The Skolney Blog

Well at least that's over.  The 2023 NFL Draft was a new low in media and fan insufferability in the months leading up to it. Never before have I been so annoyed by the endless mocks, the endless "reports", the endless speculation. It's all such meaningless noise. Nobody who claims to know anything actually does.  Once again we had a throng of Vikings fans, mostly the Skortards, who were maniacally insistent that the team simply MUST draft a quarterback. No team can succeed without a rookie contract QB (except, you know, all the ones that have). I was all about one thing: Defense. I still have ptsd from watching Daniel Jones light up our hapless defense and end our season in January. And we still need more reinforcements for Brian Flores to work with this fall. Turns out we all sort of got what we wanted, but also didn't.  We went in with just 5 picks. A couple went out in the TJ Hockenson deal. A few others had gone in trades for Jalen Reagor, Ross Blacklock and ...

In theaters: AIR You know what I like about Air? That it's a movie. So often lately these kinds of stories become series, and thus become bloated and less than they could have been. I'm not even sure the story of how Nike signed Michael Jordan needed to be told, but it's better in this format, with a cast of movie stars (chiefly Matt Damon at his most effortless) and a big directors (Ben Affleck). Very well written and acted. A little weird how you never see Jordan's face.  HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE Well it's all there in the title. This is about a group of people setting out to blow up an oil pipeline. We get the process, and well placed flashbacks to kind of show how each member of the group came to be there. A few recognizable actors here but largely new faces. Everyone is excellent. And the film doesn't soft pedal anything. This is a deliberately angry, propulsive, political film. And one of the best of 2023 so far.  POLITE SOCIETY This is like if Scott Pilg...

1993: I saw The Sandlot on April 11th, 1993. I know this because it's the first movie ticket stub I saved. (It cost $3.75) But that was pretty much it for me with this movie. I liked it fine at the time, but it didn't join the ranks of great sports movies. I think sentimental kids movies had no chance to stay front of mind for me at that age. But I kept hearing about this movie over the years. So I decided to actually watch it again for the first time since 4/11/93. And it's good. I probably like it more now. It has a real nostalgic pull to it. It's unabashedly sappy for sure, and is pretty clearly a mash-up of A Christmas Story and Stand By Me. Even the narrator seems to have been chosen to sound as much like those films narrators as possible.  I still wouldn't place it among my favorite baseball movies, but I'm glad I watched it again.  Speaking of being glad I watched it again, there is Who's The Man, which happened to be on Tubi.  This movie I watched a ...

Twins 4 White Sox 3 10 innings My 1st Twins game of 2023 had an eventful start, and an eventful finish, with a lot of nothing in between.  Pablo Lopez made his 1st home start for the Twins, and it was ugly early. A leadoff single was followed by a horrible throwing error by Lopez. Then a walk loaded the bases and a double scored 2. Before an out was recorded.  But after this, Lopez was unbelievable. He retired the next 3 Sox to get out of that first inning...then got his next 20 opponents out too. It was a dominant turnaround performance. The Sox lead didn't last either. Donovan Solano singled off former Twins malcontent Lance Lynn, then Byron Buxton sent his 100th career homerun into the bullpen to tie the game. In the bottom of the 2nd Michael Taylor hit his 1st Twins homerun to almost the same spot for a 3-2 lead.  But this was it til late in the game. Lynn was fairly dominant too, although the Twins did scratch out an occasional baserunner. Lopez was lifted in a class...