Constructor: Kyra Wilson and Sophia Maymudes
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: BONG JOON-HO (15A: First Korean to win the Best Director Oscar) —
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This puzzle made me feel bad but it wasn't the puzzle's fault, and luckily the bad feeling happened very early on so I had the rest of the puzzle to get over it. "Parasite" was the last movie I saw in a movie theater, before [sweeping hand gesture] all this, and it's one of the few movies I've ever seen where I walked out of the theater thinking "well that was one of the best movies I've ever seen." My sense of a movie's greatness usually takes time to accumulate; I need at least a modicum of historical perspective. But "Parasite" took up space in my head immediately and hasn't left. It was only after the success of "Parasite" that I learned the name of BONG JOON-HO, even though I'd already seen one of his movies ("Snowpiercer"). I have since seen "The Host," which is (like the other titles I've mentioned) truly wonderful and thoughtful (and unsettling). And yet ... apparently I have *not* learned his name, because I wrote in BONG and then found my mind go ... not blank, but wobbly. My brain wanted Bong Ho-Kim (ugh), and it just got stuck there and wouldn't move. And then I got mad at myself, which is never good when you're solving. Then of course I couldn't let it go so I sat there going "come on, stupid head ..." but that didn't work so eventually I just went to the crosses and even with BONG -OON HO in place I wasn't sure it wasn't SOON, ugh! I have got to do better at filing non-Anglo-American names properly in my mental rolodex (look it up, kids). Asian names in particular. I'm going to spell filmmakers YASUJIRO OZU (Japan) and WONG KAR-WAI (China) for you (and me) right now, because if we make it to the end of the year without seeing at least part of their names in a grid, I'm honestly going to be a little surprised (and, as a movie-lover, a lot disappointed).
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: BONG JOON-HO (15A: First Korean to win the Best Director Oscar) —
Bong Joon-ho (Korean: 봉준호, Korean pronunciation: [poːŋ tɕuːnho → poːŋdʑunɦo]; Hanja: 奉俊昊; born September 14, 1969) is a South Korean film director, producer and screenwriter. His films are characterised by the use of social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts.
He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), before achieving both critical and commercial success with his subsequent films: the crime thriller Memories of Murder (2003), the monster film The Host (2006), the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013), and the Academy Award-winning black comedy social thriller Parasite (2019), all of which are among the highest-grossing films in South Korea, with Parasite also being the highest-grossing South Korean film in history. (wikipedia)
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As the self-flagellation died down, I got on with the rest of this grid, which is delightful. A little name-heavy, perhaps, but solid and entertaining throughout. And the names ... they seemed aggressively pop culture-y as I was solving, but looking over the grid, I don't think that's terribly accurate. When I was done, I thought, "Wow, they really wanted you to know they're GEN-Z, didn't they?" But honestly I think that reaction came almost entirely from "IN THE HEIGHTS," a title I know *only* because of my musical theater-obsessed GEN-Z daughter (who is no longer so narrowly obsessed with musical theater, but who is graduating from college with a degree in Theater Production & Design at the end of ... wow, this year? ... this year ... sigh ... OK, then ...) (21D: Tony-winning musical written by Lin-Manuel Miranda during his second year of college). I think I just ran into ARNETT NEAL ILANA IN THE HEIGHTS all in a rush and so the name-iness of the puzzle felt quite strong, but that's just one patch. Oh, there's also the (Taylor) Swiftiness of the clue on "I'VE MOVED ON" (17A: "We are not getting back together"), but that clue is also straightforward and literal, so no pop culture knowledge required. And the names in this puzzle really are spread out topically and generationally, so mostly what this puzzle makes me realize is that it doesn't skew young—the regular NYTXW skews old. So that if what you're used to is NYTXW-normal, every "young" answer feels like it's Shouting at you, when in reality it's just hanging out, minding its own business, a face in the crowd that you're not used to seeing (so much).
I tried ONRUSH (?) before UNREST (25D: Turbulence) and FUSSED before FUTZED (43D: Messed (with)). I do love FUTZED. Would not mind seeing FUTZ and its various verb forms more often. Anyway, this was good good good. A JOB WELL DONE. Good day.