The Skolney Blog

Vikings:  Kubiak officially retired, which is great news. Unlike a lot of Vikings fans I am not unilaterally opposed to an in-house promotion. I feel like the system is sound. The glaring issue was the situational play calling by Kubiak. I have no idea if Klint Kubiak would be better at this, but as long as he doesn't want to run Dalvin straight up the middle 25 times a game he can't be worse. Twins: Look, until that 18 game streak is gone I'm done buying in to anything Twins. But I do really like the 2 big signings they made this last week. J.A. Happ is a terrific back of the rotation starter. And Andrelton Simmons is a huge defensive upgrade on a team that can afford to devote a lineup spot to a defensive guy. I would assume the odds of bringing Nelson Cruz back remain strong. Wild: Kirill Kaprizov has injected a lot of hope into this stalled franchise. They still seem to be more at the front end of a rebuild, but they at least appear to also be legitimate playoff contend...

BUCCANEERS 31, PACKERS 26 Well, now we know. The NFL prefers Brady above all.  Look, it wasn't the Saints-Rams call. The DPI that ended this game was not in itself a bad call. But all game long players were allowed to tug receivers jerseys, grab arms, even completely turn Davante Adams around on the penultimate drive, with no flags thrown. But at the key moment that either sends Brady to the super bowl or provides Rodgers a last chance at a game winning drive on his home field, the NFL made its preference clear. The other key moments that decided the game were the appalling defense on that long touchdown before the half (set up by a pick the refs conveniently missed DPI on), and the Packers offense going 3 and out following the last 2 of Brady's 3 second half picks. Lafleur is getting killed for kicking the late field goal down 8 and choosing to play defense. It was a bad decision both in the moment and in hindsight. We all knew the Packers offense would never see the ball agai...

It's nice having these Liam Neeson flicks to get us through the largely barren wasteland of the COVID era movie release schedule. Last fall we got the pretty good Honest Thief and now we get The Marksman, which is very formulaic but is also a really well done formulaic. It's among my favorites of the post-Taken Neeson era. Neeson is a widowed rancher who runs across a mother and son crossing the border to escape some evil cartel goons. He ends up trying to get the kid to family in Chicago, but the whole way they are trailed by the impossibly well connected cartel goons. Given the title you'd expect a lot of gunplay but the movie doesn't have a ton of action. I didn't mind. Neeson is very compelling even when he isn't cracking skulls. As usual he plays a guy with a particular set of skills, in this case as an ex-marine. And the bad guys make the mistake of fucking with his dog. Didn't they see John Wick? The movie doesn't burst with originality. But I was...

FORMER president Trump 

So, pardons are all the rage these days. The outgoing BLOATUS is handing them out like candy.  So I want to get in on this. As president in my own mind, I will now hand out the following pardons for Minnesota sports figures who have been wrongly accused or convicted in the public eye for far too long.  1. Gary Anderson. All anyone ever wants to bring up from the 1998 season or the title game is the Gary Anderson miss. You know what? He did not lose them the game. They still had a 7 point lead. They let Chris Chandler drive the length of the field to tie the game. Robert Griffith had a game sealing pick in his grasp and dropped it. We had multiple OT possessions to score, and did nothing. That's a whole lot of shit that happened after Gary missed one kick by just a few feet. Gary, you are hereby pardoned.  2. Jimmy Butler. This may seem surprising, since I was very harsh on him when he imploded the Timberwolves. But he was right. This franchise is a travesty. Thibs is the ...

I was finally able to get back into a theater after 2 months, and my first movie back was one I had been really looking forward to for a full year. Promising Young Woman is about Carey Mulligan playing a woman who we first see play acting drunk at clubs in order to lure predatory men. For what purpose? Is she just making a statement? Is she a serial killer? The movie never makes it explicitly clear. There's a past trauma that is fueling whatever it is she does. But when she isn't doing this stuff she lives a quiet, mundane life, living at home with her parents and working at a coffee shop. She even has a romance with an old classmate. On its surface this is a revenge film, but I've never seen one quite like this. The film makes no secret that it sees the Mulligan character as deeply disturbed and damaged, even though she is the character we side with. The movie stays mostly in a darkly comic zone. Then there is a twist maybe 2/3 of the way through that completely alters wha...

