The Age/SMH Cryptic by DA #20,792

A theme today and a hard one to crack, too. I was immediately aware of the cross in the middle of the grid and had wondered if this was a tribute puzzle at first.

I had most of the SW corner finished and an idea of what was going on with the these - albeit the wrong idea. I had 22A OPTIMAL and 28A SHALES and could see one definition (OPAL and SHE'S) but had thought there were reversed foreign words (MIT and LA) in the middle. Turns out they are men TIM and AL being held in the clue.

That led me to my second misunderstanding as with the help of Celia Fate's (currently known as Secret Herb) hint that the theme secret 18A-20A was a 2015 Australian movie. I could scan titles and find the one that fit best: HOLDING THE MAN.  (Call me a cheater all you want) "Cause for a free" meaning that holding is a foul in football and earns a free kick.  So with 22A and 28A having a definition literally "holding" a man's name I thought that was the way for all of the clues. Nope! As I got further along I became quite stuck on the top corners because 1A "go off" = POP and the man's name we need is LARS to make the "trees" POPLARS. "But he's not being held - is that right? I don't know! It seems right but there's no embrace."  Then it happened again with 5A, and 11A suddenly made more sense according to the NB. My literal interpretation of the theme caused me a lot of frustration.

By 9:30pm I'd had enough and had three empty slots. I felt that was a brilliant effort really and I'd sleep on the rest and see how I got on in the morning. When I awoke (After a weird dream with Miranda Hart that I really wanted to dip back into and see how it turned out) and was able to see 9A's "Do" as not a dance or ball but perhaps as a hairstyle and I finally got PERM/IAN. This leaves me with 3D and 20D as solved but I don't know how they're parsed. Here's my final pic:

3D - Half a platter in reserve - (5)

I put in ASIDE because I think "half a platter" is A SIDEdish and something in reserve is "set ASIDE" but what the dash is for I'm less sure.

19D - Defiles ear? Revolting game cut short (7)

I got the answer but I do not understand how the definitions match. "Defiles" is the definition and "ear revolting" is LUG reversed with "game cut short" = CHES(-s) for GULCHES. I don't know how gulches and defiles are synonyms.

20D - Cart case of beer to accompany meal, regularly acquiring gut (7)

I had the cross letters and used One Across to get the answer TUMBREL for "cart" but it's also spelled TUMBRIL. I cannot parse any of this so I don't know which spelling is correct.

That's mine done. Hard graft to be sure! The ones I did get I felt very sure about - chuffed really. The lower half with its more embraceable men spoiled me a bit for the top which held me up for far too long. Hope yours was enjoyable too. Have a great weekend!