The Skolney Blog

Nothing will determine the fate of the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah era of Vikings football more than what happens in the drafts. It's the reason Rick Spielman is no longer in charge. His drafting went south too often, so he had to go. Kwesi definitely had the microscope on him this weekend. And clearly a large percentage of a fanbase that is still sore over him not dumping Kirk Cousins for peanuts was just waiting.for.a chance to pounce.  How else to explain night 1? The Vikings were scheduled to pick at 12. But they traded down, with Detroit, down to 32. There was also a swap of 2nd round picks, and we got a 3rd. By every chart that is used to analyze such deals, at worst it was basically a wash. But Vikings fans erupted in anger at Kwesi. Vile shit was said by an increasingly embarrassing fanbase. And for what? An okay trade? Oh but of course the receiver the Lions then took at 12 will go straight to Canton. Just like they all insisted Justin Fields would do a year ago.  When the tim...

In theaters: THE CONTRACTOR A good example of a very generic movie being done well. Chris Pine is a discharged ranger who becomes, yes, a private contractor, but the job he goes on is not what he thinks it is. So, generic plot, completely bland title, but it plays the beats well. Pine is engaging, Ben Foster is always good, and it's good to see Kiefer Sutherland in something again, even if his character may as well be holding a sign that says "I am going to betray you."  THE LOST CITY Even after seeing the rather obnoxious trailer for this at seemingly every movie for 6 months, I still had hopes for this movie. But the trailers, sadly, were pretty accurate. This is an adventure comedy that tries incredibly hard for little payoff. Sandra Bullock (still hot despite the plastic surgery that has made it hard to move her face) and Channing Tatum ride on their natural likability. Daniel Radcliffe is quite annoying as the villain. The extended Brad Pitt appearance is easily the ...

Not that there are really a lot of comedy franchises out there, but the American Pie series (the real ones, not all those "American Pie Presents" DTV cash-ins) might be my favorite. Every entry is better than it should have been. 1 is one of my favorite comedies ever, but it endures cause it actually has heart and actually has characters. 2 is one of the best comedy sequels ever, a movie that somehow recaptured the magic. 3 shows some wear, but was very funny. Which brings us to American Reunion. This one followed a nearly 10 year break in the series. More than ever this was a cash-in. And comedy sequels with a long break in between have been particularly spotty. But I liked this one too. Reunion brings back the entire main cast from the first 2 movies (some skipped out on part 3), even some of the bit players. And it's like reuniting with old friends.  Nobody from American Pie really went on to major stardom, but it was well cast, and everyone slips back into...

This was season 33 of the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise, a tenure so putrid that some were calling that play-in game win last week one of the greatest in franchise history. Yes, a win in a stupid manufactured play-in game to become a 7th seed ranks that high. This franchise has done so much more harm than good to the already tortured fans in this state. But the Timberwolves have been marked by just a blur of losses. The one thing they did not have was that one signature failure that everybody could point to as The One, as certainly fans of the Vikings, Twins and various Gophers teams do. (Not sure the Wild have one of these...yet) But the Timberwolves sure have it now. And fittingly they can't even be bothered to have it in a series that matters. The dirty little secret that the NBA stans won't admit is that most of their games are utterly meaningless, even postseason. Memphis vs Minnesota is not a series that matters. Neither team is going to win a title. The NBA couldn...

Kevin Smith in the 1990s was a HUGE deal. Clerks in 1994, Mallrats in 1995. These were HUGE movies for me, and were massive movies for my friends as well. Constantly referencing these movies every day at school.  So here comes his third film, Chasing Amy. Myself and a couple friends cut out of school early one Friday to go catch the first showing. It's hard to describe what it felt like to experience this film for the first time. I loved it instantly, of course, although at the time I'm not sure if I immediately placed it higher than his first 2 films. Like Clerks, this film has a whole lot more going than just vulgar comedy. It's no mystery why these two are the ones that have most endured.  So, just the quickie plot. Ben Affleck (Holden) and Jason Lee (Banky) are a couple of comic book artists. They meet a fellow artist, Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), who Holden falls hard for, only to soon discover she is a lesbian. It's a sly riff on the romcom formula wher...

Dodgers 7 Twins 0 My 1st Twins game of 2022 was certainly one of the coldest baseball games I have ever been to. Temps dipping into the 30s, with a biting wind.  The only thing colder was the Twins feeble bats, as future HOFer Clayton Kershaw was dominating. In fact he was so dominant that he went into the middle innings with a perfect game.  The game itself was never a contest. Chris Paddack's 1st Twins start was immediately ugly, and after a first full of bad pitches and errors it was 2-0 LA. They later tacked on another run, and then later on hit back-to-back-to-back homeruns off the bullpen. So the game was over.  All eyes on Kershaw. Most of this incredibly small crowd was wearing Dodger blue, so even though they were the road team, with every out closer Kershaw got the crowd roared.  I was fully rooting for Kershaw to do it. Fuck it. I'd seen a couple of one hitters in person, but never a no hitter, and certainly not a perfect game. But the pitch count Nazis wo...

Twins: For sure, there is a lot more reason for optimism surrounding the 2022 Twins than there was when the lockout ended. On that day, this was a team coming off one of the most disastrous seasons in franchise history, with almost no starting rotation.  Now? Well, in the last few weeks they have stunned us all by signing Carlos Correa, and also have added Sonny Gray, Gary Sanchez, Gio Urshela, Chris Archer, and Chris Paddack, while trading away Josh Donaldson, Mitch Garver, Brent Rooker and Taylor Rogers. As the dust settles from all this movement, I see this as an improved team but still very lacking in the most important thing they need to be a real contender for anything meaningful.  They don't have the pitching. They start the year with 6 starters, plus rookie Josh Winder, who is a starter but may come out of the bullpen. But they never made that big pitching move to build off the Correa signing. Gray is solid, but he is not the #1 of a title contending rotation. After th...

Oh Sony. Sony Sony Sony. Sony is coming off one of the great successes ever with Spiderman: No Way Home, a record setting hit that also happened to be a legitimately sensational movie. And after watching Morbius, more than ever we now know that the fact that this latest trilogy of Spiderman flicks worked is in spite of Sony.  Because you remove the help of Kevin Feige and the Disney/Marvel team, and you get a couple deeply mediocre Venom movies (that, yes, a lot of people did like) and now a movie that is unquestionably the worst movie to ever have ties to the MCU, and one of the worst movies in its genre of all time.  Yes, Morbius is fucking garbage. And that's just the movie that precedes a pair of post credits scenes that made me viscerally angry.  I figured that if anything was going to make this a bad movie it would be having Jared Leto play the title character. Leto is an annoying person and an actor prone to really irritating performances. But here he's too dull to...