Yeah, I Love The Oscars

I don’t watch many movies. Not by choice - well, I guess it’s fully in my control. So yes, by choice. But I love movies, so I have an essentially constant desire to watch more of them. Which ones, though? There are too many to watch them all. Awards shows tell you what the “best” ones are, but not which ones you’d like the best. I don’t want to get stuck in “the algorithm.” So I’ve settled on the most reliable method to have a good time at a movie - if a friend invites me to watch a movie, I say yes. And this method led me once again to success, as I went to the Metro earlier this week to see Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time. I recommend you see it, and ideally don’t watch the trailer beforehand (if you trust me). Trailers give away too much these days.

This week’s puzzle is hip and current! With The Oscars just around the corner (not the future corner, the past corner), I figured we could have a little fun with them today.

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Umm, Actually…

I made a mistake in last week’s newsletter! Thank you to Julianne and Harris for pointing it out. Real Reboot fans know that Enzo is Dot’s brother, not her son like I mentioned. If you too caught that error, well done! You can go to your local coffee shop and give the cashier the codeword Enzo for 10% off your next drink.

Now, back to this week…

Play

Yeah, I Love The Oscars by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

One of the tools I use to come up with themes is what I call the “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Not My Job Segment Misdirect.” Inspired by the “Not My Job” segment of NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” (surprise), they will invite a celebrity guest on and say “Well {Guest}, you know a lot about {thing related to you}, but we’ve asked you on our show today to ask you questions about {thing that sounds related to the initial thing but isn’t}. For example, “You recently trained to fly rockets into space, so we thought we’d see what you know about ROCKETS, the roll of ultra-sweet candies every kid gets loads of at Halloween.” Perhaps you can see how this inspired this week’s theme.

We’ve got a few musicians making appearances today, and while I’d love to play Don MacLean’s “American Pie,” I think I need to explain to non-Swifties why [How Taylor Swift would admit she's the problem] is IT’S ME.

Today’s Theme

The four italicized clues make up the theme, along with the title - Yeah, I Love The Oscars. The title and phrasing of the clues, of course, relate to the Academy Awards presented for cinematic achievement. However, these Oscar categories are silly and made up, and the answers are all people/characters named Oscar! Hence,

["And the Oscar for 'Best Gothic Horror of 1890', for The Picture of Dorian Gray, goes to..."] is author Oscar WILDE.

["And the Oscar for 'Best Accountant in an Office Mockumentary' goes to..."] is accountant Oscar Martinez of The Office.

["And the Oscar for 'Best Performance From A Trash Receptacle' goes to..."] is of course, Oscar THE GROUCH.

and ["And the Oscar for 'Best Vehicle Shaped Like a Hot Dog' goes to..."] is for another famous corporate jingle (see last week), Oscar MAYER of Oscar Mayer Weiners.

I like to imagine all the Oscars coming together in one place for this award show. If AI art didn’t give me the ick on multiple levels, this would be a great use of it. But please don’t.

Behind the Clues

1A. Run for your lives! [They're killers! Killers I tell you!] And by killers, I mean killer whales, aka ORCAS. This is one of two clues this week that are written as spoken phrases (32-Down, [Ah, to be in France...] is the other). Anyone who thinks orcas are killers just needs to watch Free Willy, the documentary.

12A. [You can be a nervous one (I can, too)] is WRECK, and ain’t that the truth. This clue was originally about the Canadian band Big Wreck, but it was replaced with this one to make the NE corner more approachable.

24A. In what is probably one of the cutest movies of all time (and testimony against the idea that child actors are bad), [Affirmation from Buckwheat (and Porky) in "Little Rascals"] is OTAY. Here’s the amazing scene this is from (though I believe they say it multiple times throughout the movie).

3D. [An oven mitt, when I'm imitating a lobster] is a fun clue, and one that kicks off “animal row,” as I came to call it. Four animal-related clues back to back, the others being: [Gator tail?], [Mattress brand with numbered sheep mascots], and [Little one that may be Great Horned or Snowy]. All very different clues and references. What a fun coincidence!

20D. Talk about being topical. Though I’m admittedly not much of an Olympics watcher, this year’s curling drama was enough to make me check the latest for a while. [Org. in charge of the games where Canada had curling drama], of course, is the International Olympic Committee, or IOC.

31D. It hurt a bit to put this in, but I did anyway lmao. [If you look closely / This clue is a bad version / Of this type of work] has the 5/7/5 syllable structure of a haiku, or a POEM. Unfortunately, due to widespread adoption by children, the haiku and limerick are what I would consider the poor man’s poems. If this offends you, send me a good haiku.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon