The Skolney Blog

1994: Alright, fine, we will get the elephant in the room addressed first. No, Forrest Gump should not have won best picture over Pulp Fiction or The Shawshank Redemption. But that one thing does not remove one issue that a whole lot of people seem to ignore: Forrest Gump is also a great film. And it was an absolute sensation when it came out 30 years ago. Amid a summer full of massive hits, Gump was the biggest. I don't think anyone really knew it was coming. By 1994 I was very much into reading the movie magazines and would know what movies were coming out. Gump wasn't an unknown, but it wasn't expected to be what it was. You had Tom Hanks coming off his 1st Oscar win, and director Robert Zemeckis had had hits, but he wasn't like one of those guys whose name meant instant hit. But by the end of that summer, Gump was the film that scored the biggest.  The backlash this thing has suffered over the years has been extreme. Sure, there are some elements to the ...

In theaters: KINDS OF KINDNESS Well, I guess congratulations are in order for Yorgos Lanthimos. The director of The Lobster, The Favourite, and Poor Things has ascended so high that he can now put any old incoherent, pointless bullshit on screen and have critics jerk him off over it. I liked those last 3 films, but this? This was mostly a painful watch. Split into 3 unconnected stories about nothing, all with the same cast but playing different characters, the film has occasional moments that provide interest, and I guess the acting is fine for what the cast is given. Emma Stone can't not be watchable. But these stories are just pointless and meandering, with a bunch of off-putting perversity thrown in there all the time to elicit a response.  MAXXXINE Part 3 of the Ti West trilogy. Liked X a lot. LOVED Pearl (Mia Goth should have won an Oscar for that). This? It kind of just bored me most of the time. The look of the film is deliciously sleazy, and the music is great. But I was ex...

The only MCU film of 2024 Deadpool and Wolverine is one of the franchise's most anticipated in years. Deadpool 1 and 2 were both massive hits, but that was with the old Fox Marvel franchise, so this would bring the character into the MCU proper. And coming along is Wolverine, last seen finally dying at the end of Logan. The hype was huge, easily the most hyped MCU film since No Way Home. And D&W also arrives amidst a never-ending discourse about how bad the MCU is (false) and how it's dead (false) and killed by woke (exceptionally false).  So it's weirdly positioned as the film that has to save the MCU. Strange importance to lay on a character whose whole thing is making a self-mocking joke out of everything. D&W is not that film. It's honestly not even THAT much of an MCU film. It has a few small connections to MCU things we have seen before, but mostly, it acts as kind of a final send-off to that now defunct Fox Marvel universe. Might as well spoil the shit ou...

1999. The glorious year of the high school movie.  Many of my all-time favorites came out that year. And we kind of had all the kinds of high school flicks.  We had the sports movie (Varsity Blues). We had the romcoms (She's All That, 10 Things I Hate About You). We had the sleazy drama (Cruel Intentions). We had the satire (Election). We had the horror movie (Idle Hands). We had the dark comedy (Teaching Mrs. Tingle). And those are just the ones I actually liked.  But to this day, my favorite of all of these 1999 high school movies is the sex comedy: American Pie American Pie's ancestry is those cheesy sex comedies of the 80s. Stuff like Porky's or even Animal House. I actually have never been into those movies. Why does AP fare better? It's simple. They wrote actual characters and added some heart to the proceedings. It makes all the difference.  This movie was coming out during a packed summer, even just for comedies. The Spy Who Shagged Me, Big Daddy,...

Well, the media did it. They forced Joe Biden out of his bid to get a 2nd term. On Sunday, the news bomb dropped that I still did not think was going to happen. Biden will no longer seek re-election, and he endorsed Kamala Harris. My 1st feeling was pure anger. I already posted about how angry I was at what the media had been doing to Biden since that debate. My 1st thought was that this fucked America for good, and made another Trump presidency a certainty. I'm still mad. I'll always be mad about the Trump-loving corporate media taking one debate (which Biden still won, since he actually, you know, told the truth) and blowing it preposterously out of proportion. The media's relentless pro-Trump anti-Biden coverage caused some prominent Democrats (and donors) to jump ship and call for Biden to drop out. There are reasons why Biden just wouldn't want to see this through til November, let alone another 4 years after that. But the fact is that if it weren't for the med...

It's been almost 2 weeks since the first Biden-Trump debate. Biden, while lethargic, touted his accomplishments and Trump's failures. Trump did what Trump always does: lie. Over a hundred of them in that debate alone. For anybody even skirting sanity, the debate showed quite conclusively that Biden is the clear choice for 2024.  But don't tell the media this, because they have spent 2 weeks in an unprecedented race to see who can trash Biden the most and prop up Trump. I'll never forget how as the summer of 2016 went along, it finally became clear to me that the media wasn't just trying to generate a close race for ratings. No, they WANTED Trump to beat Clinton. Months of badgering Clinton no doubt hurt her campaign. The media certainly did their best for Trump in 2020 too. No matter. They have just spent the last 3 1/2 years ignoring Biden's accomplishments, insisting on all these polls that supposedly show how unpopular he is, and propping up Trump again despi...

Twins 9 Astros 3 Saturday afternoon at Target Field was kind of the total package of a ballgame. Great weather, packed stadium, good well-paced game with a lot happening (including a couple very memorable moments), and most importantly a Twins win. Their 50th of the year. The Twins bats have been hot on this homestand, and they picked right back up against Houston's Hunter Brown. Brown had given up just a single ER in his last 5 starts, but the Twins tagged him for 2 in the 1st.  There was much buzz surrounding Jose Miranda, who entered the game on a historic hot streak. 10 hits in his last 10 at bats. That streak ended when Brown drilled him on the hand. Given the Twins injury luck, you figured it might be serious. It wasn't. Jose stayed in the game, and then got singles in each of his next 2 at bats. That streak of 12 straight hits in official at bats matched an MLB record last reached in 1952. What an amazing resurrection for Miranda, who had a big rookie year 2 years ago, t...