The Skolney Blog

In theaters: VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE I was not a real big fan of the first Venom. Thought it was a largely unwelcome throwback to the pre-MCU days of comic book flicks, made into something watchable by a very entertaining lead performance by Tom Hardy. Hardy is pretty much the reason to watch this sequel too, which lands in that same middle ground of mediocrity (yet it's going to outgrows Black Widow 🤮). The main villain this time is Woody Harrelson and he is always fun to watch, although he doesn't really have a lot to do here. Naomie Harris is so wasted that I didn't even realize til the credits that it was her. Michelle Williams pops back in for a couple fun scenes. The movie earns some points for brevity, as it is only 90 minutes long, but it's just a lot of noise and CGI. But that credits scene...wow! Welcome to the official MCU Venom. Hope that leads to an increase in quality for your movies.  DEAR EVAN HANSEN An already notorious fiasco, this musical is abou...

1991: Ricochet is absolutely batshit insane. I know I have likely said this before on these blogs, and will likely say it many more times, but they just don't make them like this anymore. This is a movie I should not have been watching at 13. But I did, and I have always been a huge fan. I think originally I just got into it because it had cool action, a memorable villain, and Denzel and Ice-T were cool. But over the years and many other viewings I've come to just adore how gloriously over the top the whole thing is. It was produced by Joel Silver, and written by the same writer as Die Hard. It even shares the same news reporter character as that film. But where Die Hard had a sheen of class, Ricochet is pure sleaze. This is a sleazy, dirty movie. And it's unbelievable that it starred Denzel Washington. Denzel had just won his 1st Oscar less than 2 years earlier. I don't know if he was taking an early stab at action movie stardom or what, but his movie star ...

We all got a nice, welcome one week respite from the weekly strokes the 2021 Minnesota Vikings have been providing/inflicting. But there was still a lot to learn with what went on during a purple free Sunday. I personally watched almost all of the Chiefs-Titans game. And I saw the Titans blow the 2 time defending AFC champs off the field. What happened to the Chiefs in the last super bowl was already a very educational display of what can happen to even the very best quarterbacks when their offensive line is being manhandled. But many refused to learn from their mistake, that being the years of blaming Kirk Cousins for not just automatically overcoming bad OL play, as all great QBs are allegedly supposed to do every single time. Now we see even more how the Chiefs poor OL play impacts Mahomes, as does having a terrible defense, another issue the Vikings have had at times during the Kirk era (primarily 2020) and which has been blamed ON Kirk. Just because you CAN put up 30+ every week d...

I was not a fan of the 2018 Halloween. It got so hyped up as the "true" sequel, then just ended up doing all the same generic slasher movie shit as all the "bad" sequels it was supposedly replacing as canon. But the 2018 movie is a masterpiece compared to the abomination that is Halloween Kills, a sequel so lazy, so stupid, so devoid of anything redeemable, that I feel it has my title of worst movie of 2021 on lock. In general I find Michael Myers to be one of the least interesting horror villains. He is an unstoppable killing machine, with no personality, and no compelling backstory. He is just a big guy who kills people. That's incredibly uninteresting.  So the good Halloween movies either have to generate tension and scares, or have some good writing and characters to hang on to. Halloween Kills has none of this. No scares. No story. No characters. Not even any fun kills. The last movie ended with Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter Judy Greer, and granddaughter havin...

VIKINGS 34 PANTHERS 28 OT The Vikings do not play next week, as they will be on their bye. This is a good thing, because we all need a break. Players, coaches, fans, all of us need a breather after a camp and preseason full of drama and angst and 6 weeks of games that have largely been stress-inducing madness. Last week the Vikings seemed to have a game well in control...until they were suddenly trailing and needed a 54 yard field goal at the gun to  escape with a win. Today the Vikings seemed to have a game well in control...until they were suddenly in overtime and needed a touchdown to escape with a win. I think the fact that today's game wound up in that spot was even more inexplicable, because overall they had played a much better game than last week. Right off the bat the defense was playing its ass off. The very first play of the day we pressured Sam Darnold into a bad throw, which was picked off by Breeland. They only got a field goal on the short field, but hey, free points...

VIKINGS 19 LIONS 17 Wow. That was close. This was an unloseable game for the Vikings. Going in. As the game was going on. Late into the 4th quarter. No way this could not go their way.  So how in the fuck did this game come down to Greg Joseph hitting a 55 yard field goal at the gun?  For 3 and a half quarters this was playing out, in rather snoozy fashion, as your classic example of an ugly win. The Lions grabbed a 3-0 but the Vikings tied it up immediately, then took the lead, then built on it a little. There was just never a point where I was worried at all about them getting the win. Then the last 5 minutes happened. We'll get back to that.  Okay, just a quick recap of the pre-chaos portion of the day.  The Vikings offense was without Dalvin Cook, but Alexander Mattison did put up over 100 yards (one 48 yard burst accounted for a lot of that), and scored a touchdown on a reception. Justin Jefferson had a big first half. Christian Darrisaw saw some action. Kirk wa...

At long last we have the final James Bond film starring Daniel Craig. No Time To Die was the very first movie to get delayed by COVID. Originally set to open last April, we finally get it a full year and a half later. It's the longest delayed movie, although once Top Gun 2 gets here that one will probably take the title.  Worth the wait? Sure. NTTD is a good sendoff for Craig. It has lots of good action. It hits all the beats. It welcomes back supporting characters you like, and introduces some good new ones. But as with a movie like Mission Impossible: Fallout, or even this summer's F9, it becomes just simply too much. Not everything can be the MCU, but NTTD wants to be the Avengers: Endgame of this nearly 60 year franchise. The Craig Bonds have all more or less picked up where the last one left off, and this does too, as Bond is off on vacation with Lea Seydoux from the last movie. But of course soon shit happens and Bond is pulled back into the fray. It's the usual. A da...

BROWNS 14 VIKINGS 7 Week 4 was like having an ice cold bucket of water dumped on your head as a Vikings fan. Even at 1-2, two things really had me and a lot of other fans excited about this team. One was the big improvement of the offensive line. The other was the much improved playcalling of rookie OC Klint Kubiak. Those two things completely fell apart in a deeply ugly football game on Sunday afternoon. Kirktober turned spooky. The first drive looked to be more of the same from last week. Against Seattle we controlled the football for long drives. First drive here it happened again. Another long drive that featured a good play mix, and ended with a Kirk to JJ dart. The Browns had their own long opening drive, which ended inside our 10. Kevin Stefanski opted to go for the 4th down, and Sack Daddy got a big sack on Baker Mayfield. The whole game turned very defense minded. A couple three and outs happened. Zimmer opted to pass on a long field goal for his own 4th down gamble in Browns ...

People can choose other seasons if they want. What's indisputable is that 2021 was one of the biggest flop seasons in Minnesota Twins history. A team coming off back to back AL Central titles, and with every intention of threepeating, completely fell apart and finished last in a division that also contains the Tigers and Royals, two teams that were not even pretending to be trying.  Over the course of 6 months, a franchise that looked to have fully pulled out of their 2010s rebuild and become a regular contender again, collapsed to a degree that the franchise appears likely doomed to another long rebuild, all the while remaining without a playoff game win since 2004. And it all happened so fast. The Twins started 5-2 and yet were effectively buried by Memorial Day. The last 4 months plus of this season was just for show. Everything is to blame. The last offseason was a biblical disaster. Their big starting pitching moves were signing J.A. Happ and Matt Shoemaker, and gi...