Sep 10, 2007 Hypercross Puzzle

Finally figured out the theme, but still a devil of a puzzle...

Yeah, I know...it's picture ID, which pretty much makes me public hypercross enemy #1. However--I thought that people might enjoy salting these. I'm fairly certain that with group effort, this one will be doable. I'll be around a bit this evening to nudge if needed.

So, is the title as strong of a hint as I think?

I don't recognize the top across or the second across.

[edit] I just got the second across. Now just the top eludes me.

Wow... this is horrible. The pictures aren't even scenes from the movies. I've got all but four of them (top across, bottom across, 2nd from left down, and rightmost down).

The top is really painful, as is the bottom... working on the bottom now.

The top is not "Empire of the Sun" but it's something like that.

Got the bottom, now just need that top one...

Finished! But why does it never save my answers?

type the directors name and "chinese child" in google and you'll get the top across...i'm having trouble with the second across, the middle down and rightmost down

[7] We recognized Scorcese as the director, and found the movie title from his listing on IMDB.

[10] For the 2nd across, the director pictured is the same guy who did Sixth Sense and Signs.

sorry, I'm missing 4 of these movies! 2 I think I know, but the answers don't fit, and the other two I haven't a clue

I thought the rightmost down was from Spiderman 3, but that doesn't work. Still missing that one, the 2nd down from the left, and the bottom one across.

Finally got it!

[12] - Thanks - that did it for me - now for the two down ones (middle and far right)

Film titles do not fit, director names do not fit...please tell me that I do not have to go research who wrote the music for these films.

okay down to last two now

[17] Ok, I won't tell you that. Unfortunately, you figured it out for yourself.

[14] your instincts on the one are correct. The second won an oscar a few years ago and the bottom was lampooned in "Chicken Run"

Arrgghhh!!! Which one am I spelling incorrectly??!!!

[14] Wrong number, I think.
I too need second down and last across.

[17] - that's my first thought too. If that's the case, I'm not really interested.

Second down and top across were the most work. But I knew all the movies for the rest so just had to figure out the theme.

[20] thanks! that helped me a lot!

Got all but the second down and bottom rightmost down...

[9] Gotta click twice; I think they do it to save bandwidth.

[14] Thanks!
[9] A bug requires you to submit your answers twice. If you reloaded you have to enter them again.

any help on the black and white harrison ford one?

[29] The movie had Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and Rutger Hauer in it, too.

[29] A film that's never been replicated (or is that "replicant-ed")

I know all the movies, but I refuse to do the imdb to answer this one.

[30] Thanks - that did it for me. Tough puzzle.

Salt for the second-from-the-left down: the fellow on the left is probably not discussing how to plant bombs during a Vegas casino heist (at least, the fellow on the right doesn't look like George Clooney to me).

I give up. I officially tihnk this is the worst hypercross thus far. If you're not a movie junkie, it's impossible.

Any salt for the last across and the last down?

[26] I'm stuck on those same two as well.

Wellp, sorry you all hate this one so much. The theme is something I love, so I created a puzzle that I personally would like to do. Now I know that I'm the only one who feels that way; everyone else feels the way I feel when I see a puzzle full of pictures of plants. :)

Honestly though, I did think people would have more fun with salting these, instead of just blandly giving out names. I was somewhat disappointed.

The title for last down has already been mentioned in the comments (though I'm puzzled as to why that didn't help the person who mentioned it).

The last across has already been salted earlier, but here's some more. In addition to the gentlemen in the picture it also starred a guy who sometime later cloned dinosaurs on a remote island.
Which do you mean by the last down, the 5 letter or the 8 letter one?

Cheer up ethnosax, I had a great time with it. I was stuck on a couple of them for awhile but managed to figure them out.

Deplorable puzzle.

Thanks [40], that did it for me!

Any more help with second down from left? I used earlier salt to find a movie, but it must be the wrong one. (This puzzle certainly requires specialized knowledge. Give me generally recognizable plants any day.)

