The Skolney Blog

1999 25th Anniversary: 1999 was just an insane movie year. Classic after classic, including some of my absolute all time favorites.  The first one out of the shoot came just a couple weeks in. I was not anticipating Varsity Blues. Yeah it was a football movie, so I had interest there (fun fact: the movie came out the same weekend as the Vikings-Falcons NFCCG). But it also starred James Van Der Beek, right at the peak of my dislike for him. Look, this was when he was making out weekly with Katie Holmes on Dawson's Creek, so he was not on my good list. Those were the rules, man. But then I did see it, and it was awesome. Varsity Blues is in the discussion for my favorite football movie of all time.  It's just brilliant execution of the sports movie formula. The players are colorful and distinctive. Van Der Beek is actually good in this, even if that southern drawl is a little silly at times. Paul Walker is super charismatic. Ron Lester does a great job of imbuing his...

In theaters: AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM Jesus. I thought the 1st Aquaman was a complete mess, but it looks like a borderline masterpiece compared to this sequel. This still has all the noise and ugly underwater fx, but it is even more boring and lazy. You can tell how uninterested everyone involved is. Having Jason Momoa try to do dramatic scenes is a disaster. It's amusing seeing how obvious it was that they cut Amber Heard out of every single shot she wasn't absolutely necessary for. The DCEU was an up and down franchise, but it's a shame that it goes out on its worst film by far.  AMERICAN FICTION Nominated for best picture, I think this is a good, witty satire, and the film I wanted Spike Lee's Bamboozled to be many years ago. It isn't THAT funny, and doesn't reslly.know how to end. But the script is very smart, and the nominated performances by Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown are both outstanding.  THE IRON CLAW I was really into this drama based on ...

AFC: CHIEFS 17, RAVENS 10 Boy am I an idiot. I truly believed that this Chiefs team was shaky entering the playoffs, and were due for a loss. But here they are again, in their 4th super bowl in 5 years. This was the most impressive of their 3 wins, a defensively dominant game on the road against what I certainly thought was the best team in the NFL.  Honestly, good for Patrick Mahomes that he can get to a super bowl with his defense pulling its weight this much. But Mahomes himself was very good, and Kelce was dominant. On the other side, Lamar Jackson was pretty bad, a victim of both himself and a terrible game plan that almost completely ignored the run. You figure this version of the Ravens will have more chances, but this was as good a chance as they will ever have.  NFC: 49ERS 34, FRAUDS 31 The season from hell is OVER! FINALLY! I can rest now, after the Detroit Darlings, the frauds, at last revealed their true colors in one of the greatest collapses in conference champio...

Saturday: RAVENS 34, TEXANS 10 This game was actually tied at the half, but the 2nd half was just complete domination by Baltimore. The Texans only TD was on a punt return, as CJ Stroud crashed back to earth. Lamar Jackson had 4 total touchdowns.  49ERS 24, PACKERS 21 Oh I was worried, no doubt about that. Right from the start of this game the 49ers looked terrible, particularly on defense. Once again Jordan Love had the horseshoe, flinging passes to wide open guys. And Brock Purdy was playing pretty terribly. But the 49ers led at the half anyway, because the Packers got 6 total points from 3 1st half redzone trips. Then the 3rd quarter had the teams trading scores, and the luckiest team in the NFL somehow fumbled a return in the open field, only to recover it. The luck finally ran out though late, as the Packers missed a field goal that would have put them up 7, and then Purdy and co. finally put together a clutch drive, capped by a McCaffrey TD to take the lead with j...

