There were highs, there were lows. Some of the longer answers are really lovely, but a lot of the rest of the puzzle was overly common shorter stuff or mid-range names with convenient letters—names that just weren't that interesting (STASSEN?) (NEAME!?!?!). For every I'LL TRADE YOU, there was a TSETSES or ISDUETO to undercut it. I want to like GOAT RODEO, but I've never heard of it. Ever. I had G-AT RODEO and honest-to-god thought the answer was GNAT RODEO (come on, doesn't that sound like a good name for a Situation that's gone absurdly out of control? Much easier to control goats than gnats. I'd imagine. Never heard of ROOT ROT (2D: Horticultural problem caused by overwatering), so no help there. In the end, despite my affection for stuff like ALPHA FEMALE, I have to give this one a mild thumbs-down—the deciding factor being a super duper rough patch that includes a bevy of adjacent clunkers: NEAME (again, !?!?!?!), NROTC (dear lord that's bad fill) (looks like the vanity plate of a neurotic), and KHALIF (whose name is that? I get that it's *a* name, but … yikes).
Bullets:
DIMETAPP (38A: Pfizer cold and flu medicine) — I haven't seen or thought of this brand in forever, so when my brain wanted it, my Other brain was like "Are you sure that's a thing?" And because the horrific NEAME / NROTC / KHALIF runs right through it, I kept doubting it 'til the bitter end.
"D.C. CAB" (10A: 1983 action comedy with the tagline "When these guys hit the streets, guess what hits the fan") — One of my least favorite 5-letter answers. A movie that time would've long forgotten had it not been for the weird letter combinations that make it (occasionally) convenient in crosswords. Every time I see it, I think "crutch." See also (moreso) "AH, SIN" (51D: Bret Harte/Mark Twain collaboration).
EARLE (16A: Band-Aid inventor Dickson) — EARLE is the NEAME of the NE corner (except slightly more inferable).
REGGAETON (65A: Combined Latin/Jamaican/hip-hop genre) — Approved! This gives the grid some contemporary flavor, some life, some sparkle.
(REGGAETON … plus a new clue for ORA)
YENTE (29D: Musical matchmaker) — ugh, my least favorite YENT-. How many damn endings are there for that letter string? YENTL, YENTA, YENTE … YENTI (the Jewish Abominable Snowman?)
STADIUM (3D: Kind of rock) — first of all, again, it's ARENA rock. Second of all, this clue (the whole clue type, actually) is absurd. It's a word that can precede "rock," but it's not a "kind" of rock any more than SEA is a (Kind of anemone) or HOT is a (Kind of dog) (to steal two example friends of mine came up with earlier in the day before this puzzle came out because yes we talk about this **** all the time…). (Kind of rot) = ROOT? I think not.