(Edit: I got it at last. It was the sixth movie I checked under the actor's name.)

Sigh... I know what to do after looking at title and couple of pics, but decided 2 tanga points is not worth the time required for imdb and google. Are all answers oscar winners or I just happen to clicked on the right ones? That would make the puzzle a little easier.

[34] I don't see how that's helpful....Got anything saltier?

EDIT: Got it. But still don't see how your clue was helpful.

P.S. I liked the puzzle. :)

So I can't figure out the second down from the left and the bottom right down. I have the right movies (thanks to my husband and the salt scattered about), I've even seen one of the pictures in the movie photos, but the names don't fit. In fact, for the bottom right down, I'm getting a name that I've already entered for another one. I'm frustrated and giving up, even though I hate to when I'm so close. Perhaps if the pictures had been actual SCENES from the movies as opposed to stills taken during filming it would have been easier, I don't know. Thanks to all for the liberal salt. And ethnosax, it was a good concept, it just didn't work for me. Good night.

[46] & [47] The 2nd left down isn't "Hotel Rwanda" or "Oceans" anything. Ask yourself what else has that guy been in.
[47] The young fellow has only been in one of the movies in this series. Perhaps you're looking at the wrong one.

[38] ethnosax: FWIW, I liked it. But then I'm a bit of a movie geek, and I knew most of the answers off the top of my head.

I can definitely understand how this puzzle would be pretty annoying if you had to to look every single one up.

[47] My thinking for not using actual movie scenes was that if you hadn't seen the movie, a scene wouldn't help anyway. This way, you also have the director, who in most cases is a pretty recognizable (in my opinion) figure. (a couple of them were purposely less obvious, but when I made the puzzle I really thought it would be much easier than it's been for people; I now know I should've made everything much more obvious. Live and learn) I also liked that this puzzle included the steps of (1) figuring out the theme, (2) picture ID, and (3) one final step beyond picture ID, as I tend to regard the "picture ID = answer" hypercrosses as just busywork. Ah well...looks like many of you who would've been annoyed to do the whole thing didn't bother to start, so maybe it all worked out anyway.

One more salt for the bottom right down, then I'm going to bed:

I know what answer you're trying, [47], but I think you might be assuming that there's one answer for the whole trilogy. Your answer is correct for film one, but less correct for each subsequent film.

Wow! I came in late, recognize one person and maybe one/two movies. I haven't left a hypercross unfinished yet... but this will be the first one.

Any salt on the guy in the picture with Ryan Phillipe?

[53] That's not RP. It's That 70s guy.

And I need help with the last across. It's not Stalag 17.
And was the dinosaur reference above supposed to point me to the actor who played Shaft (2000)?

[54] No, it's not Stalag 17. Subtract ten.

Thanks Jason. I never would have recognized a director who hasn't made anything since 1976 (by picture, although the name does sound "familiar"-ish).

I have no clue on the 4th across (the black & white with the man holding the woman's face), and no one has mentioned anything about it in the comments, so I assume I'm just dense. I have everything else. Mild salt is appreciated.

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out, I am dense... it's just considered the greatest film of all time by a lot of people. Unfortunately, I've never seen it.

Wow. I actually was able to figure out most of these to the point of know what to use for searching on imdb. If it helps anyone, I checked a couple and it appears the person you are looking for (see the title) won an Oscar for their work in these films. It might help to narrow down the list by getting Oscar winners for that "role" from somewhere.

I liked it. Yeah, it required a lot of looking up, but once you got an actor or director, it was easy. And most of these were such big movies that even knowing the theme and era was enough. Besides, most of the puzzles require a lot of looking up on my part... And most importantly, this was the first one that I had to help my boyfriend with instead of vice versa! Good work, ethnosax.

The thing is that going from ID'ing the picture to getting the answer is just more busywork. And unfortunately, even doing the picture ID'ing is a little difficult, and I don't have any real interest in reading through the comments to have people tell me the answers.

