USA Today - 13.11.2019

4D z WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 z USA TODAY LIFE

© WIGGLES 3D GAMES DON’T QUOTE ME® English poet T.S. Eliot Rearrange the words to complete the quote. thinks about human behavior.

DONE DUE HALF HARM IMPORTANT PEOPLE WANT WORLD ________OFTHE________THAT IS________IN THIS___________IS________TO___________ WHO________TO FEEL______________. 11/13 Tuesday’s Answer: “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.” - Charles de Gaulle

TXTPERT Across

73224

2862236

54522

5233

7673

Down

73275

26262

697837

4747

2926

11/13

Today’s theme Colors Use the phone keypad to decode the clues. For example: 2 could be A, B or C ... and 5678 could be LOST 11/12 © USA TODAY and Rich Coulter Yesterday’s solution

1 2

3 4

5 6 7

8 9

(^1) A L (^2) AR M (^34) S
C R^5 A I D E
A T T A
D^6 S H E E T
E T
M O^7 P A^8 D
I R E U
(^9) C R A Y O N E
ACROSS
1 Pair in an UGG
box
6 Crop up
repeatedly
11 Additive sold at
NAPA
14 Leave the sack
15 “Guess you beat
me”
16 Sedona
automaker
17 Easygoing frame
of mind
19 Picks from a
lineup, briefly
20 Causes of
overtime
21 “Water Lilies”
painter Claude
23 Evening prayers
27 Detox diet
29 Opulent digs
30 NATO part
31 Cops in a raid
32 Breakfast side
33 Beyond tipsy
36 “Woe is me!”
37 “That’s yucky!”
38 Grey of Western
novels
39 Honolulu Airport
greeter’s gift
40 Feels distressed
41 It’s found on a
spine
42 Tastelessly showy
44 Porch furniture
material
45 Depth charges,
slangily
47 Critics’ writeups
48 Largish combo
49 Piece of penne,
essentially
50 Nicki Minaj’s
genre
51 “To be” is not one
58 Prefix with angle
or cycle
59 Give one’s two
cents
60 Dorothy Gale,
to Em
61 “We the Living”
author Rand
62 Track transaction
63 Fare behind a
sneezeguard
DOWN
1 Watering hole, so
to speak
2 Iron or lead
source
3 Cruet filler
4 Air marshals’ org.
5 Medium-sized
combos
6 Enjoys a Harley,
say
7 Trees with split-
resistant wood
8 Call from a cote
9 GI morale booster
10 Beef or emu
11 Low-calorie coffee
concoction
12 Moon-related
phenomena
13 Command after
“copy”
18 County Cork’s
land
22 Feedbag morsel
23 Easily corrupted
24 Amazon
transaction, e.g.
25 Tailor’s fastener
26 Campaign
funders, briefly
27 Far from genteel
28 Discounted by
30 Comb part
32 Bit of salon litter
34 Kate Middleton,
to Prince Harry
35 Chilly temperature
range
37 Cheshire cat’s
remains
38 Penne
alternative
40 Area with
Greek houses,
briefly
41 Watering
holes, so to
speak
43 Bandage
brand
44 McEntire of
country
45 Vessel in an
angiogram
46 Spine-tingling
47 Czar or kaiser
49 Bring into pitch
52 Govt. smog
watchdog
53 Job in a 1-Down,
perhaps
54 Itinerary word
55 Epitome of
slipperiness
56 HDTV brand
57 Partner of
breakfast
Answers: Call 1-900-988-8300, 99 cents a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-320-4280.
JEANS FITS
CROSSWORD
BYGail Grabowski
Tuesday’s Answer
11/12
© Andrews McMeel 11/13
CROSSWORDS
ON YOUR PHONE
get our crossword app
EDITED Fred Piscop
DIFFICULTY RATING✮✮✮✩✩
Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3
box contains the numbers 1 through 9 (no repeats).
11/13
11/12
SUDOKU FUSION
ON YOUR PHONE
puzzles.usatoday.com
Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x2
box contains the numbers 1 through 6 (no repeats).
DIFFICULTY RATING✮✮✮✩✩
2 3 5 8
3 6 7 2
4 6
6 4 5 2
3 1
7 6 4 5
7 9
2 4 7 6
9 2 8 7
5 6 3
4 1 6
1
2
6 5 2
5 6 1
1 7 8 6 3 4 5 9 2
6 3 9 1 5 2 8 7 4
5 4 2 8 7 9 6 3 1
4 8 7 5 1 3 9 2 6
3 6 5 2 9 7 1 4 8
9 2 1 4 8 6 3 5 7
2 1 4 9 6 5 7 8 3
8 5 3 7 4 1 2 6 9
7 9 6 3 2 8 4 1 5
4 2 1 6 5 3
3 5 6 1 4 2
6 3 5 4 2 1
1 4 2 3 6 5
2 1 4 5 3 6
5 6 3 2 1 4
Tuesday’s Answers
SUDOKU
©Andrews McMeel
QUICKCROSS
By John Wilmes 11/13
Cherry type
Above
Pastime or contest
Winter fall
Spongy grounds
Pavlov or Rodriguez
Verne captain
Got bigger
Tuesday’s Answer
11/12
K I N G
A M I I
T A N G
O N E S
QUICKCROSS
ON YOUR PHONE
puzzles.usatoday.com
© Andrews McMeel
SAILING

PLAY ONLINE
PUZZLES.USATODAY.COM
UP & DOWN WORDS
By David L. Hoyt and Russell L. Hoyt

Acquire approval

Written authorization

Make a mistake

In opposition to

James Woods in “
Odds”

