The Skolney Blog

Vikings Everson Griffin opted out of his contract, but Zimmer made it pretty clear that he expects Sack Daddy back on a new deal. If true, he must be taking a rather significant hometown discount, cause I think he certainly could get a big deal elsewhere. If that pans out, Griffen is in the all time cool book.  Spielman has said flat out that Diggs won't be traded, although tbh you always have to remember that a GM's job is basically to lie to the public. I think Diggs stays unless someone comes to the Vikings with an extraordinary deal. Twins Spring training games are well underway. Twins are winning most of the time, although we are still so early that the lineups are full of guys who will be no factor during the regular season. Still, just great having the grand game back.  Wild Trade deadline came and went. Jason Zucker was dealt shortly before the deadline. Parise almost went at the deadline. Through it all the team has been playing alright. They're only a couple point...

The Photograph It's a welcome romance that doesn't hinge on romcom tropes or melodrama. Thing is it's really just a pleasant bore. It's so lowkey at times that it's barely there. Good performances (Lakeith Stanfield is charismatic as hell, and Issa Rae is gorgeous). Nice atmosphere and music. Feels less than the sum of its parts.  Brahms: The Boy 2 What a bizarre oddity of a sequel. The Boy was nothing special at all, but this movie retcons it almost entirely. Now the doll IS possessed by evil. Katie Holmes keeps this thing watchable. It's just nice seeing her in a lead role again, and she is legit good in a thankless part. And hey, at least it's better than The Grudge or The Turning.

This one genuinely stings. This is the Lynx equivalent of Favre going from Green Bay to Minnesota. I never would have imagined that Seimone would play her final year somewhere else. I mean, I guess she'll have a better shot at going out with a title now, but, eeew.  The Lynx must be planning a full on tank. They have done absolutely nothing in free agency. They could go into the next offseason with a top draft pick, a lot of cap space, and I suppose in an ultimate long shot a Maya Moore return. But now that original 4 core is completely gone. It's a sad day. 

Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are a couple on a European ski vacation with their 2 teenage boys. One day there is an avalanche, and Ferrell opts to grab his phone and run rather than protect his family. Things turn out okay (it was just a controlled avalanche that got a little out of hand, and nobody is hurt) but Ferrell's cowardice is still a natural disaster for his family. This film is a really unpleasant thing to sit through. It's much more of a drama than the stars would imply, although that isn't the issue, as both are more than capable actors. But I can't remember the last time I hated EVERY character in a film like this. Ferrell and JLD are both loathesome. The kids are insufferable brats. There are a couple of Ferrell's friends who show up for a while and they are both awful. The handful of resort workers we see are annoying. The whole plot doesn't exist if there is just one simple conversation between the leads. But I never gave a damn if their ...

The biggest story in MLB by far at the start of spring training is the Astros having been caught stealing signs in an elaborate scheme during several seasons, including their 2017 title run.  The Astros GM and manager were fired. Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran lost managerial jobs due to their connections to the cheating. The Astros were fined and had multiple top draft picks taken away. As camps have begun around the game, everybody has been chiming in, and things seem to be getting more angry. Players and coaches are furious at the Astros for in some cases directly cheating them out of possible playoff wins or even a title. They are furious at commissioner Rob Manfred for not punishing players involved, or even going so far as to take away the 2017 World Series title.  All of this is valid (except when it comes to the Yankees...fuck you assholes, the umps fix games for you). There is no argument that I will make against these takes.  But am I missing something? Where in t...

Fantasy Island Given that this was a Blumhouse release you'd expect a horror film. And while this movie does have horror elements in it, for most of the way it is primarily a mystery, and a fairly solid one. I wouldn't say I was enthralled, but I was interested in the mystery of how the fantasies work and what is up with this island. It's only in the last half hour or so that we both start to get the answers and the film switches more towards horror (albeit a pretty bland PG13 horror), and the film as a whole stumbles to the finish.  The Rhythm Section  The trailer, which I saw ENDLESSLY for like 2 months, was dynamite. But the movie itself is kind of a slog. Murky, humorless, meandering. Blake Lively gives her all, but her character is a cipher. I did like that she doesn't immediately become some ace assassin after a little training. But the movie kinda just falls into that gap of not being smart enough or trashy enough to succeed either way.  A Fall From Grace  I'...

MLB has a proposed new playoff structure in the works. It is jaw droppingly stupid.  Two additional playoff teams per league, so 7 teams per league, and 14 total. Only the top team gets a bye. The next 2 teams get to pick what teams below them they get to play at the start. 2-7 all play a best of 3.  Lunacy. 7 teams per league? MLB only has 30 teams total, so this would mean half the sport makes the playoffs. Yeah half the NBA and NHL make it in too, but at least there it is a 7 game series right away. Here a 7 seed could eliminate a 2 seed with TWO wins. You could have a team that does not finish the regular season even in the top half of MLB record-wise wind up winning a world series. Obviously this is just another measure to ensure that the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Cubs and those big market teams always make the playoffs even in an off year. The whole reason we have 2 wild cards to begin with is MLB watched the Yankees miss the playoffs a couple times. And the whole idea of ...

