Jim

Maybe it's just meant for better puzzlers than me, but I needed the most help on this of any crossword I've done in years. Probably would have been better to put "unofficial motto" since that's not the official one. That confused me. A couple of the clues I understood fully what was meant, but couldn't figure out how it was being interpreted to fit it in to the puzzle. Definitely they were very clever clues, but almost too clever. More hints in some way would be good if you're aiming for a little broader section of fun

I really enjoyed that crossword! Some challenging clues, but the cross clues were never the same type of challenging (for example, I'm relatively terrible with pop culture names, so when a puzzle has cross clues with obscure pop culture names, I'm pretty hopeless and often have to look them up). And the theme was fun, and the clues for the theme made sense to me. I'm only six months into doing these, but this was my favourite Sunday puzzle so far

The idea of this was good. The clues were really good. The implementation was really bad. My biggest gripe was that if I had the stolen painting clue entered having figured it out from the cross-clues, I had to go search through the clues to find that one. It should have highlighted it. That alone would have made it much much better for me. I didn't put it in as rebus at all, did that work? but understanding that the letter where the painting was stolen from was the cross clue only was confusing. It kind of goes against what a "cross"word is, so it was completely not intuitive. By the time I figured it all out I was too frustrated and just looked up where to fix it. I had solved everything, but had not input it correctly, and that isn't a good puzzling experience. But as I said, I really liked the idea, and the way the clues were done was fantastic. Just the implementation didn't work for me

Hardest Tuesday puzzle I've done yet (6 months into doing them consistently). I found the 42a clue quite confusing since there was no hint (or the hint was so subtle) that there was a spelling change as well. Especially in a Tuesday puzzle where I didn't expect that much subtlety Once gotten though I do quite like both 31 and 32 down clue/answer

A good puzzle (I'm not nearly good enough to call it easy by any stretch). I spent almost half my time figuring out that it was Clonk instead of clunk. And my music knowledge is rather poor so the cross clue was not helpful. Am I the only one that has never really heard clonk? (My swipe texting won't even find it, keeps going to either clunk or clink)?

I really struggled with three clues with Taw and Tali crossing with Wired. Maybe it's just me but I had never heard of either Tali or Taw (Talus was rolling around in my mind somewhere, but not something I would have ever come up with enough to then change it to the irregular plural). And Wired is an extremely esoteric movie. It could have easily been "tired" or "cured" or probably a few others. The combination of all three made it an impossible corner for me. I liked the clues for the movies, but like another commenter, I was confused by it being about the titles rather than about the movie itself. I am not fond of "unsafe" being a clue for "out". It kind of reminds me of someone using a thesaurus and not understanding the nuance of the word. It just doesn't quite fit the way "not safe" would. Maybe that's just me being a little too pedantic though :) Overall a really good, fun puzzle

I have to say I found this puzzle just frustrating, not fun. Too many clues were either a stretch or obscure. While technically true that ATVs transport, I've never heard them referred to as a transport. Steno for a trial figure? Without at least two letters, that's unlikely to be an answer. Kind of and a bit? Major stretch. Blase means you don't really care, over it means you did care but don't anymore. Rogers cousin to yessir? Major stretch. Mens Rea is obscure. Lachrymose is somewhat obscure. Sleigh is very fun, but super tough. Margaritas from Dallas is obscure. I still don't understand how yeast is wild. Monks style is obscure when it wasn't even clear that was referring to a person. Pentads is a crazy obscure word. Have away with words is such a weird way to say something. I wouldn't say eccentric and dotty are synonyms at all. I still don't know how Eli is a certain Ivy leaguer, way obscure. And then that was a very difficult inner puzzle with switching the letters. No one of those things is too bad or too obscure, but altogether, there weren't enough clues from reasonable answers to give a good chance to find the harder ones. Especially when adding in other ones that were just more specialized knowledge where it's unlikely anyone knows them all, and those that one needs letters to get an idea where you're going with it. I didn't find it a fun puzzle. I would suggest if giving such a difficult inner puzzle trying to ensure that there are a lot fewer harder clues.

Have to say I'm not really a fan of this one. Too many clues that could be a wide variety of things (fudge), or that are stretches (lamb steak?). Some of those are ok, I'll get them through the cross clues, but too many and it becomes a trial and error frustration for me. This was an exercise in frustration

Chichi -> artsy?? Already a pretty niche clue and then it doesn't really fit the answer. I liked areyoukiddingme, notetoself, ihaverorun, shakeonit, and armwrestle very much. Challenging, but make sense

I enjoyed this puzzle quite a bit. I did find the French bread to be a pretty big stretch. Even European bread would've been less deliberately deceptive. Or even "new French bread" just anything to give a hint it was an unusual clue. If I had known Audi I would've probably gotten there though..