Alexandra

DADAISM is such a great bit of wordplay that I literally LOLed and annoyed my husband who is still actively puzzling. That whole SW corner is just fantastic: IVANA, INERTIA & VACANCY Nice

It’s not a terrible theme but is it worthy of a Thursday? Hardly. I miss a good, tricky rebus. This theme is nicely cohesive and there are some great answers in here that go beyond crossword-see: POSOLE, SHTETL, SCRIP and PROPHESIED were all strong. But the trick to the puzzle isn’t worthy of a Thursday imo.

Boy howdy it’s nice to have Will Shortz back in the game.

I loved how “auteur” was thrown in with Ebert’s hilarious pans of Hollywood schlock. There was a bit of a missed opportunity to clue “stone” as director Oliver Stone, but I’m nitpicking. Great theme, good fill - more like this, please!

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Great theme! Pleasant amount of resistance. Adored the cluing on ROME, INGRATES, and ONION. I’m definitely not an AC/DC fan but I love Brian ENO so l’ll let it slide. A massive improvement over the past few days. Nice!

Disappointed with the lack of a theme, relative easiness of most of the clues, green paint answers (SAKE BOTTLE, really?), and over-reliance on PPP trivia. Themeless Sundays are usually a bummer, this one was especially so.

This felt like a Wednesday. No challenge, no grit, no bite. There was nothing *that* terrible - I’ve never seen Survivor, don’t care about the CMAs or ADELE’s music that much, but that’s just my contrarian tastes I guess. But there was no clever world play here, nothing to think about, no “a-ha” moments. Another letdown after a weak Thursday.

Ok let me start out by saying that I have never ever EVER liked AC/DC. There’s a lot of great bands that are loud and only know three cords. AC/DC was never one of them for me. So the theme wasn’t necessarily terrible but… eh Never heard of WIPE OUT, and WARD ≠ CARE. Like if someone is your WARD, they’re in your care I guess? Weak cluing yet again. Step it up NYT. We need a real distraction these days.

Could have been improved by working MEL BLANC in as a revealer maybe? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ A little weak as a theme for something as iconic as Looney Tunes, but nothing *terrible* per se. Now I’m thinking about fun ways to have a Looney Tunes themed Sunday puzzle (Wile E Coyote chasing the Roadrunner around the grid with some rebus action)… but alas it’s 9 am on a Monday and I have to write work emails instead of learning puzzle construction. Boo.

How, just HOW could you possibly have a Shawshank Redemption themed puzzle and have zero mention of Red, Morgan Freeman, or the Warden? Any of these names or characters should have at least garnered a mention in the cluing. I think Stephen King, obsidian, Rita Hayworth could have also been used to good effect here. Missed opportunities for sure.

Seemed more like a Tuesday or a maybe even a Monday. Very disappointed.

Surely the NYT gets better submissions than this? INASUIT? Seriously?

My take: a pun is not a theme.