Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: December 13, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My time: 12:47, a new record!  I beat my old best time, set just a week ago, by a full minute!

Theme: "Cinéma Vérité."  This means that move titles are clued with puns that literally describe the movie.  This is the kind of wordplay that's up my alley, so I got these jokes immediately.  I didn't need any crossfill; I just saw the clue "Indy film?" and knew it had to be RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  "Dock-udrama?" is clearly ON THE WATERFRONT, and I knew "Family film?" was THE GODFATHER right off.  So with those long theme answers coming in quickly, the rest just fell into place, I guess.

I did think "Short film?" might be a movie that starred Martin Short, but it's HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, which is pretty funny.

So, the fill.

"Out of tune... or bubbles" is a good clue for FLAT.

I either never knew or long forgot that the first story in I ROBOT is called "Robbie," but that's a pretty apposite and helpful clue.

"One whose range goes from about F3 to F5, musically" is ALTO.  I have never heard of this type of musical notation.  This page says an alto can be G3 to E5.

DREA de Matteo played Adriana on "The Sopranos," Angie Bolen on "Desperate Housewives," and Wendy Case on "Sons of Anarchy." 

MYSORE Palace is the royal residence in Mysore, Karnataka, India.  It is now one of the most famous tourist attractions in India, after the Taj Mahal, with more than 6 million annual visitors.

The puzzle says that a PANSY is a variety of violet, but seems rather than they are cousins, both being in the genus viola, rather than one being a subset of the other?  Maybe.  I'm no botanist.

Italy's Mount ETNA is a common answer.  Today it's clued as having a name "derived from the Greek for 'to burn.'"  

ANNO mundi means "year of the world" and is distinct from anno domini in calendar keeping. It's a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. 

I vaguely recall the TGIF block of programming on ABC in the '90s.  It included "Full House" and "Perfect Strangers," two shows I have watched pretty much zero of.  Apparently the opening sequence featured animated mice with falsetto voices.  No wonder I didn't pay attention.

Grp. with the Vezina Trophy is NHL.  It is awarded annually to goaltender who is "adjudged to be the best at this position."  What mild wording!

"Half-moon tide" is NEAP, a phenomenon I'm aware of, but I wasn't sure about the half-moon connection.  Neap tides occur during the first and third quarter moon, when the moon appears "half full."

The New York engineering sch. is RPI, or Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, located in Troy, New York, which came up on January 30, 2019.

I remembered Nair rival NEET from October 24, 2018.

Photographer NAN Goldin is back, baby! 

Utah site ARCHES National Park was in a clue on November 12.

Clever clues: "Wear off?" is DISROBE.  "Kids use it for texts" is BOOK BAG — they got me there!  "Bit of ranch dressing?" is STETSON.

Well, that's the puzzle, from DAN to RAN.  There wasn't very much new to me at all, and the theme came easy to me.  I broke the thirteen-minute mark; now only seven minutes stand between me and Dan Feyer!