Puzzle 223 – “Cinematic Duds”
puz here / pdf here / solution here
Today’s USA Today crossword is by me! Go check it out either at their site or over at GoComics.
After a couple of weeks’ detour into the land of themes, we’re back to a themeless this week. Title comes from the clue to the central spanner, obviously, which is also one of my favorite question-mark clues I’ve written in a while. Favorite things here include 52-Across for the fun fact and 40-Across for the blast from the past. Some cluing here might lean a little tougher than recent weeks… but I believe in you. You got this.
As always, comments welcomed. Happy solving, yall. Hope you enjoy.
Another great one! Thanks!
Grats on USA today. heading over now.
I’m really pleased with how that USAT turned out. Hope you dig it too.
Wow, we get a “Double Matthew Luter” crossword day! And it’s nice to see that you are getting published by mainstream outlets more frequently. Keep up the great work!
Doing my best! I’ve got a few more mainstreams in the pipeline, and still sending things out for sure.
love that clue for 33A, and there’s heaps of stuff here that I really enjoyed seeing in a crossword – 3D, 18A, 20A, 21D, the list goes on! thanks for the puzzle!
Thanks! I’m pleased with how these 3 long acrosses came together in particular.
What a great puzzle! So many answers I loved – and I definitely went through a 45A phase back in the 90s.
I will make the case that they’re underrated…
Another terrific puzzle, Matt. So many great clues, including 33-Across. As someone who always dreaded gym class, I appreciated 29-Down. Also fun to see Sufjan Stevens mentioned. I discovered him several years ago on, of all places, NPR, where either Morning Edition or All Things Considered used a snippet of “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!” as one of their music ‘buttons’ between stories.
Right there with you on 29-D, haha…