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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- PARTY-CRASHER (20A: I came uninvited)
- NOSTRADAMUS (34A: I saw the future)
- KEN JENNINGS (41A: I conquered "Jeopardy!" for 74 days straight)
Eden is a 2024 American historical survival thriller film directed by Ron Howard and written by Noah Pink, from a story by the pair.[4] It stars Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Daniel Brühl, Felix Kammerer, Toby Wallace, and Richard Roxburgh. The film is based on the true story of several European settlers, including Margret Wittmer, who arrive on the isolated Floreana Island, in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, pre-World War II, hoping to start a life there.The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024, and was released theatrically in Germany on April 2, 2025, by Leonine, and in the United States by Vertical on August 22, 2025. The film received mixed reviews from critics. [...] Following its releases in Germany and Italy, the film grossed a total of $825,041.
In the United States and Canada, the film made $1 million from 664 theaters in its opening weekend.
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The one notable bit of fill today, from where I'm sitting, is HOKA, a brand I've been waiting to show up in the NYTXW for years now (21D: Trendy sneaker brand). From where I was literally sitting, yesterday, in the cafe I got to most mornings, I was noticing a guy's HOKA shoes and thinking about this very thing: how trendy they are, and how I still hadn't seen HOKA in the grid. I mean, with that "K," HOKA is never gonna reach EDEN or EIRE or ASEA levels of crossword prominence, but it could do some damage. Might have legs. Any new four-letter answer is likely to have some kind of life ... and afterlife. Just ask ASTA. Gone but not forgotten (by crossword solvers).
I can imagine some of the proper nouns giving some solvers trouble here and there (HOKA, TAKIS ... EDEN, lol), but otherwise this seemed very easy. Four-letter repeater after four-letter repeater. Some three-letter repeaters. Some five-letter repeaters. A lot of repeaters. I like the AVOCADO / RIPENED pairing, for obvious reasons, and KEGELS gave the grid a little unexpected squeeze. I wrote in PUPU before POKE (40A: Fishy Hawaiian dish). I don't think I knew TAKIS were considered "chips" (31D: Chips with a "Blue Heat" flavor). I thought they were more like ... sticks. Wait, am I getting them confused with that Japanese snack ... lol yes, POCKY! (rhymes with TAKI?)
Bullets:
- 32D: Name inside of a libretto? (BRETT) — literally, inside the word "li-BRETT-o"
- 58D: Get on (with) (VIBE) — I was thinking of the phrase "get on with it!" and so the verb meaning of "VIBE (with)" didn't occur to me until I got a couple crosses.
- 55D: "Soup's on!" ("DIG IN!") — these seem like completely different statements: one you say to call everyone to the table, and the other you say after everyone's seated. For this reason, I think, my brain kept shouting "DIN-DIN!" — which is what you might say in order to call someone (or, say, a cat) to dinner. "DIN-DIN!" wouldn't fit, of course, but I still think it's a nearer equivalent to "Soup's on!" than "DIG IN!" is.
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Offbeat theme no doubt - I had the same reaction to KEN JENNINGS. I may be one of a handful who’s never really watched the show - and I know it’s hugely popular but as conquerors go he’s has to be pretty far down on the list.
ReplyDeleteBRETT Dennen
Overall fill is workmanlike - no real hiccups. Liked EGGED ON and the AVOCADO - RIPENED pair. GARDENS is a pleasant sight in the grid. They may be trendy now but a few years ago when I started wearing HOKA’s for my daily runs they were a game changer for my long term calf issues. I’ve since moved on to similar Saucony shoes but I have nothing but love them.
LATE NIGHT Grand Hotel
Enjoyable enough Wednesday morning solve.
The FINAL Cut
Finished it thanks to an alphabet run for the HOKA/KEGELS cross (never heard of either, not even in a crossword). Interesting theme idea, but a weakness, I'd say, is that GATECRASHER (alone among the three) is an unidentified person.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteEasy, but fun. Liked it more than not.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
AS If before AS IN for "Like ..." at 28D. With that and because 42D could have been urGED ON, KEN JENNINGS (41A) was hard to see until I read the clue.
My challah recipe has you kneaD before you BRAID (60A).
WOEs:
I'm just not trendy enough to know the sneaker brand HOKA (21D).
Didn't know the recent movie EDEN at 65A.
At 31 across, isn’t TBD duplicative of the clue, “Not yet decided, for short”? That clue gave me pause.
ReplyDeleteI've heard TBD as "to be determined".
DeleteAbsolutely terrible.
