Specifications in slang / MON 5-8-23 / Many-person act of support or affection / Shared a video call on an Apple device

Constructor: Catherine Cetta

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "SAY CHEESE!" (59A: Photographer's request ... as suggested by this puzzle's circled letters?) — types of cheese are arranged in smiley shapes throughout the grid:

The cheeses:

• CREAM
• EDAM
• FETA
• SWISS
• BLUE

Word of the Day: SOFIA Coppola (26D: "Lost in Translation" director Coppola) —

Sofia Carmina Coppola (/ˈkoʊpələ/ KOH-pəl-ə; born May 14, 1971) is an American filmmaker and actress. She has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Golden Lion, and a Cannes Film Festival Award, as well as a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

The youngest child and only daughter of filmmakers Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, she made her film debut as an infant in her father's acclaimed crime drama film The Godfather (1972). Coppola later appeared in several music videos, as well as a supporting role in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). Coppola then portrayed Mary Corleone, the daughter of Michael Corleone, in The Godfather Part III (1990).

Coppola transitioned her career into filmmaking by making her feature-length directorial debut with the coming-of-age drama The Virgin Suicides (1999). It was the first of her collaborations with actress Kirsten Dunst. Coppola received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the comedy-drama Lost in Translation (2003), and became the third woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. She has since directed the historical drama Marie Antoinette (2006), the family drama Somewhere (2010), the satirical crime drama The Bling Ring (2013), the southern gothic thriller The Beguiled (2017), and the comedy On the Rocks (2020). (wikipedia)

No real theme answers today besides the revealers. Basically what you get is a Monday themeless with little cheese smileys throughout and then a revealer that explains why you were amassing cheese smileys. Actually, I had no idea they were smileys until the reveal. I thought maybe they were CHEESE BOWLS (is a "cheese bowl" a thing? It sounds like a thing. Maybe I'm thinking of "cheese ball"). But that's why they call them "revealers"—because they "reveal" what the hell is going on, thematically. So the revealer did its job—really provided a clarification and a surprise—and the whole concept was weird enough (especially for a Monday) that I really enjoyed it. The smiles are actually made of cheese. Cool. Bizarre, surreal, cool. Some smiles are wider than others, sure, that's just nature. Which smile are you? Tag yourself: I'm EDAM (since I'm currently wearing a red coat and I spend a lot of time in crossword grids). Solving this on Downs-only, I found that the theme helped A Lot. A Ton. Lots. Tons. With CREAM I didn't know I was dealing with cheeses, but by FETA I sure did, and so for the rest of the smiles, I really just needed one, maybe two circles to come into view before I could just fill in the rest—a huge boost for someone who can only get Acrosses by inference. Getting the cheese gave me a major foothold on not one but two Acrosses each time, and so I absolutely flew through this grid. No sticking points, and very few pauses at all. I had to wait on RECTANGLES a bit (3D: Picture frames, usually), and I had to change ENTREATS to ENTREATY (20A: Earnest appeal) in order to see OBEYED (7D: Followed instructions) ... took a little work to figure out CARRY ON. Had to pause and wait to see if it was gonna be RAISE CAIN or RAISE HELL (29D: Creates a ruckus). But that's it. Everything else went straight in (with help from the cheeses). Overall, a breezy, cheesy theme.