Saturday: TEXANS 45, BROWNS 14 I picked the Browns to keep their late season hot streak going against the neophyte Texans (who only got here due to a 4th down drop in Indy), but after an early back and forth it was just a buzz saw. CJ Stroud was great, and Joe Flacco crashed back to earth in a major way.  CHIEFS 26, DOLPHINS 7 In the 4th coldest game in NFL history, the Chiefs rode their improved defense to victory. Miami, who at mid-season looked like a bona-fide super bowl contender, went out horribly. You could tell they all had no interest in playing in that weather. It would be interesting if Patrick Mahomes got carried in the playoffs by the defense this time.  Sunday: PACKERS 48, COWBOYS 32 Vomitous. A Packers team that only made the playoffs because their shitty field killed Kirk Cousins's Achilles, and because they got everything to line up for them in the final weeks, also got to face a notorious playoff choker in the Cowboys, who even by their standards ...

It's hard to believe that music was invented a whole 25 years ago! Music, at least current music, doesn't mean anything to me today the way it used to. I can't even think of the last actual album that mattered to me (hell, it was probably Glory).  But new music used to be a big deal to me. New albums used to be major events, almost on par with the latest movie.  But only a precious few were literally sea changing. One of those was Baby One More Time, the debut from the legendary Miss Britney Spears. I cannot believe it's been a quarter century since Britney came out and obliterated all previous fandoms I had for singers, or any celebrity period really (well, except Miss Portman). But it started quietly, back sometime late in 1998. BOMT the single was released during the fall, but I have no memory of the first time I heard it. It wasn't like I didn't listen to.top 40 or watch MTV. 1998 was peak era music fandom time for me. So I definitely heard BOMT,...

Saturday: STEELERS 17, RAVENS 10 In a cold, driving rainstorm, the Ravens rested many of their starters (Laquon Treadwell played, say no more). And the Steelers were able to grind out a win that kept them alive for the playoffs, pending Sunday results. TEXANS 23, COLTS 19 This was an elimination game, and the Cinderella Texans got it done, courtesy of a late drive led by ROY lock CJ Stroud, and some moronic coaching at the end by Shane Steichen, and a horrible dropped pass.  Sunday: SAINTS 48, FALCONS 17 A close game at the half turned into a Saints rout. Arthur Smith will probably be fired.  BUCCANEERS 9, PANTHERS 0 Hey it got the job done. Tampa clinched the south, and improved their record following the loss of the fake GOAT. Carolina got shutout in back to back games to end the season.  TITANS 28, JAGUARS 20 The Jaguars were 8-3 and the 1 seed. And then... Their collapse was completed by the long-eliminated Titans. And this clinched the AFC South for the T...

LIONS 30 VIKINGS 20 It's over. Mercifully.  The 2023 season from hell for the Vikings was finally put out of its misery on Sunday, as a day that began with the slimmest of playoff hopes was quickly snuffed out. (There were 4 things that needed to occur, and fittingly, none did) Early on things didn't look a whole lot different from that deplorable no-show a week ago. The defense got torched for a couple easy touchdowns. The offense, led by Nick Mullens, looked ill-prepared and sloppy. The offensive line, down 2 starters, looked awful.  We got down 13-0. The offense picked it up a little bit once the focus became Justin Jefferson (who passed 1,000 yards), and scraped together a pair of field goals by halftime. Early in the 3rd quarter, the Lions drove easily to a touchdown that made it 20-6. News wasn't any better down south. In this early window we needed a loss by either Tampa or New Orleans to stay alive. But a close game at half between the Saints and Falcons was turning...

The Ten Best: 1. Oppenheimer  After multiple viewings, I still think the 3rd hour is a step down. But those first two hours are as well made and engrossing as any film of this decade so far and by a wide margin. Christopher Nolan, the greatest filmmaker of the 2000s, should finally win an Oscar for this.  2. Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse  A dizzying, dazzling sequel that improves on the original in almost every way, and even slips in some sly meta commentary about the toxicity of modern day genre fandom. 3. May December An absolutely incredible, pantheon-level performance by Natalie Portman paces this darkly funny film about an actress researching a role a little too intimately.  4. Godzilla Minus One The shocker of the year. A film I didn't even know existed until just before it came out, and that I wasn't even going to see until I heard the buzz. And it turns out to be the best Godzilla movie ever made, in which miraculously the human drama is a match for the m...