Drudgery in old usage / MON 2-10-20 / Big name in athletic shoes / Mississippi port city with Air Force Base

Constructor: Bruce Haight

Relative difficulty: Medium for me (maybe slightly harder-than-usual for some, tho ... this fill, yeesh)

THEME: corny movie puns—maybe a nod to the Oscars (happening roughly now, i.e. Sunday night) — familiar non-movie phrases clued as if they related to movies (i.e. wackily):

Theme answers:

• WORTH A SHOT (17A: Suitable for moviemaking?)
• A LITTLE EXTRA (23A: Movie munchkin, maybe?)
• CREW CUT (37A: Movie clip where the grips, boom operator and gaffer all appear?)
• SETTLE A SCORE (47A: Finalize the music for the movie?)
• DOUBLE TAKE (57A: Redo of a movie scene?)

Word of the Day: ALEC Waugh (63A: Author Waugh) —

Alexander Raban Waugh (8 July 1898 – 3 September 1981), was a British novelist, the elder brother of the better-known Evelyn Waugh and son of Arthur Waugh, author, literary critic, and publisher. His first wife was Barbara Jacobs (daughter of the writer William Wymark Jacobs), his second wife was Joan Chirnside and his third wife was Virginia Sorenson, author of the Newbery Medal–winning Miracles on Maple Hill. (wikipedia)

Wow this is quite poor. If its release didn't roughly coincide with the Oscars, it would be truly inexplicable. It's just corny film puns. You can do this kind of thing ad infinitum with other words, like SET or CAST or what have you. But why would you? Why? Also, why is the fill this bad? This stale? This unpolished and implausibly carelessly clued. For instance, if you're going to put a very-much *not* "Big name athletic shoes" in your puzzle, first, don't say it's a "Big name," and second, don't cross that last letter with the last letter of a very very very unfamous author when that last letter could easily (Easily) be an "X." The only people who have ever heard of ALEC Waugh are people who have been solving puzzles for decades, i.e. from well before ALEC Baldwin was legit famous ... but then there was always ALEC Guinness, so I have no idea how ALEC Waugh ever, ever convinced anyone that he was puzzle-worthy. I mean, look at the first paragraph of his wikipedia page (above). The writer basically gives up on defining him in relation to any "writing" you've actually heard of and resorts instead to defining him in relation to three (3!) other authors, all of whom are more accomplished, two of whom Are From His Own Damn Family. Clue should've been [Third most successful Waugh]. The point is, cluing ALEC as a Waugh in *this* particular spot (i.e. crossing ETONIC at the "C") is objectively bad editing. It's Monday! Please pay attention to what you're doing.

Everything about this puzzle is just old, in the sense of stuck and stale. What the !?!?! is MOIL?! Fittingly, it is [Drudgery, in older usage]. This puzzle knows a lot about drudgery, as well as older usage. Everything from CABIT to AIWA to EKES to ALEC to ETAIL to ETONIC to ESAU feels musty. AWS just feels bad. The whole top row is garbage, and THUG is a problematic word that you can *easily* avoid (6A: Mafia enforcer, e.g.). UNGER is also something familiar much much more to older than to younger solvers (12D: Felix of "The Odd Couple"). Totally fine to put "Odd Couple" in your puzzle, but ... there's just not a lot here for anyone under 60. But if yesterday's emoji-based puzzle was just too youthful for you, well, here's your antidote, I guess. Me, I'll take the disease


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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