"The State of American Cinema" February 10, 2023

[MikeM000]

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.

Don't feel bad in the least. I'm sure everyone googled some of these. Also, the fact that the big winner that year was a Western (which I looked up and saw it took place in Kansas) and that not everyone remembers Cinematography Oscar winners makes it almost required to look stuff up for this one.

Wacky coincidence time: Al Pacino, who counts Tony MONTANA among his iconic roles, won his only Oscar that year....Curious to see the Scent Of A Woman count in the Miller post later today...

[Ergcat]

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!!

I did the same thing at first ( MONTANG) so I was searching for other state abbreviations, three letter words that had state abbreviations plus one, one letter change in the themer ( like in “dePArted” the PA is one letter changed from MA where it was set), etc. knew it had to do with STATES!! Finally looked again and remembered that Forrest Gump was from AL so some of the story was set there too. Then saw MONTANA! Aha!

[Ergcat]

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.

Cool feature! Didn’t even realize that! But I did like “PIT” at 61d … Brad Pitt was one of the stars of “A River Runs Through It”

[pjc]

The only real rabbit hole I went down - which kept coming up with gibberish - was trying to make something out of state abbreviations hiding in the film answers.

Finally, came around to the idea of the states they were set in because of THEDEPARTED (life-long Massachusetts native here). And, yes, Google/Wikipedia helped.

Streak is up to 4 - halfway to my previous personal best!

[Dplass]

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

Screenshot_20230209-232202-168.png

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.

I had to Google 4 out of the 8 movies...but it was Googleable at least.

[Georgeall]

The solution was obvious... RIO GRANDE is a river and runs through the center of the puzzle ("runs through it"). Brad PITT is the star of "A River Runs Through It," and his name is found starting at 22 and running diagonally down to the right. All the other movies were just distractors.

[Joe Ross]

The solution was obvious... RIO GRANDE is a river and runs through the center of the puzzle ("runs through it"). Brad PITT is the star of "A River Runs Through It," and his name is found starting at 22 and running diagonally down to the right. All the other movies were just distractors.

WSJ owes you a mug for finding this Easter egg!

[Eric Porter]

This puzzle was similar to THE SHOW-ME STATES from 2017 which was also by Matt Gaffney. I did a search for 'state' in the crossword titles.

Did anyone notice the Tubi Super Bowl commercial with the scary rabbits?
"Find rabbit holes you didn't know you were looking for."

[Ergcat]

This puzzle was similar to THE SHOW-ME STATES from 2017 which was also by Matt Gaffney. I did a search for 'state' in the crossword titles.

Did anyone notice the Tubi Super Bowl commercial with the scary rabbits?
"Find rabbit holes you didn't know you were looking for."

Yes, that commercial was fun… thought of our Muggle Struggle immediately!

[sjm]

I have a bone to pick on this one. A River Runs Through It received its Oscar at the 1993 academy awards ceremony. So I’m think the hint is misstated.

[pjc]

I have a bone to pick on this one. A River Runs Through It received its Oscar at the 1993 academy awards ceremony. So I’m think the hint is misstated.

That's often a problem with Oscar-related puzzles. Example: the ceremony that takes place in 1993 honors movies from 1992. I never know which year is being referred to when I see a clue like '1975 Oscar winner' - the year of release or the year of the ceremony?

[pjc]

The solution was obvious... RIO GRANDE is a river and runs through the center of the puzzle ("runs through it"). Brad PITT is the star of "A River Runs Through It," and his name is found starting at 22 and running diagonally down to the right. All the other movies were just distractors.

Never even noticed that RIOGRANDE was a river running through the puzzle. Would have made the answer a solid CLICK!

[sjm]

I have a bone to pick on this one. A River Runs Through It received its Oscar at the 1993 academy awards ceremony. So I’m think the hint is misstated.

That's often a problem with Oscar-related puzzles. Example: the ceremony that takes place in 1993 honors movies from 1992. I never know which year is being referred to when I see a clue like '1975 Oscar winner' - the year of release or the year of the ceremony?

Well, the Oscars themselves use the year of the ceremony: https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonie ... s-honorees

[Joe Ross]

[phykos]

GRRR - I also saw the river (Rio Grande) in the middle of the grid, and saw ‘homonyms’ (38D) of CRAG (54D) Sheffer and Brad PIT (61D), but couldn’t believe that was the answer. Kudos to solvers!

[Mister Squawk]

Spent the required amount of time chasing state abbreviations, then tried tried the movie locales.

I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about the answer. Just searched for "1992 Oscar Montana".

[Streroto]

Quoting Norman MacLean (end of book and not a spoiler of the book kind I hope)

“Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.

“Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t. Like many fly fisherman in western Montana, where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.”

I am a pre-RRTI fly fisherman, and have been haunted by waters my entire life. As I said in an earlier post, I keep a copy of this scene on my phone. It is beautiful, sad and uplifting all at once. If you have not read this book you should, fisherperson or not. It is an American classic.

The Rio Grande running through the grid was a nice touch.

Stay well, all

[woozy]

The solution was obvious... RIO GRANDE is a river and runs through the center of the puzzle ("runs through it"). Brad PITT is the star of "A River Runs Through It," and his name is found starting at 22 and running diagonally down to the right. All the other movies were just distractors.

Never even noticed that RIOGRANDE was a river running through the puzzle. Would have made the answer a solid CLICK!

That was the *only* thing I saw for the longest time. It was too much of a coincidence for it not too be the answer. It wasn't by itself a solid click though. And it had nothing to do with states.

I tried to find other rivers crossing other entries (Is HERON a river? It is! But... c'mon that's too obscure) , or states hidden in clues. If found "1932 Best picture baSEDONAn edna ferbera novel" and thought "Aha, SEDONA is a river, isn't it! And it's in ARIZONA. Now to find the rivers in the other clues". Was hard so I looked at the wikipedia page on Sedona to confirm it was a river. It wasn't. Sedona was on a creek and not really any rivers near it at all. Pretty scenery though, and commented that many movies where filmed there (because of the picturesque red rocks) but seemed to point out that although it was Arizona most of the movies took place elsewhere. So for a brief moment I wondered if a river rain through it was filmed there and maybe all the films were filmed there (it was a brief thought) but they weren't among the films stated as having been filmed there. So then I thought about the states where the movies were filmed. But that was hard as the were filmed in multiple states or entirely on sets. Then I thought about the states where the movies took place and it came through.

1) this all may have happened faster if I had ever heard of "The Departed" and 2) It was really hard for me to associate King King (which mostly took place on Skull Island) with New York. The clue about the famous stop motion scene (someone here complained it had *many* scenes, not just one, but the clue was a *famous* scene) so one figures if it's about the Empire State Building it has to take place in New York.

[Bill Bovard]

I expected US states to be important and then saw MINARO, with Korean dialogue. Very worrisome until I found out it takes place in Arkansas!

I also tried to use the two-letter state codes, and putting them in year order, thinking that this was the reason all those clues started with the year. I fell into the trap of looking at the 1992 Oscars instead of 1993. And I don't know much about movies, I had to look up most of them on IMDB.

So this was a fun one.

[MikeM000]

The only real rabbit hole I went down - which kept coming up with gibberish - was trying to make something out of state abbreviations hiding in the film answers.

Unfortunately the genius of John Ford could not force the state of North Dakolaware into existence....