The Skolney Blog

1982: Rocky 3 was the first time the franchise kind of left the grittiness behind. 1 and 2 are very down to earth dramas. 3 is heightened. It's got some of that 80s cheesiness.  So Rocky 3 finds Rocky in his prime as a champion. He's rolling through fight after fight. He's doing a silly charity fight with a wrestler (Hulk Hogan). But then he faces off against Clubber Lang (Mr. T) and gets his ass handed to him, plus his trainer Mickey dies. It takes Apollo Creed to bring Rocky back from the depths, to train him for the rematch. Of the good Rocky movies this has always been my least favorite. It's not anything in particular, just prefer 1, 2 and 4 more. I don't think the fight with Clubber at the end (where, spoiler, Rocky triumphs) is as good as others. But this entry brought us "Eye Of The Tiger", the Rocky-Apollo bromance, the series best moment for Adrian, and Mr. T's bravado.  1992: Lethal Weapon 1 is a fairly serious cop ac...

In theaters: FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE This thing has been a huge box office flop, so this is likely where this franchise ends. I won't miss it. The first two were exceptionally mediocre. This one is just flat out bad. It barely even has any beasts to speak of.  FIRESTARTER  I know I saw the original Firestarter, which starred a very young Drew Barrymore, way back in the 80s. All I really remembered was the end when she goes off on everyone. I will remember nothing about this bland, cheap remake. The performance by the young girl is fine, but this whole thing is by the numbers, and they don't even really show any of the fiery kills. I'm guessing the budget was too low to show it, which begs the question "why bother?"  MEN Alex Garland's 1st 2 films were the excellent Ex-Machina and the very good Annihilation. Men is....not good. Despite the presence of the spectacular Jessie Buckley (whose performance is the only thing that is redeemable here...

TWINS 10 ROYALS 7 Twins game #3 of the season for me, and the first one without some sort of atrocious weather. And hey, a win!  Looked like an easy one early. Jorge Polanco hit a two run homer in the 1st in his return from a brief injury, and a pair or ribbie singles made it 4-0 after 1. Didn't even seem to matter that we left em loaded. Didn't even seem to matter that we left em loaded in the 2nd too.  Bailey Ober was cruising early. Then in the 3rd it abruptly went south. With 2 on and 2 out, the Royals wunderkind prospect Bobby Witt Jr. tripled, then a single brought him home and a game that should have been broken open by that point was just 4-3.  That inning was the end of Ober's night, but Danny Coulombe came in for the 4th and immediately gave up a walk and 2 singles and the game was tied.  Trevor Megill came in and drew a double play on a rather gutsy play by Urshela. So we weren't behind but we needed a lineup that often takes the middle of games off, and h...

We can finally put COVID behind us as it pertains to movies.  Top Gun: Maverick is the last movie that had trailers out before the pandemic to get released. It would have been almost 2 years ago that this movie was released had it hit its summer 2020 date. And before some resorts it was probably coming out in 2019. So it's been a long wait.  I like the original Top Gun. It is one of the most 1980s movies of all time. A lot of it comes off as almost laughably cheesy, but those moments somehow make the film better. It was one of the first big Tom Cruise movies. One of the first big Simpson/Bruckheimer films. One of Tony Scott's first films. And we never get the brilliant Hot Shots without it.  Maverick is an almost across the board better film. Yet I probably enjoyed it less than the original. The aerial action in the film is behind compare. There is some visceral, thrilling stuff in it. You can very much tell the parts where Cruise himself is flying. The whole film is cent...

Attack of the Clones hit as the middle moment of the prequel era. It is impossible to convey in this format how huge and all-encompassing this Star Wars prequel era was in my life. Basically from the day I found out Natalie Portman was cast in the trilogy, until Revenge of the Sith hit DVD, these movies were my #1 movie obsession. Nothing Marvel has ever done or will do can touch it for me in this way. Phantom Menace was the biggest movie event of all time for me. I suppose if I am still doing these blogs in 7 years I will get into it. (If America is still livable) But there were a couple boxes even that film didn't check. With AOTC I got to go to the midnight unveiling of the toys with some friends, which was a blast. And then I got to do the midnight show opening night for the movie itself. I couldn't do it for TPM cause I was still in school and had an 8am final that next morning. No such issues 3 years later, so I got to do the midnight show, which was quite sim...