ReplyDeleteThe KENJENNINGS clue is so weak that the word "conquered" needed to be part of it, making it a definition clue, the worst. The clues for VENI and VIDI are also bogus.
There is so little sparkle in the cluing that the constructor resorted to a cryptic clue at 32D. It's not even a clever cryptic clue.
Not even a correct one -- BRETT is inside of libretto, not "a libretto."
DeleteIt flew right over my head – twice.
ReplyDeleteThe theme answers began with “I came”, “I saw”, and “I conquered”, yet when I came to the revealer, not having read its clue, VENI VIDI VICI never entered my mind.
When I finally read the revealer’s clue, starting with “Classic quotation”, and revealed the first two letters *then* the phrase hit me with a flash and a boom.
But the English translation in the theme answer clues still hadn’t registered, and thus, when I reread those clues, there came boom number two -- and so for me this was a kapow puzzle. That pair of booms nixed any nits I might have otherwise had. I’m a believer.
Little lifts along the way. The mention of challah evoked its marvelous-to-me look, aroma, and taste. The contradictory PuzzPair©️ of KEN JENNINGS and DENSE. Those three-, four-, and five-letter palindromes (AJA, NOON, RADAR). And the answer AMOR, which backwards adds to the theme VIBE.
Ergo, this was, for me, a splendid outing. Thank you, Emily and Sala!
[William, in 1066]
ReplyDelete[Edmund, with Tenzing] ?
DeleteThis puzzle was Monday-easy in the top half and gave me trouble in the bottom half. KENJENNINGS was a gimme, even though I rarely watched Jeaopardy, but some of the crosses there were WoEs. I’ve never heard of TAKIS (or maybe just didn’t remember them at all) and STE before a hotel number? What is that? Street, Sainte? No idea. I thought, VENI,VIDI, VICI? when I read the revealer clue but wasn’t sure so waited for a few crosses.
ReplyDeleteAlso, rolled the dice before the TAPE, had Rocky before RAMBO, and don’t know SNES (that one, however, fell in from crosses) None of those are the puzzle’s fault of course, but they were flies in the ointment.
STE is short for "suite."
DeleteI was surprised to learn that (just this week) Salvador Perez overtook George BRETT 318-317 as franchise homerun leader for the Royals. No other Royal has even reached 200.
ReplyDeleteVery easy. Would have been medium on a Tuesday. This despite a surprising number of unknown stuff like TAKIS (which I think we've had before but clearly hasn't stuck), HOKA (never heard of it, which is true of much that is ‘trendy’), and POKE (which I actually know very well as a word because it's always in the crossword puzzle, but don't actually know what it means).
ReplyDeleteWeird that they all have K as the third letter.
Rex's take on EDEN is completely accurate, but I would say the same about his attempt to use Don't Worry, Darling in a clue for Florence Pugh. If you have to reach to Hollywoodland for your clues, make them as straightforward as possible. Little Women or Black Widow are the acceptable movies to use to clue Florence Pugh.
Agree w/ Rex re: "dig in" though I got it easy enough
ReplyDeleteA bit of a snoozer of a theme in an otherwise pretty straightforward grid today. I agree with OFL - it’s too early in the week to go arcana with a simple answer like EDEN (there’s today’s NYT DNA for you though).
ReplyDeleteI had a bit of a struggle in the far southwest - I took a flier on EIRE, and it took a while for DIGIN, SNES and MITES to register. Other than that, pretty smooth sailing.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteLOL Rex, at your sneaky "and KEGELS gave the grid a little unexpected squeeze." Clever!
Silly brain had me not even notice the "I came I saw I conquered" trifecta in the clues, so when I got the Revealer, I was wondering how the three Themers related. Man, I'm hoping the ole brain hangs on long enough so I can enjoy some retirement years before I'm found drooling in a corner somewhere. 😁
Spelling AVOCADO as AVACADO, and wondered what PLOT PaINT was ...
MFA looks like an insult abbreviation.
Had bITES for MITES, looking at RANDOb like huh? Maybe it's R AND OB?
Can you name all the Seven Deadly Sins? "What's in the box!" Har, classic cinema.
Welp, hope y'all have a great Wednesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Fully cracked up at my desk at work reading the KEGELS comment
DeleteFunny, I was focused on trying to figure out how the theme answers related to the revealer, and didn’t realize the came-saw-conquered sequence was in the clues themselves. I think I got the themers mostly from crosses, so I barely noticed the clues themselves. Cute puzzle!
