Constructor: Jeremy Newton
Relative difficulty: Challenging (for me ... some names were ???? and the cluing was horrendous all around)
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THEME: [Want an actor...]— actors whose last names + FOR can mean "want" are used as objects of desire in phrases that pun on their names:
Theme answers:
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Not to put to fine a point on it, but ... this was bracingly terrible. Not gonna spend much time writing about it because I liked literally no part of it ... [scans grid] ... FINE POINT, maybe I liked FINE POINT? ... but that's it (3D: Common kind of pen for illustrators). The theme is corny and gets thinner as you go on. The themers are all so much from the same universe, being actors, so that's not great from an exclusionary standpoint (i.e. big movie fans in, others can f off), and they're also from the Same Damn Kind of *&$^% Blockbuster Franchise Sequel Movie I Have Given Up Watching. Two superhero movies *and* a Star Wars universe movie (*and* you want me to choke down ULTRON too? Come on) (59A: Robotic supervillain in the first "Avengers" sequel). When I talk about having "balance" in your grid, this ... decidedly Is Not It. Also never heard of Donnie Yen, which doesn't mean he's not worth knowing, just that his name familiarity is an outlier and I would've liked to meet him maybe in a regular clue for YEN first. Also, YEN is not a verb (no, stop, put your dictionary away, be real, it's not. You have a YEN for someone, you don't YEN for them. You don't). Also, why did you exhume Bob Hope for this. There are outliers and then there are ooouuuutttttlllliiiieeeerrrrrsssss. Also, "HOPE FOR" is even weaker than "YEN FOR" in that "hope" doesn't even come close to evoking the same kind of desire as the other verbs. EFS all around for the theme (also, an ef for EFS, which is bad).
Had RAISE and thought ??? Then it ended up being ... A BET??! Just ... RAISE A BET!?!?! ugh that is about as real and solid as PARK A CAR and anyway you've already got your stupid POKER clue over there in the center, stop bludgeoning me. OLA is bad, CrapOLA is so much worse (though it does describe this puzzle). All the tricky or "?" clues were torture, and not the good kind of torture where you finally get it and think "ah, good one." The bad kind, where you have to struggle and are ultimately left only with a disappointed "oh" or a "what?!" [The buck stops here] is a horrible clue, and I mean horrible clue, for BANK. Not even a "?" on that stupid thing??? It's not literally true! What am I, an 8-year old in 1964 taking a single dollar bill to the BANK? Ugh. I actually had to run the alphabet at 39A: They're often lit (_OTS) because oh we're still making fun of alcoholics with cutesy clues, and also, until I got JANUARY there was no way on god's green that I was going to think PJS was a [Nightcap go-with, in brief]. Never. If you'd added [, maybe], then ... maybe. But otherwise, those aren't sufficiently related to qualify for "go-with." You went to [Danish coins] for ØRE, why why why? Foreign coinage and diacritically marked letters (like Ø and Ñ) are things you steer away from, not smash into. The EPA no longer seeks clean skies, or clean anything, please stop pretending. Its current leader is *literally* opposed to limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Stop. Pretending. BYA BYA BYA! I mean, bye.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. an ARIA = "bars" (musical passages) for a "single" (i.e. soloist), hence (16A: Single's bars?).
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging (for me ... some names were ???? and the cluing was horrendous all around)
Theme answers:
- LONG FOR NIA (17A: Want an actress from "Soul Food")
- PINE FOR CHRIS (23A: Want an actor from "Wonder Woman")
- JONES FOR JANUARY (36A: Want an actress from "Mad Men")
- YEN FOR DONNIE (44A: Want an actor from "Rogue One")
- HOPE FOR BOB (55A: Want an actor from "Here Come the Girls")
Donnie Yen Ji-dan[2] (Chinese: 甄子丹; born 27 July 1963) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film director, producer, action choreographer, stuntman and multiple-time world wushu tournament champion ("Wushu" is the Chinese term for "martial arts" (武 "Wu" = military or martial, 術 "Shu" = art).) (wikipedia)
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Had RAISE and thought ??? Then it ended up being ... A BET??! Just ... RAISE A BET!?!?! ugh that is about as real and solid as PARK A CAR and anyway you've already got your stupid POKER clue over there in the center, stop bludgeoning me. OLA is bad, CrapOLA is so much worse (though it does describe this puzzle). All the tricky or "?" clues were torture, and not the good kind of torture where you finally get it and think "ah, good one." The bad kind, where you have to struggle and are ultimately left only with a disappointed "oh" or a "what?!" [The buck stops here] is a horrible clue, and I mean horrible clue, for BANK. Not even a "?" on that stupid thing??? It's not literally true! What am I, an 8-year old in 1964 taking a single dollar bill to the BANK? Ugh. I actually had to run the alphabet at 39A: They're often lit (_OTS) because oh we're still making fun of alcoholics with cutesy clues, and also, until I got JANUARY there was no way on god's green that I was going to think PJS was a [Nightcap go-with, in brief]. Never. If you'd added [, maybe], then ... maybe. But otherwise, those aren't sufficiently related to qualify for "go-with." You went to [Danish coins] for ØRE, why why why? Foreign coinage and diacritically marked letters (like Ø and Ñ) are things you steer away from, not smash into. The EPA no longer seeks clean skies, or clean anything, please stop pretending. Its current leader is *literally* opposed to limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Stop. Pretending. BYA BYA BYA! I mean, bye.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. an ARIA = "bars" (musical passages) for a "single" (i.e. soloist), hence (16A: Single's bars?).
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]