Thoughts as they happen!   In a blog post posted after the show so they all seem dated! ______________________ Billy Porter has gone from person I don't have any awareness of to person I absolutely loathe in record time.  Just have Chris Rock and Steve Martin co-host.  Tarantino leads another actor to an Oscar. Pitt was pretty fucking great.  Toy Story 4 wins best animated feature. It was a pretty weak year for animated films tbh.  Kelly Marie Tran had more screentime on the Oscars than she did in Rise of Skywalker.  Natalie, as usual looking breathtaking beyond comprehension, giving her Ragnarok director Taika Waititi best adapted screenplay. Parasite won for original. No arguments with either.  These reddit Oscar threads are the most toxic thing I have ever seen. They make the NFL game threads seem like paragons of manners. Kristen and Maya were funny, you shits!  Laura Dern wins supporting actress. Not gonna gripe about it, but Scarlett and Flo...

I'll give DC credit. While they made a ton of mistakes in their film universe at the outset, they seem to have started to figure out what they're doing. Birds of Prey is the latest example. They took a movie in Suicide Squad that made a lot of money even though nobody really liked it, and plucked out the one thing that most everybody DID like, and gave her her own movie.  Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was an instantly iconic creation. Funny, sexy, a live wire who attracted all the eyeballs. She's back with Birds of Prey, which is both her solo film and a soft attempt at it's own separate franchise launch, introducing a handful of other female characters. The plot is a little thin, but the characters are great. Besides Robbie you have the always awesome Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress (hey I know that character from the old Birds TV series) and the smokin Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary (hey I know that character from Arrow). Plus you have a surprisingly welc...

As a now non-fan and mere observer of the Timberwolves, I find no excitement in the team's major trade today of Andrew Wiggins to Golden State for D'Angelo Russell.  Russell has been hyped up as the latest Wolves savior,  but we all know he won't be. Still, Gersson Rosas deserves a great deal of credit for getting that Wiggins contract off the books. I have never been a Wiggins basher. Some people make trashing Wiggins part of their daily routine. But no argument can be made that he was worth that max deal, or ever would be. Rosas also traded Dieng today and a couple days ago traded off a bunch of guys in a 3 or 4 team mega deal. Mostly this was all just moving around either garbage players or bad contracts like Dieng's. None of this will work out in the long run, of course. Russell will either flop, be a malcontent, or simply not move the needle like many are desperately hoping he will. Wiggins will probably blossom in Golden State. Players the Wolves traded away will ...

Well, Falvine are certainly taking a gamble on this one. Maeda is solid. He will slide right into the Twins rotation as either the 3 or 4. He has years left of team control and is not expensive. If he performs as he has in the past he is well worth it financially. But is he worth giving up Graterol for? We only saw a Graterol teaser late last year, but the team liked him enough to have him on the postseason roster. The feeling was that he was going to be the young flamethrower out of the pen. The Twins never have that bullpen arm you fear. Maybe Graterol was not going to become that guy. Pitchers flame out all the time. But as a prospect his value seems too high to be the guy you give up for a Maeda.

Chiefs 31 49ers 20 I for one welcome our new Kansas City overlords. Time will tell if Super Bowl 54 was the dawn of a new dynasty. I would certainly be stunned if the Chiefs are a one off. Patrick Mahomes seems assured of being a dominant force for years to come. He is a cheat code. He won't always have this much mobility, and has already had a significant injury this year that he was lucky wasn't worse. He's obviously way better than Daunte Culpepper ever was, but Daunte took one shattering hit to the knee and he was never able to recover. Andy Reid finally gets his title. Above all else I'm happy for him. I always thought he was grossly underappreciated in Philadelphia. All anybody wanted to talk about were the NFC title game losses and super bowl loss. Like he did nothing else. Then he goes to KC and has a few similar playoff setbacks. He probably wins the super bowl LAST year if Dee Ford doesn't line up offsides for no reason. This Super Bowl largely played out ...

I spent a bunch of time the other day thinking about this, so maybe I should get it in blog form. So the first NFL season I followed was 1987.  At that time there were 28 franchises. 16 had never won a super bowl. Keep in mind that at that point only 20 super bowls had been played. And at that point the Vikings were just 10 years removed from their last appearance.  So of those 16 ringless franchises as of 1987, 8 of them have won at least one since: Denver, the original Browns after moving to Baltimore, the Rams, New England (it was a better world), Tampa Bay, Seattle, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. Of those other 8 who did not have a ring then and still do not, you have Detroit, Atlanta, the Cardinals, Buffalo, Cincinnati, the Chargers, the Titans(then the Oilers), and of course the Vikings. But, of those 8, only 2 have not even PLAYED in a super bowl in the 33 years I have followed the NFL. And we are one of them. I have no greater point. It's just absurd how we haven't eve...