Civil rights activist Baker / SUN 10-10-21 / Natasha Boris's partner against Rocky and Bullwinkle / Similar-sounding phrase, such as "I scream" for "ice cream" / Magazine co-founded in 1945 by Hélène Gordon Lazareff / Ancient work that describes the sacred tree Yggdrasil / Matricidal figure of Greek myth / Floating terror of the sea / Place to develop one's chops

Constructor: Brandon Koppy

Relative difficulty: Mediumish

THEME: Clue: The Movie— movie titles used as clues (they are meant to be taken relatively literally):

Theme answers:

• PSYCHOANALYSIS (23A: "Field of Dreams")
• G.I. JOES (26A: "Guys and Dolls") (?)
• THE RED CARPET (38A: "Star Trek") (the "stars" are celebs who "trek" across the carpet)
• T-SHIRT CANNON (50A: "Top Gun")
• KANJI (66A: "Letters from Iwo Jima")
• SIMON SAYS (67A: "The Imitation Game")
• BORON (69A: "The Fifth Element")
• BINGE-WATCHER (84A: "A Man for All Seasons")
• CHANEL NO. FIVE (97A: "Scent of a Woman") (sorry men / NBs!)
• GOTHAM (113A: "Wayne's World") (so, Bruce Wayne)
• "FLY ME TO THE MOON" (114A: "Space Jam")

Word of the Day: ELLA Baker (47D: Civil rights activist Baker) —

Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986) was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and the South, she worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Baker criticized professionalized, charismatic leadership; she promoted grassroots organizing, radical democracy, and the ability of the oppressed to understand their worlds and advocate for themselves. She realized this vision most fully in the 1960s as the primary advisor and strategist of the SNCC. Baker has been called "one of the most important American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement." She is known for her critiques of both racism in American culture and sexism in the civil rights movement. (wikipedia)

What you have here is a really good title and, wow, just nothing else. Not a laugh, not a smile, not even a half-smile, ironic smile, nothing. Just a lot of sighs. Some struggling, much sighing. The answers are such tremendous let-downs every time, primarily because it's fun to remember movies but it's not so much fun to have them literalized to pedestrian **** like BORON. The very best of them had me thinking, "oh, I see what you did there," and that should not be peak reaction to a wacky puzzle. And oof, ORONYM / SMS, I'm still cringing over that yucky mash-up (22A: Similar-sounding phrase, such as "I scream" for "ice cream"). Thank god for the -NYM suffix because I totally forgot what letter was in the middle of SMS (would've guessed "D," LOL). Some of the themers had me going "???" like GIJOES for ["Guys and Dolls"] ... they're male dolls? Is that it? They're just dolls. Some dolls are action figures. Some dolls are male. The "and" thing is just weird. Are KANJI "letters"? I think of them as characters? Is that the same thing? Further, what is "Letters from Iwo Jima"? (I really hate war movies so unless it's super duper famous, I have no idea). CHANEL NO. FIVE looks really bad in the grid, since you nail the "NO." abbr. (part of the actual title) but then you write out "FIVE," which, this is crosswords, I get it, you kinda have to, but it's just jarring, esp. when you did the "NO." part so nice. I think binge-watching is a thing, but BINGE-WATCHER feels off / bad. All the "jokes" in the theme clues ... I feel like they're the kind of thing where someone tells the joke and then immediately explains it, or goes, "huh, right? pretty clever, right?" They're all slightly thinky and not at all funny. And ARIOSE, yuck (13D: Melodious), wow, that whole NE corner really is a disaster, fill-wise. Why would you "test" someone's ability to put on EYESHADOW? (16D: Part of a makeup test?) Is there a cosmetology context I'm missing? This puzzle feels like it's flailing.