... nothing in the center at all ... that's right ... yes, I know that's just the crust, is that a problem?" This clue needed at least a "?" It's way too ornate. Again, I bet you had fun with it, but as a crossword clue, it's ungainly. 

The worst of the ?" clues, for me, was the one on NAVY VET (44A: One who's served admirally?), for two reasons. Well, maybe more, let's see. Well, the first problem here is actually structural, which is to say that the answer runs through a choke point, one of these exceedingly narrow passageways (one letter wide), and the answer breaks precisely at the choke point, so I got NAVY and then ... no idea, and no way to get into that back half because it's in an entirely different section of the puzzle. The one cross I might've gotten there (the "V") could've been a "G" "O" or "V" (GEENA, OSSIE, or VIOLA—The Three-Davis Problem) (45D: Davis of film). So it's a frustrating answer to begin with, clue aside, because of where the answer breaks in the grid. But then there's the clue, and ... sigh. OK, "who's" is the problem here. That apostrophe is a cheap trick, in that it makes it seem like "who's" mean "who is," but the clue really means "who has," Past Tense, but you'd just never punctuate it that way if you wanted to be clear. Never ever. It's not a plausible punctuation in this case for "who has." So you clunkily hide the past tense, which means VET ... no chance. NAVYMAN was my only guess there. Seemed awfully gendered, but at least "I'm a NAVY MAN" seemed like a thing someone might say. "Served admirally," groan. These ornate misdirections and "?" clues Have To Land Perfectly. Otherwise it's just Eyeroll City. 

It's too bad the cluing was trying so hard (and awkwardly) to be hard because, as I say, the grid itself looks nice. The NW is particularly vibrant, what with those "X"s and then the "Q" in the MOSQUE (not TEMPLE, my first guess) (6D: House of worship), and the "Z" in the twisty HEDGE MAZE (1A: Plot development with twists?), and the surprising three-consonant opening of MXMISSILE (16A: Weapon now known as an LGM-118 Peacekeeper). And the opposite corner isn't bad either, with IN THE WEEDS and ECHOLOCATE forming a nice long pairing (the one part of the puzzle that felt more whoosh than slog). I got stuck a bunch while solving, but I was at my stuckiest in the NE, where OUTLIER nearly killed me (26A: Anomalous figure). That "O" ... I wanted ODD-something. ODD DUCK at first. The fact that "O"-starting ODD and "Anomalous" are synonyms really messed me up. Even after I got -IER at the end, I could not see how I could make a word. O---IER seemed impossible. Really felt dumb when the answer ended up being something as simple as OUTLIER. Flummoxed by the punctuation on A dot 1 dot in 20D: A.1., for one, so the steak SAUCE neeeeever occurred to me. Wanted the SHORT in SHORT HAIR but that seemed way too generic a trait to be a "breed," so I balked. So, no access to the NE corner. Had to jump in there and get answers from scratch, no crosses. Mostly failed, but somehow knew SKYY immediately (13D: Liquor brand in a blue bottle). Didn't help at first, until *finally* the [Unofficial 1984 Olympics anthem] came to me. Those Olympics were held in Los Angeles, and so ... Randy Newman's "I LOVE L.A." ("We love it!").  Once Randy went in, I was HOME(Y) free.

The puzzle leans into crosswordese in unpleasant ways. STO is very nearly fatal. Like ... it's about the worst piece of crosswordese I have Ever seen, and I haven't seen it in years, for precisely this reason. No one's touching it. It's awful and arcane and did I mention awful? You never see POU in a puzzle. You never see POUSTO in a puzzle. But STO? Dear lord. Every constructor knows this "word" because your constructing software will be like "hey, STO works great here, if you use STO, this corner you've been struggling with for hours will magically come out great." It's a trap. It's the equivalent of selling your first-born. You do not give in to the STO voices. Ever. STO makes DORY look scintillating. STO makes LOTSO (?) seem almost real. STO makes CHANCE THA ICHOR seem like a cool hip-hop moniker. Maybe STO is here to make all the other junk look good? I don't know why STO is here, but the moral of the story is, STO shouldn't be here. STO shouldn't be anywhere. Say no to the STO. For the love of god. Please. 

EFS because there are two "F"s in "Puff" (5D: Puff pieces?). ELOPE because that's when the marriage "service" is performed in "secret" (24D: Employ the secret service?). HAMM because ... well, I have no idea what Million Dollar Arm is, but I've been watching the new season of "The Morning Show," where Jon HAMM has a feature role as a "what if Elon Musk were socially adept and dreamy-looking?" character, so ... actor Jon in four letters—no problem (1D: Jon of Disney's "Million Dollar Arm"). Oh, and AXEL FOLEY was the detective in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise (14A: Detective in high-grossing films of 1984, 1987 and 1994). See you tomorrow.  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld  

P.S. my friend, crossword constructor Rachel Fabi (with whom I sometimes solve cryptic crosswords on Twitch), is participating in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's "Out of the Darkness" walk today in Syracuse, helping to raise money for suicide prevention in Central New York. She's pretty close to her fundraising goal this morning. I'm pretty sure this group can put her over, no problem. Please support her if you can. Here's the link. Thanks.

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