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Solution to Evan Birnholz’s May 26 crossword, ‘Screen Gems’

This’ll be a snap!

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May 26, 2024 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Solution to the May 26, 2024, crossword, “Screen Gems” (Evan Birnholz for The Washington Post)

Today’s movie-based puzzle comes with both colorful and circled squares. First, we have six film titles:

  • 23A: [2001 Oscar-winning film about the mathematician John Nash] is “A BEAUTIFUL MIND,” with MIND in yellow squares and a circled T.
  • 31A: [2012 romantic comedy about teenagers in love] is “THE FIRST TIME,” with TIME in green squares and a circled H.
  • 54A: [2017 superhero film featuring Zords (battle vehicles modeled on prehistoric creatures)] is “POWER RANGERS,” with POWER in purple squares and a circled A.
  • 70A: [1947 film that topped Christina Newland’s “50 Best Boxing Movies” list in Paste magazine] is “BODY AND SOUL,” with SOUL in orange squares and a circled N. (ORANGE is in the grid at 22A, too, clued as [70 Across shade], but that ended up being a coincidence. It wasn’t intended to be part of the theme.)
  • 88A: [2000 adventure film in which “Fly Me to the Moon” plays during the end credits] is “SPACE COWBOYS,” with SPACE in blue squares and a circled O.
  • 107A: [1994 romantic dramedy starring Winona Ryder as an aspiring documentary filmmaker] is “REALITY BITES,” with REALITY in red squares and a circled S.

Fans of blockbuster superhero films may have spotted the pattern just from that, but in case you’re unfamiliar with it, two other answers at the bottom spell things out. 117A: [Colorful artifacts of Avengers films, represented by the puzzle’s shaded words] is INFINITY STONES and 123A: [Josh who played the supervillain who collected the 117 Across (this supervillain is spelled out in the puzzle’s circled squares)] is Josh BROLIN. The six Infinity Stones in the Marvel universe are the Mind Stone, the Time Stone, the Power Stone, the Soul Stone, the Space Stone and the Reality Stone. The basic idea behind them is that they’re incredibly powerful cosmic artifacts that allow anyone who wields all six of them to control all aspects of existence. The films “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” revolve around the supervillain Thanos’s quest to collect all six Infinity Stones and the Avengers’ mission to stop him, and there’s THANOS spelled out in the circled squares. The colors of the shaded words match the colors of the Infinity Stones as seen in the films, but that’s just a bonus feature; you don’t have to know that to solve the puzzle.