“It’s safe now” signal

Smooth, unimpeded progress

Clues: Tuesday’s Answer BEHIND SCHEDULE CHANGE HANDS IN CANADA DRY

FALL BEHIND SCHEDULE CHANGE HANDS IN CANADA

GET

11/13

©Andrews McMeel

C F L I C K C E M N F M R R C C J D S R L O I U U B U R R I B X U D L S M E P X U U M E V N M I B N K R L T C O R O C C R G C J N M C I V L R H N A S O U N D H A I I P V L L I S B O N J L E N

WORD ROUNDUP By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Tuesday’s answer: HIMALAYAS ROCKIES ANDES ALPS / ORIOLE MAGPIE CRANE GOOSE / CHEESE BUTTER MILK / GINGER / AIRBUS

11/13 Findand Circle: Six words starting with CRU ☑☐☐☐☐☐ Three words for “motion picture” ☐☐☐ Three country capitals ending with N ☐☐☐ Julie Andrews in “The ____ of ____” ☐☐ ____ tiger ☐

© Andrews McMeel

PUZZLES

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Christmas cheer is a staple of holiday
movies, be they good, bad or just plain
ugly, but so is a bit of melancholy.
Some darkness is a hallmark of the
classics. In the many, many variations
on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Car-
ol,” it’s all good news and “God bless us,
every one” by the end, but when ol’
Scrooge comes face to face with the
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come it’s a gut
punch.
Don’t forget “It’s A Wonderful Life”:
Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey contem-
plates suicide.
It’s the movies that are inordinately
sad – and just not very good to begin
with – where the anguish is a huge turn-
off. The latest in that subgenre of holi-
day fare is director Paul Feig’s “Last
Christmas,”with Emilia Clarke veering
far from Mother of Dragons mode as a
yuletide-shop elf who’s not having a
good time of it when a handsome
stranger (Henry Golding) offers the
pick-me-up she desperately needs.
Here are five holiday movies you
might want to avoid – or at least watch
in an excessively good mood.

‘Collateral Beauty’ (2016)

Where to even begin with this trav-
esty? How about with the death of a
child: Will Smith plays a once-success-
ful advertising executive who’s still
grieving the loss of his daughter two
years later and writes cathartic letters to
Love, Time and Death. But for the real
cynical assault on the holiday spirit, the
guy’s business partners (Edward Nor-
ton, Kate Winslet and Michael Pena) try
to prove he’s mentally unstable so they
can sell the company. At least there’s
surprise twistiness and a somewhat up-
lifting ending, though you’ll probably
have tapped out of the weepy schmaltz
by then.

‘The Family Man’ (2000)

This is a perfect example of why Nicolas Cage should stick to crazy, Cage-y roles. There’s a “Wonderful Life” spin to this tale of Jack (Cage), a Wall Street guy who gets a glimpse of the road not taken with a college girlfriend (Teá Leoni). He wakes up in a different life with a different job (he’s a tire sales- man now), married and with children, and after a fish-out-of-water period, Jack finds that he digs his new life – only to have the rug pulled out from under him and be sent back to his old exis- tence. Sure, there’s a glimmer of hope at the end, but still ... BRUTAL.

‘The Family Stone’ (2005)

Ah, the all-star tear-jerking Christ- mas dramedy with a dysfunctional clan. Dermot Mulroney plays a dude who takes his uptight girlfriend (Sarah Jessi- ca Parker) home to meet his crazy-liber- al family (including Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson and Craig T. Nelson), and rampant bickering, casual homophobia and romantic switcheroos ensue. Amid all this is the deteriorating condition of the Stone mom (Diane Keaton), a breast cancer survivor. Her cancer returns, she doesn’t tell the family because it’s the holidays, and – spoiler alert for a 14- year-old movie – she doesn’t quite reach the credits in a not-as-happy-as-it- could’ve-been ending.

‘Jack Frost’ (1998)

Bar-band singer/dad Jack Frost (Mi- chael Keaton) gives his son his “magi- cal” harmonica, and on the way to a big gig decides he’d rather spend time with his family and dies in a car accident. (Thanks to bad windshield wipers.) His son plays the harmonica, which sticks Jack’s soul into a snowman. Unsurpris- ingly, the kid is weirded out by a talking snowman, but Jack gets to do a lot of parenting (and sledding) in his Frosty

new form, which gets trickier as the weather warms. So prepare for dead snowman dad high jinks followed by a soul-wrenching goodbye scene.

‘Last Christmas’ (2019)

This absurd chestnut is based on the famous George Michael song and sort of wants to be a jukebox musical (but isn’t), wants to be a romantic comedy yet has a whole weird anti-Brexit angle,

and is fluffy and way predictable. You’ll figure out the downer of a twist within the first 15 minutes, though until the in- evitable shoe drops you get unlucky Kate (Clarke) making googly eyes with enigmatic Tom (Golding) as she has a Scrooge-esque life turnaround follow- ing a medical emergency that throws her life off track. Only for Wham! die- hards and those who think hearing “Last Christmas” sung six times, once by a toy Christmas gibbon, sounds cool.

MOVIES

Holiday ﬂicks

aren’t all festive

Will Smith stars as a grieving father in desperate need of some Christmas spirit in “Collateral Beauty.” BARRY WETCHER

Nicolas Cage stars as a Wall Street guy in “The Family Man.” SAM URDANK/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

Diane Keaton is an ailing mom in “The Family Stone.” ZADE ROSENTHAL/20TH CENTURY FOX

Charlie Frost (Joseph Cross) sleds with his snowman dad in “Jack Frost.” SUZANNE HANOVER/WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Tom (Henry Golding) gets Kate (Emilia Clarke) out of a deep funk in “Last Christmas.” UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Brian Truitt
USA TODAY

USA Today - 13.11.2019

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