The Skolney Blog

Six straight losses. A season that even a week ago still looked like a lock playoff season now in total free fall. This team is fucking done, and what's worse is that nobody seems to even care.  After just one season as the class of the AL Central, the Twins have been lapped by the White Sox. Chicago is better than the Twins in every way.  And yet the Twins led 4-0 tonight. Didn't matter. One team on that field knows how to win games, the other has become expert at losing them. Lineup still blows btw. They only had 5 runs cause Chicago became clownish in the 2nd and had 3 errors that handed the Twins 2 of their runs.  Pitching imploded tonight. Rich Hill started ok then couldn't even find the plate. My god have our free agent pickups been a disaster. Duffey, Clippard and May all got dinged in varying ways. And Taylor Rogers, well, he did what he now does. Two plays late struck me in just how much it showed this team is either checked out, lazy, disinterested, or some comb...

1990: The first great high school movie of the 90's, a decade that had a lot of them (albeit mostly in the later years). I always kind of intro this movie as the one that has the character that most matches what I was like in high school. And aside from the whole pirate radio thing, and him having at least one girl interested in him, I pretty much was the same as Christian Slater's character in this film. I guess this movie isn't THAT well known. I saw in a recent anniversary article about it that it's kind of a rare film that isn't anywhere on streaming (music rights apparently). It's kind of fitting that this movie is a tougher find. So the plot has Slater as a high school kid who is a painfully shy loner at school, but at night he does a pirate radio show from his parents basement. The show is basically just him venting into the world, and playing obscure songs, and whatever else may pop into his head. When the movie starts he has already been doi...

It has now become painfully clear, after today's humiliating doubleheader sweep the hands of the Detroit Tigers. The 2020 Minnesota Twins have ZERO chance to do a god damn thing in the playoffs. That's assuming they still get there. Even before today's embarrassing display I thought the Twins were a mortal lock to at least make the playoffs. 8 teams get in. Only 8 teams in the AL are even above .500. But if I had 100% certainty, I gotta kick that down a few percentage points. Today's debacle, only 8 hits and 4 runs total facing 2 starters with plus-8 ERAs, felt like the culmination of an ugly 3 weeks of baseball. Remember when the Twins were 10-2? A distant memory. Ever since Taylor Rogers took the mound trying to lock down that last game in Pittsburgh, this team has collapsed. 10-12 in their last 22 games, against what is easily the softest part of their schedule. An offense that has gone from struggling to catatonic. A pitching staff that has held together admirably, ...

October 2017. A simpler time. Case Keenum had only just taken over as Vikings QB. The Twins had just made the playoffs led by manager Paul Molitor. People still thought the Jimmy Butler trade was going to lead the Timberwolves to greatness.  And the first teaser trailer dropped for The New Mutants, the latest entry in the ever-expanding Fox X-Men franchise, in this case a kind of spinoff film that was going more for horror. And almost 3 years later the movie is out. In between you had Fox selling basically the whole store to Disney, reshoots, a whole bunch of different release dates (at least 5)....oh, and a pandemic. After all this the movie arrives with little fanfare, and presumably will be the lowest grossing X-Men film ever.  And I think it deserves better. It's not great, but it's an entertaining movie made with a real care. We have seen young mutants dealing with their powers in some of the other films, but here the young (new) mutants are patients (captives?) in a cree...

Here we go again.  This is what police are. This is what Trump supporters are.  This will NEVER change.  Jacob Blake gets shot 7 times in the back by a fascist pig cop.  The cops lie and say that he was going for a weapon, or that he already had a weapon. Whatever. They blurt out whatever lies they want, knowing that they will face no consequences for it. People take to the streets to protest. And here come the white supremacist militia THUGS. Thugs who are aligned with the pig cops. They are enthusiastically welcomed by the pig cops. They are given water. Oh, and they are allowed to open fire on protesters, killing 2, AND walk away from the scene, past the cops, while holding the murder weapon. But hey, the murderer was a white kid, so he can't possibly be a threat.  Pig cops treat unarmed black people as greater threats than armed white people WHO HAVE ALREADY COMMITTED MURDER! This little 17 year old Nazi wasn't arrested til he was back in Illinoi...

Yes, even 60 game seasons get a midseason report.  The Twins have reached that midpoint, and despite a great many bumps in the road, they have to feel pretty good about where they stand. They aren't much of a Bomba Squad this year. But they have probably their best collective pitching staff since 1991. One of the great things about baseball is that you never know exactly what to expect in a given season. If you had told me a month ago that: -Josh Donaldson would only play one bad week then be hurt -Luis Arraez would also be hurt, and be bit by a nasty sophomore slump -Mitch Garver would be awful -Miguel Sano would be as bad as he has ever been for the first couple weeks -Byron Buxton would only have about 1 week as an effective hitter -You would have maybe 3 decent starts COMBINED from Odorizzi, Hill and Bailey -Jose Berrios would have more bad starts than good ones -Taylor Rogers would look like a total mess -You would have several other planned bullpen arms hurt I would have gues...

