"The State of American Cinema" February 10, 2023

[Relic]

Finally on the beach. One tough grid and a family of rabbits to chase. Yes, lots of Google and received patient assistance from @LizD to chase the correct rabbit.

[Bob cruise director]

Ed’s rabbit was in a Super Bowl ad

Those were some scary rabbits!
I was hiding under the bed from the halftime score.

Another very big rabbit

[hcbirker]

Ed’s rabbit was in a Super Bowl ad

All those rabbit holes!

[Bob cruise director]

Our final report has 4 on the ship and 197 on the shore

And the two O lines for the Eagles and Chiefs deserve the MVP award. Both played great.

[Momo]

On shore with the help of my google goggles. However, got Bad google info and not happy with wording of the Oscar winning year, but I spit the salt water out of my mouth and dragged myself onto the sand. Immediately headed to pool bar to celebrate.

[Colin]

Thanks Eagles and Chiefs!
Now to finish the crossword…
Wait! Is that the time?!!

[Cbaudhuin]

Finally ashore.

[Colin]

Ashore!

[Beeth]

I'm dying to know the right answer. I submitted a hail Mary on the notion that we were looking at Oscar winners from the wrong year. Couldn't back my way in but picked one that had 7 letters that won in 1993 but was released in 1992.

[escapeartist]

NOPE

back to a streak of 0

[Conrad]

I'm dying to know the right answer. I submitted a hail Mary on the notion that we were looking at Oscar winners from the wrong year. Couldn't back my way in but picked one that had 7 letters that won in 1993 but was released in 1992.

https://crosswordfiend.com/2023/02/12/w ... ore-146636

[hcbirker]

I'm dying to know the right answer. I submitted a hail Mary on the notion that we were looking at Oscar winners from the wrong year. Couldn't back my way in but picked one that had 7 letters that won in 1993 but was released in 1992.

Since Joe hasn’t posted, the answer is “A River Runs Through It”.

[Beeth]

I'm dying to know the right answer. I submitted a hail Mary on the notion that we were looking at Oscar winners from the wrong year. Couldn't back my way in but picked one that had 7 letters that won in 1993 but was released in 1992.

https://crosswordfiend.com/2023/02/12/w ... ore-146636

Thank you!

I'm pretty furious with our answer because we had forest gump in Georgia because that's where he's sitting telling the story. And we couldn't make sense of montang. It was one of the first things we did. Ugh!!

[Franklin.Bluth]

Each film mentioned in the grid was set in a specific STATE:

THE DEPARTED/Massachusetts
CIMARRON/Oklahoma
CASINO/Nevada
RIO GRANDE/Texas
MINARI/Arkansas
KING KONG/New York
FORREST GUMP/Alabama

These spell MONTANA, and the Oscar winning film from 1992, set in Montana, was Robert Redford's A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT.

//Edit: I should have said "set primarily in". As others have pointed out, FORREST GUMP travels the world and is framed by narration out of Georgia; KING KONG spends a bulk of its runtime on, or heading to or from, the fictional Skull Island.

[LadyBird]

Many films feature a hero’s quest. Let me share my heroine’s saga (I know, bold of me to assert that I am a heroine)—a saga through the Slough of Despond until I FINALLY reach the shores of the Happy Isles. Joe—and others—offer up elegant color-coordinated explanations of the meta answer; I offer up my color-coded timeline of how NOT to elegantly find the solution!

Some heroines are initially reluctant to answer the call; however, I needed no cajoling from Gandalf. I jumped right in at 3pm on Thursday. Although, after viewing the title and clue, I did exclaim: “Cinema..why’d it have to be cinema!”. By 3:30 I had completed the grid and figured out the states associated with the themers. I even laid them out in a nice vertical row and noticed…nothing. But, of course, a quest requires roadblocks and tests and other ordeals. I ran into more than one R.O.U.S.—Rabbit of Unusual Size. The first induced me to write down all the 1992 Oscar winners—and research their locations.

I spent the rest of Thursday and Friday trying to find state connections in the grid/clues. Right away I noticed Corpus CHRISTI (Texas!) and ONEONTA (New York!). But it was hard going finding other connections. I briefly toyed with EARTH=dust bowl=Oklahoma (but I was not yet that desperate). I looked for connections between the 1992 film states and the themers. A curioser and curioser fun fact—Thelma and Louise starts in Arkansas. Lots of tilting at windmills but so little progress that I felt like it was always winter but never Christmas. Things just got more discouraging as I kept reading shore reports—I felt that my meta-solving career was a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. But then a little hope arrived in an encouraging PM from Obi-Bob Kenobi.

On Saturday morning, I thought I would explore geography. I mapped out a route connecting all the themer states, hoping it would either surround or point to the answer. Well, my map route looked like a stiletto. I “guess” that might apply to Beauty and the Beast, but Belle never struck me as a stiletto type of gal. Then I noticed that there were a lot of 3-letter answers. That must be it: 2-letter state abbreviations with an extra letter. That will give me the answer. The letters I came up with partially anagrammed to octopods—which reminded me of the excellent (and Oscar-winning documentary) “My Octopus Teacher”—but that was several decades too late. I would be SO done with this if I only had a brain! Why can’t Hermione lean over and whisper a hint or two? I guess that I can depend on the kindness of strangers at the zoom call.

And then, on Saturday afternoon, I re-read the hint. Maybe it is films from 1992—that received their Oscar in 1993. Google, here I come—again. Hmmm….HOWARD’S (seven letters just like the seven themers) END (sounds like a metanism to me) but I saw nothing. Wait a minute—A River Runs Through It (and the Rio Grande runs right through the middle of the grid). The odds are finally in my favor! That MUST be it—but how? I’m gonna have to science the $#/! out of this. Maybe there are names of rivers hidden in the themers—after years of crosswords I know a lot of short and obscure river names, but I’m not seeing anything. Then I look at my vertical list of states and I see it! Is this heaven? No, it’s MONTANA! My quest is over. Now, I just need to return to my little house on the Prairie State and hope for my mug email from Mike. That, and share tales of rabbit hole adventures with we few, we happy few, we band of Muggles.

[MajordomoTom]

Yes, I particularly liked that feature, that he placed Rio Grande right through the middle of the grid. Elegant way to be able to confirm your answer.

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

(Reveal emphasizes MONTANA too much.)

[LittleGood]

Having had a losing streak for all but 1 of the previous weeks of 2023, I don't want to complain about getting one right this week. But I needed a lot of help from Wikipedia (I suspect I am not alone here), which sort of takes the shine off the W. I knew Forrest Gump = Alabama, figured Rio Grande had to be Texas (still checked to be sure) and King Kong was New York (still wanted to check since I remembered much of the film taking place at Sea and then on a jungle island?), and could guess that Casino = Nevada. Even when I got to Montana I needed Wikipedia to get to the answer.

[Joe Ross]

Apologies: I slept through my alarms to wake me to post at midnight.

If anyone wishes to take over posting the WSJCC reveals Sunday nights, I'll be happy to continue to put together the mash-ups of the official WSJ answers and send the file links for you to post at midnight, ET. PM me and thank you.