Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: John McClung

Constructor: John McClung

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ROGER EBERT (54A: Pulitzer-winning critic known for his perceptive, sometimes sharply worded reviews, as seen in 18-, 28-/34-, 38- and 43-Across) — movies ROGER EBERT hated, clued using words from his reviews of those movies:

Theme answers:

ARMAGEDDON (18A: "An assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained" (1998))
BATTLEFIELD EARTH (28A: With 34-Across, "Like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time" (2000))
NORTH (38A: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it." (1994))
PEARL HARBOR (43A: "A two-hour movie squeezed into three hours" (2001))

Word of the Day: NORTH (38A) —

North is a 1994 American comedy-drama adventure film directed by Rob Reiner. The story is based on the 1984 novel North: The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents by Alan Zweibel, who co-wrote the screenplay and has a minor role in the film. [...] The film was shot in Hawaii, Alaska, California, South Dakota, New Jersey, and New York. It was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema and released by Columbia Pictures on July 22, 1994. North was a box office bomb, grossing $12 million against its $40 million budget. North was panned by critics, and has been referred to as one of the worst films ever made. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow he really hated bloated action pics from the turn of the century. And NORTH. He really hated NORTH. As a non-Pulitzer-winning critic known for his perceptive [citation needed], sometimes sharply worded reviews, I kind of enjoyed this trip down Haterville's Memory Lane. The Pearl Harbor review in particular ("A two-hour movie squeezed into three hours") is a masterpiece, and could accurately be reused for many other movies. Today's slate of movies all come from a seven-year period during which I was paying fairly close attention to movies, and going to the movies a lot. Besides collecting vintage paperbacks, going to the movies was my preferred way of not writing my dissertation. Actually, by the time BATTLEFIELD / EARTH came out, my dissertation was finished and I had a job, but if you change "dissertation" to "academic book I have no interest in writing," then things were pretty much the same. So these movie titles are all very familiar to me, including NORTH, which is famous (to me) both for Ebert's face-punch of a review, as well as for ending what was to that point one of the most incredible, if not the most incredible, streak of good moviemaking in movie history. Here are Rob Reiner's first seven pictures:

This is ... Spinal Tap! (1984)
The Sure Thing (1985)
Stand By Me (1986)
The Princess Bride (1987)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Misery (1990)
A Few Good Men (1992)

And then he did NORTH. And no one ever heard from him again (I kid! He did ... something called Flipped in 2010 (??) ... OK he did more than that. To be fair, he directed the Albert Brooks documentary from 2023, which is very good). The only name on that list of seven first pictures that isn't a household name is The Sure Thing, and that's too bad for households, because it's an excellent little movie, what they used to call a "sleeper hit." My college screened it for us during orientation week. Early Cusack. Very cool. As teen comedies go, a winner.

[Yeah I'm definitely gonna watch this today]

I don't know that it's the most inspired idea for a theme, but it's good enough for me (a movie lover and Ebert admirer). I don't quite get why this is running today and not, say, on Ebert's birthday. I know today is not Ebert's birthday because today is my birthday and I think I would've known if we shared a birthday. I love my birthday and I love the icons I share it with, namely Charles Schulz and Tina Turner. Ebert's birthday was back in June (June 18, to be exact). This would've been a fine tribute puzzle to run on his birthday. On Thanksgiving Eve, it's ... well, I guess it's ironic in a funny way. Would've been better if it had run on Thanksgiving Day. The least thanksgiving theme imaginable. For these movies: No Thanks Given!

I didn't really enjoy the non-thematic part of this puzzle so much. The fill, the fill ("The horror, the horror!"). Once again I'm absolutely buried underneath PSSTs and SLOs and SSNs and O GOD another SESH!? RVERS annnnnnnd RSVPED!? REP NEATH NESS! OBI UBER! IRA! DDT! IPAD! PSI! EST'D! And on and on. I was kinda put off by the BUTT stuff, too. I like butts fine, but one is enough. Today's had two, but I had to cycle through way more than that, starting with REAR as my first wrong butt guess at 1A: Posterior (HIND), and then SEAT as my second wrong butt guess at 17A: Posterior (BUTT). Later on, we get a little call back / reprise with BUM RAP. It was briefly funny, after all the butt stuff, to look down and see -ITTIES in my grid. My first thought was not DITTIES, I'll tell you that much.

The puzzle was easy, for the most part. The butt stuff held me up a little. The double-cross-reference in the far west also held me up (and was super-annoying—cross-references are bad enough, please don't cram two into a tiny space) (EARTH (from BATTLEFIELD / EARTH) and EATS (from UBER / EATS)). At first, I didn't understand the theme and thought the clues were merely exhibiting garden-variety wackiness. "I don't get it ... I guess riding a bus with someone who stinks is kinda like a 'battlefield' ... does he stink because he's covered with ... 'earth'?" But then I got ARMAGEDDON and realized the clues were not wacky, they were actual lines from actual reviews—and at that point, I knew damned well what (who) the revealer was gonna be. Not mad about it, just not surprised. True story: I actually "saw" BATTLEFIELD / EARTH on a bus trip, back when (and I can't believe this is true, but my memory is Vivid) there was a publicly viewable screen on the bus (maybe screens?) and the sound was just ... on. Like, I remember (viscerally) being stuck in a bus seat, unable to escape BATTLEFIELD / EARTH. As I write this, it seems impossibly hellish, and it's possible that Trauma has affected my memory, but something bad happened with BATTLEFIELD / EARTH on a bus trip, that much I know. Thankfully, I don't remember anyone or anything stinking (except the movie).

Bullets:

50A: Filmmakers with distinctive styles (AUTEURS) — a good answer, and a great answer to accompany today's theme, though auteur theory is most commonly associated with a different American film critic: Andrew Sarris. SARRIS has never been in the NYTXW. This isn't nearly as bad as the Great OZU Exclusion (as it has come to be known, by me), but it's a little surprising.
9D: Disorderly heap of people (DOGPILE) — the first image in my head for this was gruesome. Why would you heap people up, for god's sake!? But after a few crosses, I saw the answer, and it's fine. I just needed context. It's actually probably the best non-theme answer in the grid, though I'm also partial to RAMPAGES.
12D: Advisory in a school zone (SLO) — rly? They leave the "W" off? They misspell "Slow"? ... in a school zone? No wonder test scores in this country are abysmal. Most signs I'm seeing actually just say "SCHOOL," or managed to spell "SLOW" correctly:

49D: People looking for hookups, informally (RVERS) — because sometimes the road can get lonely ...*

That's all. Safe travels if you're traveling. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*I know perfectly well what they meant by "hookups," you can keep your corrections to yourself, thx

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