The Skolney Blog

1992: Boomerang holds a special place in my movie history, as it was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in theaters. I don't exactly recall the particulars of how this came to be. I know I was a tag along with my mom and sister. I don't think she even knew what this movie was, cause, uh, there's some stuff here that a 13 year old probably shouldn't watch (although cable had already sullied my innocence). Boomerang to this day is probably my favorite Eddie Murphy movie. My familiarity with Murphy was a little all over the place as of 1992. His peak was probably just before I got into watching movies, so I missed the boat on things like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs. Pre-Boomerang my favorite and most watched Murphy flicks were definitely Coming To America and The Golden Child, just because they were always on cable. Boomerang was definitely my first in theater Murphy movie. I loved it right away, probably for some of the reasons any 13 year old would. This mov...

In theaters: THE FORGIVEN A rather boring drama about an English couple (Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain) who hit and kill an Arab boy while vacationing in Morocco. About halfway through the movie splits into 2 storylines, one somewhat compelling, the other quite useless. But the film keeps cutting back to the useless one, surprisingly the one with Chastain (who is good, but just has a nothing character). For no reason the credits appear (backwards) at the start of the film, and then at the end it's just awkward. MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON A supremely charming movie about a tiny little pasta shell named Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate). This is like if A24 made a Pixar movie. On a technical level it's a great film, a mix of live action, stop motion animation and a dash of CGI. The film is full of creative visuals showing how Marcel lives. It's funny, and disarmingly sweet.  WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING A southern murder mystery drama that on one hand is a welcome return to ...

The apologists will tell you that if, on opening day, you were told the Twins would hit the all star break at 50-44 with a 2 game division lead, you would have taken that.  That's true, but we live in the real world and the path the Twins have taken to get there is not so clean. This is a flat out bad ballclub right now. They got drubbed 11-0 at home by the White Sox today, capping a dreadful 4 game series loss, which caps a 23-28 stretch since they hit their high water mark way back on May 24th. That's nearly a third of a season now in which they have been solidly below .500, and against a pretty easy schedule in that time. Everything has fallen apart. The lineup just got shut out for the 11th time this season. They have some good individual numbers, but as a unit they are the same unclutch group they've been for years. Unless a ball is going over the fence they cannot score runs. LOBsters everywhere. Large stretches.of games seemingly mailed in.  The bullpen fiascos have ...

Since the day at the 2019 Comic-Con that Marvel announced not just that they were making a new Thor film, but that Natalie Portman was coming back to wield Mjolnir as Might Thor, this has been the one. No other film has been as eagerly awaited by me in that time.  And there was probably no chance that this film could possibly live up to that much built up expectation. But Love and Thunder comes damn close. Okay, might as well gush about Natalie. My adoration of this woman for nearly 30 years has been well chronicled across any number of formats. But one of the few things she hasn't really done a whole lot in movies is be funny. She hasn't starred in a truly funny movie since No Strings Attached. Even her last real MCU appearance in The Dark World she was mostly serious. Now, she's as great an actress as there is and nails her dramatic roles, but one of the joys of her performance in L&T is that she gets to be fun, and funny, and show some real silliness at times (while ...