We're living in a country right now.... ...where a president who conspired with a foreign adversary to rig the election 4 years ago is again conspiring with that same country to rig the 2020 election, with the rubber stamped help of the AG, postmaster general, and countless state officials. ...where that same president has let a global.pandemic kill over 170,000 people, with zero plan or intention for it to ever stop.  ...where police are still brutalizing citizens, and brutalizing citizens who protest their brutalizing of citizens. So it's almost quaint to watch Unhinged, a thriller about a really bad case of road rage. Compared to the dismantling of American democracy, having Russell Crowe pissed at me seems manageable. Honestly, this movie probably will only be remembered for being the first wide release since COVID shut everything down. It's like a lot of thrillers, that may or may not maintain suspense for 2 acts, but typically wind up getting very dumb in the 3rd. I l...

3/17/06 (V For Vendetta review) I just saw the film, and I had low expectations but was left pretty satisfied. It is NOT some 4 star masterpiece that some are making it out to be, but as for films of 2006 so far it is clearly right at the top. Natalie's performance was OUTSTANDING! This may be the most distinctive role she's ever had, and her acting fit it. She didn't overplay anything and hit all the right notes. And I thought her accent was fine. And it was nice seeing her with hair again. The George Bush parallels in the story are HILARIOUS and spot-on! That was my favorite part of the film, especially that speech by V talking about the John Hurt character near the end of the film. And the news network on the government's payroll (hmm, who might THAT be???), and the bloated talking head who's a fucking nutcase (the involvement with drugs indicates who THAT is supposed to be!!). I hope this film pisses off every conservative out there. There's the line in the ...

After 158 days away I finally went to a movie again. AMC did a 15 cent tickets promotion for re-opening day and I went to see The Empire Strikes Back. Fingers crossed this all works out, and I think it should based on what I saw. Limited seating, masks required, a more spaced out lobby. But really, aside from wearing a mask this wasn't a whole lot different than going to a middle of the afternoon matinee during the week. The strangest thing for me, oddly, was watching a whole movie completely uninterrupted. At home, no matter what I am using to watch a movie, almost every single one gets paused at least once. It felt weird seeing trailers again (including that sweet Black Widow one that dropped right before the world ended). Not that trailers haven't been released these last months, but with everything so up in the air it felt strange to see firm dates applied to things. I got legit emotional heading back. Yeah we have had sports taken away for much of this period too, but ther...

Yes. He is. Now let me get into why. It's certainly not unusual for a fanbase to dislike a general manager. It's one of the positions on a football team that is the easiest target, along with head coach and quarterback. Good, bad, doesn't seem to often matter.  But it's so often foolish. And it's foolish, dare I say stupid foolish, to feel this way about Rick Spielman.  We are almost at a full decade now where Rick has been THE guy. He officially ascended to position of THE guy after the awful 2011 season. Rick had already been in the front office for six seasons before this, arriving before the 2006 season (although it was already late in that offseason, so he had nothing to do with that draft, the Childress hire, the Culpepper trade, etc). He had authority, sure, but not GM level authority. The Rick haters will generally only even acknowledge this period of time if they want to drill Rick for the bad moves in that time (T-Jack, Ponder, Gerhart, Tyrell Johnson). Th...

I guess this is it, since I will be heading back to theaters this week, and legit new movies dot the schedule in the coming weeks. I've never been so stoked to go watch a Russell Crowe movie. But first a few more reviews.... The Call of the Wild (2020) Another movie I just didn't get out to see before COVID ended the world. I kind of enjoyed this. Ok, yes, the cgi dog is a little strange, but honestly it didn't bother me that much. The movie is a solid adventure, with some nice grizzled Harrison Ford narration. I have no idea how it cost $150 million to make this though.  Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) The IMDB on this thing is insane. Francis Ford Coppola directs. Kathleen Turner plays a woman who transports back 25 years to her senior year of high school. It's a really entertaining movie, that reminded me a lot of Pleasantville, which came after and had to be influenced. Turner, who I never liked much, and to whom the years have not been kind, is terrific in this and re...

Twins 4 Brewers 3 Considering this season itself is just bizarre in every way, it is surprising that we got this far in before there was a truly insane Twins game.  This game went from potential history to absolute disaster to comical to relief. Kenta Maeda was brilliant. If that trade wasn't already secured as a big win for the Twins, it is now. He has been their best starting pitcher this year, and tonight was his apex. 8 no hit innings. At one point a franchise record 8 straight strikeouts. Before the game went loco, the issue was would Maeda even have the shot to go the full 9. His pitch count was high but Rocco gave him his chance. And then he lost it right away on some stupid fucking bloop single.  But oh well, got a 3 run lead. Here comes Taylor Rogers to finish up.  Ugggggggggggh! Immediately our hopefully now EX-closer implodes yet again, which has become a habit. Double, walk, single. Then a grounder that was not going to be a DP but the try was made anyway. Thr...

1/5/08 last reviews of films I saw in 2007: THE GREAT DEBATERS Denzel Washington again directs a smart, non-sappy emotional film based on a true story. I really liked how everyone in this film was smart, and the dialogue is terrific. Denzel can do grand speeches like nobody else. The cast is strong all around, especially Jurnee Smollett (who looks like my ex-gf's twin!) and also Forest Whitaker. I got a couple quibbles with the story, but nothing major. WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY I kind of had Anchorman-like expectations for this, and that's unfair. It's not the funniest movie of the decade, but it is among them. This is the kind of parody they don't do anymore, i.e. a parody of a GENRE rather than just a spoof of a whole bunch of movies. The running gag spoof of the scene in Ray where he discovers drugs is absolutely hysterical. John C. Reilly is spot-on as Dewey Cox. If anything holds this back a bit it's that there aren't many standouts aside from him in ...