The Skolney Blog

In theaters: MONTANA STORY A nice, quiet little family drama, in which a brother and sister re-unite on their family's ranch to oversee the end of their father's life. I saw it because the sister is the always wonderful Haley Lu Richardson. The brother though, Owen Teague, is also very good. And the scenery is top notch.  CRIMES OF THE FUTURE Well, at least it's not the worst David Cronenberg movie I've seen centered around a sick sexual fetish (that would be Crash). But this will be on my ten worst list for the year, and maybe top 5. A thuddingly dull sci-fi drama where "surgery is the new sex" and I guess some humans are evolving to where they can eat plastics. Okay. Great. There are of course some gross visuals involved. I found some enjoyment in Kristen Stewart's weird supporting performance, but she is the only person on screen who has any life.  LIGHTYEAR It's just not that good. People want to blame this movie's disappointing box office on s...

1982: I was a big Star Trek fan as a kid. I even had some toys. I don't have any idea though what order I saw anything in. I know the original series itself came first, but by the time I got into this thing there had been probably 4 movies. Plus that old animated series from the 70s. So basically I don't know when I first saw The Wrath Of Khan. But even as a young'n I knew this was a great movie. This is largely agreed upon as the best of the Trek films. I have always loved The Search For Spock (a direct sequel to this) and I think the newer ones were all excellent, but yeah, it's hard to make a case against The Wrath Of Khan. It just has it all. Everyone from the original ensemble is in fine form. I know he's kind of let himself become a punchline in later years, but William Shatner was still an effortlessly charismatic actor back then. The villain is the spectacularly theatrical Ricardo Montalban as Khan, one of the template performances for an over th...

Twins 6 Rockies 3 Twins game #4 for me was the last of a 6 game homestand, that began with the Twins just 1 game up on Cleveland and ends with the Twins, well, 2 games up on Cleveland. But it was a bumpy week.  The Twins gagged 2 games to Cleveland due largely to horrific bullpen implosions. But this game today was marked most by pitchers getting themselves into sticky situations, and then finding their way out. Wasn't sure the pen was even going to be a factor early. After spotting Colorado a run in the 1st, the Twins bats went to work. A Buxton walk was followed by 4 straight singles and 3 runs. In the 2nd Arraez singled, Buxton drilled a triple into the gap, and Correa brought him home on a sac fly for a 5-1 lead. Joe Ryan gave up a solo shot in the 3rd, then put the next 2 on. But he got out of it. In the 4th he gave up a run but stranded a runner at 2nd. He wasn't sharp, but he grinded through 5. An acrobatic catch by Mark Contreras in deep center marked his final out. On ...

It's fitting that in the time it has taken me to get around to doing this blog, the Twins have already zigzagged a couple more times in a season that is still only a little past the 1/3 mark yet has already felt like about a half dozen seasons. At the exact moment I am typing this, the Twins are 37-28 and in the middle of a west coast road trip. I think that at the start of April, most anybody would have jumped at the prospect of being 37-28 and in first place. And by most measures this has been a good team. So why do they feel so maddening?  They've certainly had violent shifts in their play. They started 4-8 and looked awful. Then they won 14 of 17 and looked great, until Houston came in here and humiliated them.  But following that massacre they immediately ripped off a 9-2 stretch.  But then they had a woeful 3-7 run against the lowly Royals and Tigers, including losing 4 of 5 in Detroit and barely accomplishing the task of scoring a run. So naturally, with a 9 game b...

We are closing fast on the 30th anniversary of the first Jurassic Park. We have now had 5 sequels to that classic, and not one of them has even come close to matching it. The latest, Jurassic World: Dominion, is billed as the conclusion to the franchise. This is of course total nonsense, because this is one of Universal Pictures premiere franchises. There will always be Jurassic films.  I sure hope the future films can figure it out. The "World" movies started out pretty well. It has issues, but Jurassic World is to me easily the 2nd best film in the series. Then came Fallen Kingdom, which I thought was okay at the time but I have almost completely forgotten. And most of what I do remember ain't good. Dominion is probably better than Fallen Kingdom, but it is an ungodly mess of a film that has no idea what it even wants to be. It turns into a Bourne film for like 20 minutes at one point.  The story is all over the place. It is ridiculously overstuffed with story threads a...