MADness—the Blog

If you missed yesterday’s post, the solutions to the MAD Launch Contest puzzles are now available.  See the answers page for the detailed solutions to the puzzles.  The three Final Answers to the puzzles, along with some comments, are below.

WINNERS

Yes, we have winners!  
     1 — Grand Prize of $50:  Peter J. Saputo
     1 — Pretty Good Prize of $25:  Marcia Rose
     1 — Pretty Good Prize of $25:  Robert Hartford
     10 — Official Minute A Day About Movies Coffee Mugs:
               - P. Abide
               - Garo Sassouni
               - Laura Dove
               - Andrew J. Ries
               - Alene
               - Jerry
               - Mary Ann
               - Bob Fitzpatrick
               - A Braunsdorf*
               - John & Lisa LaFianza*

     * If you see your name and haven’t yet responded, please send an email with your mailing address.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all of you who took time to solve the puzzles and enter the contest. 

CONTEST ANSWERS

MMX Crossword Final Answer:  MOVIE MOVIE

If you’re a regular crossword solver, this was more likely the easier puzzle.  In fact, good crossword solvers could probably crack this one without knowing much about movies.  It was much tougher, though, even if you were a major movie buff but didn’t have a lot of experience with crosswords.  Some notes on the puzzle:

MMX—The title seemed fitting since the launch of this site was concurrent with the launch of 2010.  That led to the theme, ten (X) movie-related names or titles with initials M.M.  From that came the final answer to the puzzle.  A couple of M.M. answers had to be in the grid, I figured:  MARILYN MONROE and MICKEY MOUSE.  With others I had some flexibility.  Since MARCELLO MASTROIANNI and MERCEDES MCCAMBRIDGE were each 19 letters long, that led to the logical size of the grid being 23×23. 

MARILYN MONROE—The clue [About whom Clark Gable said "She makes a man proud to be a man"] may have led you in a different direction if you hadn’t yet caught onto the theme.  As one solver noted, CAROLE LOMBARD is another 13-letter answer that fit in the grid.  Lombard, of course, was Gable’s wife and the love of his life, from whose loss he never quite recovered.  (I hadn’t intended that misdirection with the clue.  It just happened that way.)

[E-cars] and [Scare]—Anagrammed clues, yes, but their answers, EDSELS and AWE (at 94- and 99-Across), were not at all consistent with the ten theme answers.  At least one solver noted the anagrams, but no one mistook them for the final answer.

["Toy Story" or "The Women," e.g.] and ["The Omen," "Toys," "Troy," or "W.," e.g.]—I had the idea early of using anagrammed clues for signaling the meta (i.e., final answer), but I left writing the actual clue till the end.  It was much trickier than I expected.  As I have mentioned, I’ve had dozens of puzzles published in papers.  I’ve written thousands of crossword clues.  For whatever reason, no other clue has ever taken me as long to find as this one.  I was pleased with the mix of movie titles in the end.

MOVIE MOVIE—The duplicated 5-letter answers that crossed in the center should have been a giveaway.  Like the clues, it wasn’t meant to be overly difficult.  I aimed for “satisfying.”  That seemed to be the case from the comments I received.  Even if you weren’t familiar with the movie—a Stanley Donen musical comedy starring George C. Scott—you shouldn’t have had any doubt about the final answer if you were able to solve the grid.

FilmFest 101 Final Answer:  HAPPY NEW YEAR

I wanted to provide a contest option that tested movie knowledge rather than crossword-solving skills.  I wasn’t interested in a simple quiz (there are lots on the internet but I often lose interest after five or ten questions).  I was happy to get the idea for this puzzle, essentially a process of elimination, which, I hope, was novel and more fun for solvers.  Apparently, it was more challenging too—it tripped up a few contestants.

The level of difficulty varied by screening, from easy (the two-M titles) to diabolical (Monty Franklin Pierce Statton), but there were hints for solvers, no restrictions on using external references, and the final acrostic was workable even for solvers who didn’t identify all 100 movie titles.  Overall, I think the puzzle was fair enough.

The final answer was “timely,” especially for anyone solving at the beginning of the month.  One challenge with selecting the twelve films for the Final Screening was coming up with titles that are well-known today.  For those very early decades, few movies are household names.  The film that may have been the least known was the earliest of all.  It was a scene that’s been filmed countless times over the years—two doting parents (Auguste and Marguerite Lumière), one adorable baby (Andrée Lumière), not a lot of action (Louis Lumière was behind the camera).  It was the original home movie.  If you’d read the first Movie Minute at this site, published the same day as the contest, you’d know the Lumière brothers screened ten films for their first paying audience in 1895.  Repas de Bébé was one of them.

You’ve come a long way, bébé.

Favorite Film

Here are the votes of contestants for favorite new film of 2009:

5 — The Hurt Locker**
4 — Inglourious Basterds**
3 — Avatar**
3 — Up**
2 — District 9**
2 — The Hangover
2 — Precious**
2 — A Single Man
2 — Up in the Air**
1 — The Blind Side**
1 — An Education**
1 — Pirate Radio
1 — Public Enemies
1 — The Secret in Their Eyes
1 — A Serious Man**
1 — Skin
1 — Summer Hours
1 — Where the Wild Things Are
0 — All About Steve

** Academy Award nominee for Best Picture.  (Each of the ten nominees got the vote of at least one contestent.)

1. Peter Saputo says:

   February 20, 2010 at 8:52 am

   John: once again, thanks for a great time. Very head-scratchy elimation puzzle, but very much fun. I received my prize today in the mail and I thank you for that too. Congratulations on taking on something like this!! You’re a brave man. Pete