The five long vowel sounds represented in LANE, LEAN, LINE, LOAN, LUNE. CLAIR DE LUNE might not be an immediately recognizable title to some solvers, but it was played in the background at the end of "Ocean's 11," as the crew gathers one last time before dispersing. Beautiful scene, beautiful piece of music.
TOE THE PARTY LINE made for a perfect middle themer — both colorful and convenient to construct around. There are dozens of other ___ LINE phrases, but choosing one of either 7 or 15 letters makes construction so much easier than working with a 9, 11, or 13. Great selection.
I wouldn't have made the same choice of DAVID LEAN, preferring EXTRA LEAN, especially since this is a straightforward Monday-ish theme. DAVID LEAN isn't as well known as Spielberg, but …
Well, heck, he probably should be! Can you imagine having "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" under your belt? Talk about an artist's wildest dreams coming true.
VICTORY LANE also was slightly odd-seeming to me. Maybe this is much more recognizable a term for people from Indianapolis?
IMPORTANT NOTE: one of the top hits for VICTORY LANE in my search came up on urban dictionary. Don't click on that. Just, don't.
Oh, ELOI. It's a word even this sci-fi buff shakes his head at. I'd personally put that in the "puzzle-killer" category. It's too bad — I don't think it's right to judge a puzzle's craftsmanship by its worst entry, but some little entries seem way worse to me than others. ELOI feels to me like a throwback to the bad old Maleskan days.
It's a real shame since the rest of the grid was pretty darn good. I'm not sure I buy ROCK CAVES — just CAVES, yeah? — but CIVIC DUTY, THE NFL, YERTLE, that's pretty good stuff. And of course, the dork in me loves ELVISH.
Perhaps if "The Time Machine" had been made by Peter Jackson ...
Long way of saying I'd gladly go without CIVIC DUTY if it meant no ELOI. That'd call for a complete grid redo, unfortunately.
I appreciated the consistency (all final words being four letters) and tightness (covering all five long vowels, in order) of this theme. If either the themers or the grid had excited me a little more, this could have been POW! material.