ReplyDeleteHOKAS have been around a long time and provide all kinds of size variations to make a good fit. Even the IT tech who came to fix our internet connection yesterday was wearing a pair that we compared with the pair my wife was wearing. Agree with Rex that NOSTRADAMUS, Caesar, and KENJENNINGS make an unlikely trio. In one of those quizzes where you have to pick out “which one doesn’’t fit?”, he would be an easy choice. BRETT had a tricky clue—got it from the crosses, completely missed the word play. SNES was a woe, and not helped by the awkward DIGIN cross.
ReplyDeleteSo there's a basketball star crossing a Jeopardy star, with a brand of chips thrown in--none of which I knew. I eventually recalled seeing TAKIS in an earlier puzzle, but I had no hope of getting that J. AnA; or AdA seemed more likely. I finally had to search for "Jeopardy 74" and there it was.
ReplyDeleteThe theme was fine, but I didn't really like putting the English translations right there in the clues.
It is definitely inside “a libretto”—the “a” is unnecessary but it makes the surface-level wordplay work. The clue has a “?” for a reason.
DeleteI was very sleepy when I solved the puzzle late last night. It was my 588th consecutive solve and my personal best time for a Wednesday puzzle, 8:29. So, for me? 5 Stars!
ReplyDeleteI conquered this wonderful puzzle.🎈🎈🎊🎊
ReplyDeleteWhy was the myrmecologist kicked out of the serenity-seekers group? Too ANTSY.
ReplyDeleteENVIES:exvies::enclave:EXCLAVE. Don't even ask about an autoclave.
I've been trying to think of well-known people that could be used with "I came ...." and I think you might have to find a porn star. Linda Lovelace, perhaps?
So now we have GORE featuring in slasher films. Does Tipper know?
I'm DIGIN the off-beat theme. Thanks, Emily Biegas and Sala Wanetick.
This was a fun Wednesday for me, on what I usually find a bit meh of a day. Serendipity that my runner son was just moaning about the cost of his fav HOKA shoes, and that I made him spell that weird name cause I didn’t understand what he was saying. It may be time for Costco hearing aids.
ReplyDeleteThe last empty space in my puzzle was KENJENNINGS and it gave me such a laugh. I like the guy as host, who wouldn’t? But I’m sure I’m not the only one who still yells “Alex Trebek” at the opener every night.
It’ll take 20 years or more to change the habit of a lifetime but I’m working on it.
Thanks for the shout out yesterday Kitchef! I’m missing the splendid Loren, Nancy, and the never forgotten LudyJyn and Gill, of course.
Not on my wavelength today. The classic quote didn't click until I had nearly every entry down for the revealer and synapses weren't firing on all cylinders this morning for me to see what was going on.
ReplyDeleteThanks @Rex for clearing it all up. Often for me, when the gimmick is in the clues and not the answers, I fail miserably, and that was the case today. That's a Hugh thing, not a puzzle thing and the solve today was pleasant enough.
Had a bunch of hiccups. KENJENNINGS is not front of brain for me, same with TAKIS, so that themer took some time. Like someone else, I had *dice* instead of the correct TAPE and kept that for a *very* long time which held me up in a bunch of ways. Also threw down *Nike* instead of HOKA but appreciated the bit of trickery with the K in the same spot.
Some nice in-the-language fill with ITSAGO and DIGIN and some cute cluing on SODA.
Not my cuppa but an impressive theme and a pleasant solve. Thank you Emily and Sala!
Anyone else start with First instead of FLUKE for 25D "It's unlikely to happen again"?
ReplyDeleteI had Ocher instead of OCHRE for a split second, and hesitated on TAKIS, which I've never seen, but otherwise the puzzle was quite whooshy, if not very scintillating.
I remember seeing the preview for EDEN and thinking, "Ugh, this looks terrible; is this really a Ron Howard film?"
Was sailing along until I got to the revealer and since I had GIBE for "gets along with" the beginning of the quote made zero sense, but when the VIDIVICI part finally showed up the light came on. Finally. No other real problems that weren't fixed by crosses--SNES (ew), DAL, TAKIS, which we still don't have around here, and EDEN as clued. Fairly obscure for a Wednesday. Anyone with a passing interest in running has probably heard of HOKAs, Glad I bought my last pair of running shoes before they cost this much.
ReplyDeleteI did wonder if people without children would know about KEGELS. I know without childbirth classes I never would have.
Interesting Wednesday, EB and SW. Kind of a choppy grid but Eventually Became clear and I Stuck With it until the revealer, which I liked very much. Thanks for all the fun.