[57] The guy holding the woman's face is Alfred Hitchcock.

[59] And if you can't get an actor or a director, you're pretty much SOL. Even with all the salt around, I still can't get the top rightmost down. ...or maybe it's the top across.

[59] Based on a series of books written by an author with the initial "J.R.R.T." and the director also made a movie with Jack Black in it.

More salt:

Top across: Based on that director, this movie might have been called "Tibet, Tibet" or "Raging Lama" (but it wasn't).

Top rightmost down: The guy on the left is a dead ringer for a famous kiwi director.

Bottom across: In 1963, some people thought this one was a great film, but others thought it was merely escapism.

Second from the bottom across: This guy wrote vertigo long before the U2-edition ipod was around.

Bottom rightmost down: Once again--it's not the same old name for this answer.

Second from the top across: That director has a real sixth sense about these things; even so, that actress is no Gwen Stacy.

Second from the left down: The movies might be more successful if that director would spend less time eating traditional Scottish cuisine.

Thank you [17] for getting me on the right track. This was a pretty fun puzzle once I got the hang of it. It also helps that my brother worked on the film that's second down from the left.

Finally got it, with the help of a lot of salt. I could have sworn the person in the far right down was Steven Spielberg, but I didn't think he had anything to do with the picture.

Possibly the first hypercross I won't finish.... Too obscure, still not even sure what the theme is.

I took a class in college on this subject, but I still didn't like the puzzle. We don't all have subscriptions to Variety.

Salt for the left-most down: The FBI would probably have a warrantless wiretap on poor Larry these days.

I must be one of the few that really liked this puzzle. It had many different elements and was, as Ethnosax put it, not trying to identify plants from pictures. (Interesting sidenote, There are two types of people. Those who can identify plants and those who can identify famous people)

It took me a few minutes on IMDB to get this. Not forever. There was plenty of salt also.

Thats what a puzzle is....trying to figure something out. That's why they call it A p_u_z_z_l_e.

Sorry, it just seems odd to me how people get so bent out of shape about how someone created a puzzle. You don't pay for it. You don't have to do the puzzle if you don't want to either. But their is no call to denegrate the puzzle or the puzzlemaker. It's not your cup-o-tea....okay, fine. get over it and move on.

Okay, stepping off my soapbox.

ethno:

It isn't that your puzzle wouldn't be liked, I think you chose a poor theme. Most people aren't interested in that type of theme. Perhaps there are a few, but I suspect their interests lie closer to new york, if you know what I mean.

I personally am a director buff, so I instantly identified all of the movies. Based on the title and the answer to Harrison Ford's two movies, I quickly grasped the answer you were looking for. But since these are only worth 2 points, it really doesn't make it worth it to do the heavy research (open imdb, type in movie title, look up answer).

I had fun identifying the movies, but I think a better them could have been derived. I think in this instance, a photo of the actual answer would have been more appropriate (perhaps superimposed with a picture of the film).

As you said, identifying the movie is just busy work, well technically, that is what you presented to someone who is not deeply interested in the subject matter you chose, the busy work just got shifted to looking stuff up on another site instead of merely matching stuff.

I suspect that's why rebus' are so popular here, it's easy to discern the answer just from head knowledge. When you add research and lookup to the equation, it quickly becomes less fun unless the scav hunt itself is novel and new (like the google earth search some time back where you got lat longitude and had to look up world monuments...that was fun).

Don't get disheartened, just be more careful in choosing and matching theme elements next time. One man's treasure is certainly another mans trash. And for certain less than 5% of us are herbologists.

also, you expected people to enjoy putting salt...well, the problem with that is that it isn't like the old days of tanga where the group would work through the puzzle together. People are more guarded with their responses now. Less salt is given, and those who know are less likely to share. It's an unfortunate truth.

[50] only if you really know your movies. Some of these I have absolutely now clue on. Vague salt "lampooned in Chicken Run" isn't all that helpful if you can't remember what was lampooned in Chicken Run.