PACKERS 32, RAMS 18 Predictable as hell. Of course the Rams defense would play like shit at Lambeau a week after dominating Seattle. Green Bay never even needed much of an officiating boost, cause the Rams were never a threat. Oh sure, they had 1 or 2 2nd half possessions where they maybe could have tied or tightened the game, but not for one moment did I ever think the Rams had any control of the game or that the Packers were in trouble. And inevitably the whole game they would take the dumb sack or make the dumb penalty or blow a tackle or coverage. Aaron Donald was a non-factor. Jared Goff hit a few throws but mostly stunk. Cam Akers had a couple good runs, but nothing special. Meanwhile the Packers ran at will. Rodgers was never hassled. The Rams looked like a team that needed to play against Chris Streveler in week 17 to even make the playoffs. It's time to stop treating Sean McVay like he is Bill Walsh. If a DPI is correctly called in the Superdome 2 years ago he is seen very...

THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2 I know I saw the first one, but don't remember it. I doubt I'll remember this either. Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn as Mr. and Mrs. Claus is cute. But man this is a weird movie.  HOLIDATE I always have a soft spot for Emma Roberts. And she's really cute and charming in this romcom, which is actually not just a Christmas movie but spans many holidays.  HAPPIEST SEASON I had hoped this one would be great, cause I always hope anything with Kristen Stewart is great. But it's just okay, too sitcommy. I also wonder if it was intentional to have Stewart show way more chemistry with Aubrey Plaza than Mackenzie Davis.  THE MIDNIGHT SKY George Clooney needs to do more things. This Netflix movie doesn't quite make the most of its premise, but it makes a lot of it. The space segments with Felicity Jones aren't quite as good as the Clooney stuff on earth. I was still into this the whole way. MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM Just an acting masterpiece he...

BILLS 27, COLTS 24 Closer than I expected. The Colts really did seem to have the right gameplan going in. Their ball control kept the Bills O off the field, especially in the first half. But they trailed at halftime cause they didn't cash in. One redzone trip ended in 3. Another ended with a very bad decision to go for a 4th and goal at the 3 having just lost yardage. Buffalo took over, as Josh Allen was great (best of luck to the AFC east the next 10 years dealing with that). Diggs got a TD and 100 yards. To Indy's credit they did fight back with a couple quick TD drives. But then they went all Kubiak with their final drive and had to settle for a hail mary that fell incomplete and gave Buffalo their 1st playoff win since I was a junior in high school. RAMS 30, SEAHAWKS 20 The biggest enigma in the NFL strikes again, as a Rams team that just a few weeks ago lost to the Jets, goes into Seattle and hands the Seahawks their 1st home playoff loss in 16 years. It didn't matter ...

(Yeah this is quite late. Sue me) 2000: Cast Away was always a film I knew to be great. Tom Hanks during his peak run. Robert Zemeckis before he got into his weird CGI people phase. Instantly compelling premise. Cool backstory to the production. It's borderline criminal that this film has largely been reduced within pop culture to "that movie where Tom Hanks talks to a volleyball." I mean, that part of the story makes sense. It's not played deadly serious in the film either. This is truly a great rewatchable. It's almost like two separate films. Part 1 is Hanks crashing on the island and his initial few days there. Part 2 is 5 years later and his escape back home. I think where this film ascended to being really an all time fave was when I started to appreciate the last act, when Hanks is back home after the rescue. It's emotional stuff, complete with a Hanks monologue that is practically my life mantra these days. When Sean Connery die...

On the day that Congress convened to officially certify the Joe Biden victory, amidst some bullshit objections from bullshit crybaby politicians, a mob of Trump-sponsored domestic terrorist criminals stormed the US Capitol building. They sent all the politicians present (Ds and Rs alike) running for safety. They broke down doors and smashed windows. They broke into offices. They looted. And most simply walked away, with zero resistance. Even knowing how racist the police in this country are, it is still astonishing to see how little they even cared about one of the most prominent government buildings in America being overrun by thug trash. Compare this to any BLM protest we have ever seen. If a BLM group overtook a major building like that they would have been hauling out dead bodies by the truckful. But a mob of MAGAts get to do it and there are barely even any arrests. And this will be the new normal. Don't think it won't be. It has been made crystal clear that this type of b...

VIKINGS 37 LIONS 35 We have seen our fair share of meaningless week 17 games over the years, but this was probably the most entertaining one ever. Sure you don't want your season to be ending in a game of no real consequence, but if you got to...at least make it fun. This was a pretty fun game. Very entertaining. Some big plays, and one big record. Both teams looked pretty lousy to start. Both looked like they were going to just be going through the motions for the first few drives.  Then the offensive floodgates opened. Matthew Stafford began picking apart our bad defense. Kirk began to pick apart Detroit's. Anthony Harris got burned for one score. Then Kirk hit Mattison on a dump off and he raced 40 some yards for another. Stafford threw another touchdown. Then Kirk tossed another score to Ameer Abdullah. Lions got a field goal. Then, in the funniest play of the day, we had a mini miracle as Kirk hit Beebe along the sideline in the waning seconds of the half, and instead of b...