The Skolney Blog

1994: I remember that when Ace Ventura was coming out, I thought it looked abominable. I didn't watch In Living Color, so I had no idea who Jim Carrey even was, let alone why he would be headlining a movie. I had zero interest in seeing this movie, and didn't on its opening weekend, where it was immediately #1. But that following Monday at school, all one of my best friends could talk about was how funny this Ace Ventura movie was. So, the next weekend I gave it a shot, and who knew that this was the start of not only one of the best individual years a movie star has maybe ever had, but also the start of one of the best extended runs any comedy star has ever had.  The film follows the eccentric and quirky character of Ace Ventura, a pet detective who is called upon to solve the case of a missing dolphin mascot from the Miami Dolphins football team. To this day, much of the football stuff bugs me as it comes off as cheap. C'mon man, we know that's Super Bowl ...

In theaters: WONKA One of the few bona-fide hits of this winter. Wonka is a fairly charming movie, with a few catchy songs, and fun performances (best of all Hugh Grant).  ORIGIN I had very high hopes for this film, which ambitiously tackles racism across many generations, positing that discrimination is more about caste than race. Seriously, they say "caste" every 2 minutes. The film is a disappointment though, focusing way too much on the writing of the very book the film is based off of.  ARGYLLE I saw the trailer for this at basically every film for about 4 months. I grew to loathe it. The actual movie, made on a bloated $200 million budget, is a sporadically fun spy romp, with a few fun performances and a couple decent twists. It's hampered by a poorly cast Bryce Dallas Howard, who simply cannot pull off some of the later twists (though she looks damn good after her mid-movie makeover).  LISA FRANKENSTEIN I really enjoyed this one, a film practically engineered speci...

CHIEFS 25 49ERS 22 OT The Kansas City Chiefs have their dynasty. The Chiefs won their 3rd title in 5 years, with probably their weakest team of the entire Mahomes era. Contrary to the complaining by much of social media, I thought this was quite a good game even before the scoring picked up. Tired of idiots who think games with a lot of defense are inherently bad.  Going in, I picked the Chiefs to win by multiple scores. Why would the 49ers prove a tougher task than road games in Buffalo and Baltimore?  But the 49ers were the much better team out of the gate, gashing the Chiefs defense immediately on their opening drive, that then ended with a Christian McCaffrey fumble. Defenses controlled the game early on. In particular the 49ers defense, which had been often throttled by the Packers and Frauds, made life pretty miserable for Mahomes early on. The 49ers scored first, on a Super Bowl record long field goal by Jake Moody. The Chiefs answered with their 1st real drive of the g...