How has it already been ten years? I guarantee that there is no movie that I have watched more in the last decade than this first Avengers movie. It is just endlessly rewatchable. Every scene has either a great character moment, a good joke, good action, or a memorable visual. Often all 4 at once.  Heading into the summer of 2012, there were two mammoth movies on the way: this and The Dark Knight Rises. I was certain that TDKR was going to be the superior film. It wasn't that I wasn't already a fan of the MCU (the 1st Iron Man and Thor movies in particular), but it felt kind of inevitable that this big team-up would prove to be less than the sum of its parts. Little did I know that with the MCU, more is always more. The big ensemble movies are almost across the board my favorites in the franchise.  And this franchise was made by this film. Yeah, if The Avengers hadn't really worked out, I don't think that would have meant the end of the MCU. Iron Man was alr...

ASTROS 5 TWINS 1 Um, through 3 innings  So...my 2nd Twins game of the season was an experience. Going in I knew that Star Wars Night had a good chance at being wrecked by oncoming storms. At first pitch I was as focused on the dark clouds to the south and west as I was on the game  Well, at least the Twins scored this time, as Kepler and Polanco each doubled.  That lead vanished quickly due to Chris Archer, who spent his whole outing taking forever to get batters out. When armageddon is looming it doesn't help to have a starter who needs 6+ pitches per batter, and whose pace is dreadfully slow. And, you know, who gets knocked around on top of that. It was 5-1 after 3 when the game was stopped. I was surprised it took so long, since there was literally lightning right above the stadium.  Soon after we get literal tornado sirens, for what frankly could have been a literal tornado. So there was no more watching the lightning show. Nope, I wind up huddled in a packed sta...

MYSTICS 78 LYNX 66 After almost 3 years away, I made my way to a Lynx game again. I've seen a lot.of great basketball at Target Center in the last decade.  Sunday.night was not that. This was easily the worst Lynx performance I have witnessed since way back in 2010. Cheryl Reeve outsmarted herself. Days before the season she shocked everybody by cutting Layshia Clarendon, Crystal Dangerfield, and Rennia Davis. Clarendon was one of the Lynx's 3 best players last year. Dangerfield is just a year removed from being rookie of the year. Davis was last year's highly touted 1st round pick, who missed the season hurt, but who looked good in preseason.  Now, the WNBA faces challenges other leagues don't. They have smaller rosters. They have players still finishing up overseas commitments as the season begins. They have a much shorter camp and preseason. And certainly no other league faces having players out due to pregnancy.  The Lynx are dealing with all of this, all while stil...

Yes it's excellent. All MCU films are pretty much excellent, with the occasional masterpiece or just decent entry. I probably prefer the first Doctor Strange movie overall. Of the post-Endgame films I would place this behind No Way Home and Black Widow. I feel like the advertising kind of let the film down. I saw something where Feige didn't like some of the things that were spoiled in the trailers, and I agree. Key moments from the final 10 minutes of this film were in the trailers. There was no reason to spoil the appearances of Professor X or Captain Carter.  Plus it gave off this impression that MoM was going to be a great big cameo fest, with variants of familiar characters, characters from the old Fox properties, etc. It's not. We get the Illuminati scenes, and that stuff is really cool. God damn do we need a Captain Carter series or film. John Krasinski as Reed Richards got a big applause. Monica as Captain Marvel was cool. And hey, for the 5 people who watched Inhum...

No, Sam Raimi's first Spiderman was not the beginning of the modern comic book movie. Blade and X-Men came first. But neither were a complete phenomenon like this film was. Spiderman was HUGE. This was the first of the modern comic book movies to become its year's top grossing movie (which is now pretty common). And after 20 years of Spiderman movies and even spinoffs now, the film still holds up as one of the very best origin films. It will forever remain one of the great what-ifs in movie history if James Cameron had been the guy to make this film in the 90s.  Instead that job went to Raimi, who prior to this film's release was known mostly for the Evil Dead movies. I knew him best for the fantastic A Simple Plan and The Gift. But he certainly wasn't an obvious choice for a big movie like this. Of course now he's known mostly for Spiderman, and now Doctor Strange. Also an offbeat choice was Tobey Maguire as Spiderman. Maguire was an up and coming actor...