Kind of jam in a Sacher torte / MON 10-12-26 / "Clemency" actress Woodard / Celtics legend nicknamed "The Hick from French Lick" / "Jurassic Park" insect casing / Movie princess with "space buns" / Explosive block in Minecraft

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**solved Downs-only**)

[31A: Movie princess with "space buns" = LEIA]

THEME: OUT ON A LIMB (58A: Positioned precariously ... or where the ends of 16-, 24-, 35- and 49-Across can all be found) — two-word phrases where the second word is something you might find on a tree limb:

Theme answers:

• NISSAN LEAF (16A: Electric vehicle from Japan)
• MARE'S NEST (24A: Total mess)
• MOOD SWING (35A: Unpredictable emotional shift)
• LARRY BIRD (49A: Celtics legend nicknamed "The Hick from French Lick")

Word of the Day: Clemency (8D: "Clemency" actress Woodard = ALFRE) —

Clemency is a 2019 American drama film written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu. It stars Alfre Woodard, Richard Schiff, Danielle Brooks, Michael O'Neill, Richard Gunn, Wendell Pierce, and Aldis Hodge. The plot follows the lives of prison warden Bernadine Williams (Woodard) and death row inmate Anthony Woods (Hodge).

Clemency had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic Competition, on January 27, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States by Neon on December 27, 2019. The film received acclaim from critics, who lauded Woodard's performance, as well as Chukwu's direction and screenplay. It earned nominations for Best Feature, Best Female Lead (for Woodard), and Best Screenplay (for Chukwu) at the 35th Independent Spirit Awards and Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Woodard) at the 74th British Academy Film Awards.

• • •

A decent but slightly ho-hum theme elevated by a raft of 7s in the corners that kept the grid interesting. Also, it's a nice touch to have all the limb-related things be non-limb-related in their respective answers (i.e. the leaf isn't the kind on a tree, the nest isn't a bird's nest, the swing is not one you swing from, and the bird is a human being). Solving it Downs-only got a little hairy in places. Of the eight 7s, only three of them came easily to me (SASHIMI, TROTSKY, AMENITY). Took a few beats to get LEISURE—love the clue, but it's a bit of a thinker (2D: It isn't working). Seems like the kind that should have a "!" on the end. That's customary with one of these "it" clues that use a common saying (e.g. [Step on it!]) in order to get at an expected and very literal meaning of it (answers to [Step on it!] have ranged from INSOLE to MAT to SCALE). I'm noticing now, though, that editorial practice is remarkably inconsistent on this front. On one Thursday in 2019, for instance, the clue for PEDAL was [Step on it!], with the "!," but on another Thursday just four years later, PEDAL got the same clue, but without the "!" Same day of the week, so I have no idea what gives. Anyway, the "!" is the way I'm used to seeing this brand of "it" clue handled, and without it today, it took me a moment to realize that it was the "it" that the clue wanted in 2D: It isn't working (LEISURE). 

The clue for "CORRECT!" threw me because of the "You're" part (10D: "You're right!"). I mean, ["Right!"] would've worked just as well. I was looking for some phrase or expression that clearly related to the "You're," but no dice. The hardest of the 7s for me were the two in the SW. Totally forgot what jam was in a Sacher torte and could think only of things ending -BERRY. As for a flower named after a drink, I was at a loss completely. That whole corner got very dicey as a result. I didn't even have AMBER because I was thinking the "insect casing" was part of the insect, like an exoskeleton (32D: "Jurassic Park" insect casing). This left a gaping hole in the SW that was hard to infer Acrosses across. I would've been a lot faster if I'd been able to make any sense of L---Y BIRD. LARRY BIRD Was My Favorite Player When I Was A Kid!!! And yet all my brain could see was LOONY BIRD (?) or LUCKY BIRD (!?) (which is not a thing, but I definitely wondered if it was). Eventually I was like "D'oh! LARRY!" And then I got AMBER and APRICOT and things came together.

I was prepared to be mad at the theme early on because it looked like some kind of bird/nest thing was developing (LEAF, NEST ...) and so I thought the third theme element was WING. "You can't do that! You can't have the other theme parts be stand-alones and then have one of them be part of a word! Boo!" But then in the end, I realized that it was SWING, not WING, that was thematic. So I retracted my "Boo!" 

Bullets:

• 23A: Signaling, as a performer (CUING) — this word looks so weird. I wrote in LEISURE, saw that it gave me CUING in the cross, and promptly retracted LEISURE—that's how unwordlike CUING looked to me. Like a sound effect more than a word. But I did ultimately realize that it was CUE + -ING.
• 43D: Went hog wild (RAN AMOK) — another fairly tough 7 to crack. Wanted it to end in -ED until I was able to infer that -OK at the end.
• 59D: Reason for overtime (TIE) — total mystery to me for many seconds, despite my having the "T" in place, because I was imagining the "overtime" as work-, not sports-related. "Reason for overtime? Uh, you need more money and it pays time and a half? There's extra work to be done? The boss asked? ... How is this a three-letter word!?!?!"

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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