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Constructor: Michael Lieberman and Andrea Carla Michaels
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: MOVIE BUFFS (63A: Avid fans of cinema … or a punny description of 17-, 31-, 40- and 47-Across) — I guess the “pun” is that these dudes are “buff” (i.e. muscly) and they are also in “movies”?
Theme answers:
- JASON MOMOA (17A: Hunky star of “Aquaman”)
- CHANNING TATUM (31A: Hunky star of “Magic Mike”)
- MR. T (40A: Hunky co-star of “Rocky III”)
- DWAYNE JOHNSON (47A: Hunky co-star of the “Fast & Furious” franchise)
Word of the Day: JASON MOMOA (17A)—
Joseph Jason Namakaeha Momoa (; born August 1, 1979) is an American actor. He made his acting debut as Jason Ioane on the syndicated action drama series Baywatch: Hawaii (1999–2001), which was followed by portrayals of Ronon Dex on the Syfy science fiction series Stargate Atlantis(2005–2009), and Khal Drogo in the first two seasons of the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones(2011–2012). He went on to play the lead roles in the Discovery Channel historical drama series Frontier(2016–2018) and the Apple TV+ science fiction series See (2019–2022).
Since 2016, Momoa has portrayed Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), including in the solo feature Aquaman (2018). Momoa has also played Duncan Idaho in the science fiction film Dune (2021), and has starred in the action film Fast X (2023). (wikipedia)
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Not gonna spend much time on this because I just found it leering and slightly creepy. The TUSH part isn’t helping, frankly (35A: Derrière). So the idea is … these guys have nice bodies? They work out? “Hunky”? Oof, wow OK, sure, I guess, but if you did an equivalent theme about women’s bodies, yeah, I don’t think it would go over so well. Just strange, and more than a little … I wanna say “dated.” Tin-eared. Just … I mean, I’m all for people being horny on their own time, but it’s a bit much for a crossword theme. I think the wordplay in the revealer is super-awkward, too. These guys are (adj.) buff (i.e. they work out, have chiseled torsos, etc.) so they are (n.) BUFFS? I mean, by the transitive property of Wordplay, maybe there’s something there, but it feels forced. Solving this Downs-only, all I could see was that there were actor’s names in the grid. I could see a certain … physical type developing, but I still wasn’t quite prepared for the explicit reference to physique in the revealer. I also had no idea MR. T was a themer. In fact, I still don’t quite believe he is. Not exactly hard to work MR. T into your grid. He’s such common crosswordese, I think he just happened to fit in that space and the constructors were like “cool, let’s just roll with it!” Overall, this was a [wince] from me. The grid is solid, and the Downs-only experience 98% easy.
When I say Downs-only was 98% easy, here’s the 2% at issue:
All of the crosses had multiple possibilities. I thought ACA- could be a partial (and it could’ve been), which meant that any number of letters could’ve gone in that last position (A CAB, A CAN, A CAP, A CAR, A CAT … the abbrev. ACAD. …). And as you can see, all the other blanks had many many plausibles as well. So I was left just trying to guess a word meaning [Bitter criticism] with the “I” and the “O” in the second and sixth positions, respectively, and in retrospect it seems obvious, but, well, that screenshot is one I took in real time, so I was really … there, at the end, just staring at -I—O-. Somehow, eventually, the ol’ vocabulary kicked in and VITRIOL just came to me, but I was on the verge of giving up, for sure.
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