Too Soon?

As we all get ready to watch Now You See Me: Now You Don't this opening weekend, I can’t help but think about how perfect of movies they are. I like magic and magic movies (The Prestige, anyone?) and I like heists and heist movies (too many to list here), so what a perfect combination. Anyone who says they didn’t think the first two movies were very good would be objectively right - but movie is in the eye of the beholder, or something.

I’m delighted to share with you another guest constructor puzzle this week! Though the puzzle is listed as co-authored by Jeff and I, Jeff carried the brunt of the load - I was just the guiding, polishing hand that presents it to you here today. If you’re interested in learning how to make a crossword, you only need to dream about it for another month…

Join me on December 11, 2025, for an evening where I teach you everything you need to know about making a crossword puzzle. Space is very limited - but if there’s interest, I’ll host it again in the future! I hope to see you there :)

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Play

Too Soon? by Jeff Nachtigall & Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

Can you tell that Jeff likes movies? I love puzzles that show personality, and this one has it in droves. Lots of movie references, clever clues, and humour.

Here’s what Jeff had to say:

For anyone unfamiliar with Paul Rudd’s Conan appearances, here’s a supercut for you.

Today’s Theme

The four starred clues all follow a similar format: [* A movie about an alien], [* A movie about a whole bunch of robots], and so on. 40-Across, [What I should have said before the starred clues], is the revealer. Jeff should have said SPOILER ALERT! Why? Because the movie title is right in the clue - the answers are ALIEN, ROBOTS, TWINS, and DRIVE.

Behind the Clues

6A. ["You are NOT the father!" sayer] MAURY is the undeniable king of trashy daytime television. Who knows how much of that show was fact and how much was fiction - no one can argue it isn’t a wild ride (though it does hurt me to watch).

21A. [Move in to new digs, say] is one of my favourite of Jeff’s clues. No, he’s not talking about relocating to a new apartment… He’s literally talking about moving into new digs. If you reimagine yourself as a plant, you’ll consider that to move into new digs might be to REPOT yourself. And isn’t the metaphor apt - when I move to new digs, I want to spread my roots and grow there!

29A. We managed to sneak in some indirect movie references like this one (believe me, the first draft of the crossword had 50% more movie references lol). [Bill’s killer?] harkens to Quinten Tarantino’s Kill Bill, a rhomp of a revenge movie. In this case, it’s not Bill we’re killing, but “bill,” and the killer of a bill is a VETOER.

6D. This one is a little cryptic, so it's worth delving into. [Andy's pop-art portraits of him turned communism into capitalism] refers to the pop art of Andy Warhol and his portrait of the Chinese ruler MAO Zedong. Given that context, one could say by selling these portraits, Warhol turned a communist Chinese ruler into profit via capitalism. Clever Jeff, clever!

22D. [Way to get TV shows, movies, and hot water] was a clue that went through a few revisions. The original was [A relatively new way to watch relatively new movies], but though it had a nice symmetry to it, that area of the puzzle was a bit too hard and it ended up changed. Instead, we landed on this fun clue that shows a fun connection between disparaging things - movies and hot water, both of which you can get ON DEMAND.

39D. Is the internet dead? It feels more and more that way lately, especially with the rise of AI. There are times and places for it, but, like any new technology, it’s ripe for people to abuse for the sake of money, and abuse they do. [AI SLOP (most generative content these days)] has taken over the internet, and, sorry to end this on a downer, but Hank Green has a great video on why I’m concerned about this AI boom (and you should be too).

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next Friday,

Brandon