CineLinkr #179: The Story Behind the Puzzle
Spoilers ahead: for the puzzle and the movies/games
This post assumes you've already solved the puzzle. It reveals all categories and their connections, and discusses plot details, endings, and spoilers for featured movies/games throughout.
Mousehunt was Gore Verbinski's feature directing debut. Before pirate ships and cursed videotapes, he made Nathan Lane lose a property war to one rodent with excellent spatial awareness.
🟢 Easy: Home moves or renovations become comic disasters
Movies: Mousehunt · Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House · Funny Farm · Are We Done Yet?
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House gave Cary Grant an expensive Connecticut construction headache in 1948. Funny Farm and Are We Done Yet? keep the dream-home trap alive through bad repairs, difficult locals, and confidence unsupported by any practical skill.
Mousehunt adds a mansion and a mouse that refuses eviction. The houses are not haunted. That would be easier to explain to the contractor.
🟡 Medium: Young travelers cross long distances largely alone
Movies: August Rush · The Journey of Natty Gann · Rabbit-Proof Fence · The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
Natty Gann crosses Depression-era America looking for her father. The girls in Rabbit-Proof Fence make an escape across Western Australia, following the fence toward home after forced removal.
August Rush heads to New York in search of family through music. T.S. Spivet leaves Montana for Washington to accept an award. The destinations differ, but every trip asks a young traveler to navigate an adult-sized country with very little adult help.
🔵 Hard: Most of the story unfolds inside one vehicle
Movies: 4x4 · Night Ride · Centigrade · Brake
4x4 locks a thief inside the SUV he tried to rob. Centigrade seals a couple inside a snowbound car, while Brake puts Stephen Dorff in a car trunk with almost no information.
Night Ride compresses its tram story into fifteen minutes. The shared constraint is brutally efficient: one vehicle, limited angles, nowhere for the tension to wander off and buy snacks.
🟣 Tricky: British amateurs form unlikely public acts
Movies: Calendar Girls · Military Wives · Fisherman's Friends · Swimming with Men
Calendar Girls turns a Women's Institute fundraiser into a famous calendar. Military Wives forms a choir, Fisherman's Friends takes Cornish singers toward a record deal, and Swimming with Men sends an amateur synchronized-swimming team into competition.
Nobody begins as polished entertainment machinery. That is the pleasure of the set. Ordinary groups pick a public act, discover that rehearsal is real, and keep going after the first sensible chance to stop.
For another antique format refusing retirement, today's PixelLinkr puzzle has four games commercially released for the Sega Genesis from 2010 onward.