Creating a puzzle that one expects can only be solved by salt is iffy to me. People may have fun salting, but people needing the salt aren't having fun.

And this requires that one knows the names of all the actors, which I don't. I'm stuck on the bottom one across, the left two down (even with all the salt), and the second to last one across.

Edit: OK, I got them all, except for the left-most down. I can't tell who any of the people in the picture are.

I did not enjoy this puzzle. I think anytime one goes on a google hunt for every answer and I don't think a majority or even a tiny minority of people know the actor,director and music for Kundun. I see a lot of movies and that one was unknown to me. I mistook it for 3 other films about eastern boy emperors. Oh well. Just like identifying plants or comic book heros, any time you use pictures and a person can't identify the picture they are pretty screwed and no amount of work looking up pictures of plants(you have no reason to find the one the guy used) or thought is going to get it for you. You need to include some method for the person to identify the picture if they don't know it. Using academy award winners is one way to cut the frustration level.(one man's must see movie is another mans Village.
Leavinf a jet aircar in the background is a start but for some of these they were just too obscure. The idea of a puzzle is not too test ones trivia knowledege but to produce that aha moment where you see what the puzzle creator was doing. Any puzzle which requires you too look up every answer can't be fun. Most of us here like to use our brains not our keyboarding skills. I think the theme here is interesting and unusual now if you could just figure out a way to make it into a puzzle that did't require a person to leave the puzzle it would be genius

I like the theme. I just don't know the last one down- neither is familiar to me

NM I am too "old" to know this one

I recognize all the people and films. . .but I still can't quite figure out what the *answers* are supposed to be.

OK, one of [74]'s comments gave me the Aha! moment. Now I feel like I should've been able to figure that out on my own.

On one hand, this puzzle required a lot of searching - not too many people (even movie buffs) would get this stuff without research. On the other hand, it inspired me to start working on a puzzle that I think would be easy, but others might find challenging.

Hey, anyone who is a good writer willing to summarize all the salt given to-date? I think it would help a lot if someone is willing to take the time to pick through what has been mentioned and then create clues in list-form in one posting! A lot of work, I know, but it sure would make it a lot more fun for us just coming to the puzzle at this time!

See BGG for a listing of the movies involved.
You'll still need to do some research but it's a start.

Way too obscure.

My first click was the Dalai Lama movie. My second click was the LOTR movie. Hey, 'Peter' (as in Peter Jackson) fits. So is the theme first names of directors? Then I see the Star Wars one and neither first nor last names fit. THEN the theme hits me. He's the best!

I've only been able to identify 4 movies - so now off to surfing for the rest.

I can only assume that everyone involved with this puzzle is a masochist: ethnosax because he must've foreseen the flack he'd catch for this one and everyone else because it's such a bear to solve. I had to look up all but two of these. I'd say I'm above average in trivial knowledge, pop culture or otherwise, but this not only incorporates fairly obscure trivia but also manages to compound that difficulty by providing even more obscure images. Nevertheless, I'm adding a star to my fun rating because I really like the Hitchcock picture.

Ethnosax, don't let the naysayers (me included) discourage you. I've made some stinkers too. Keep 'em comin'!

Not too bad, though definitely more of a salt-n-research project than a puzzle.

By far my biggest complaint is the left-most down, since you can't really make out either of the faces in the picture and there is no way to really figure it out. I never even figured out what movie it is, but just finally resorted to the wiki-list of candidates and went guess-and-check based on the one letter I already had. Not only that but what really baffles me is that there is almost no salt on that one, so I guess people must have thought it was an easier one... go figure.

Other than that I guess I had fun.

Thanks [80] for the info on where the movie names can be found! I would say I had an inkling on about half of them, but with a two or three-step puzzle, that just doesn't cut it! To those still struggling on the third "step" like I was, pay close attention to the name of the puzzle — I'm dense and I missed that!

Way too obscure for many. Boo.