The Skolney Blog

2004: (cause I want this one on top) The 2nd of Natalie Portman's pantheon films of 2004, Closer brought her her 1st Oscar nomination.  The trailer for this hit right around the time Garden State came out, and I was blown away by how she looked in this and her acting. The brief shot of her as a stripper was stunning.  In one of those crazy coincidences that I may have once thought meant more, the film opened ten years to the day of the first time I saw The Professional.  The film is directed by Mike Nichols, who worked with Natalie on stage a few years earlier, and is based on a play. It's maybe my favorite film based on a play. It's really just 4 actors with speaking roles. Natalie, Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Clive Owen. Closer is like the worst date movie of all time. Most of the film is structured around showing relationships ending. Often in brutal fashion. The 4 characters meet, get together, cheat, and break up.  The film has one of the great open...

In theaters: Y2K Kind of disappointed in this comedy directed by SNL alum Kyle Mooney. Set at New Year's Eve 1999, when the Y2K bug actually happens, turning all electronic devices into bloodthirsty killing machines. Before the shit goes down, it's a pretty run of the mill teen comedy where the nerdy guy pines for the pretty girl (Rachel Zegler, one of the prettiest, no doubt). The energy perks up when the action does, although at no point was I ever more than just kind of amused. I'm a real target audience for this, since man do I have endless nostalgia for this time period, and early on, the film is drenched in references and needle drops. It has moments of inspired silliness, and the cast is likable. It also has a 3rd act cameo from one of the biggest douchebags in music history, which for some reason takes over the film.  VENOM: THE LAST DANCE Oh please do be the last one. For some reason, the first 2 Venoms, despite not being above deeply mediocre, were massive hits. T...

VIKINGS 27 PACKERS 25 The Vikings closed out the calendar year of 2024 on Sunday with their home finale against the hated Packers. Nobody could have guessed what importance this game would hold when the schedule came out last spring.  This most unexpected of seasons reached a new crescendo, as the Vikings swept the Packers for the first time since 2017, won their 9th game in a row for the first time since 1975, and took their last necessary step to set up a week 18 showdown in Detroit for the ages. The stakes for today were clear. Win and stay alive in the division and #1 seed race. Lose and be almost certainly relegated to not just a wild card, but maybe even drop to the 6 seed. The Packers entered on a 9-2 run since our win at Lambeau, the only 2 losses to the Lions. And insultingly, the Vikings, despite having won 8 straight, were home underdogs. The first break went to the Vikings, as on the opening drive Josh Jacobs fumbled. We have a turnover forced in every game this season....

Well, here we are. The mother of all throwbacks. Probably why this has taken so long to post.  Because only one movie sits atop the thousands and thousands of movies that I have seen in my life as the absolute #1. Leon aka The Professional aka Leon: The Professional. Whichever title you wanna use. I can't dare go any further without mentioning that this was the debut film for Natalie Portman, which pretty much makes it probably also the most IMPORTANT film of my movie fan existence. This was not a film that had been on my radar. 1994 was this incredible year for movies, and as I think I have said before, the year when movies became a true obsession for me. And it was probably the first year I was getting into the movie magazines, and kind of following movies from the time they went into production until they came out. And the fall of 1994 had already been formative with the release of Pulp Fiction. But The Professional was not a film I had among my big anticipated late ...

VIKINGS 27 SEAHAWKS 24 October 2006. America was watching The Departed, and for some reason, listening to Justin Timberlake. And that was the last time the Vikings won a game in Seattle, led by the decaying corpse of Brad Johnson, and sparked by a 90-yard Chester Taylor TD run.  Since then, Seattle had probably jumped Chicago as the Vikings' most cursed destination. We kept having to play there, and kept losing.  But maybe this is a Vikings team in the mood to break curses, and they finally broke through on Sunday, with a jolting 4th quarter rally to pull of a huge win that keeps open some amazing possibilities. Since these are the Vikings, they insisted on making it a little harder than they needed it to be.  Playing in wet conditions, the Vikings made a statement on the opening drive. They ate almost half the quarter, and TJ Hockenson made a fantastic catch to convert a 4th down, finishing with a Darnold to Addison TD. Addison had a 3rd down drop on the next series that...

VIKINGS 30 BEARS 12 Week 15 was very good to the Minnesota Vikings. On Sunday, the Lions finally lost a game, getting 48 dropped on them at home by the Bills. Then, later in the day, the Packers won, which normally would be a bad thing, but in this case, them beating Seattle officially clinched the Vikings a playoff berth. So the Vikings entered Monday night against the collapsing Bears not only a playoff team, but also a win away from tying the Lions for the best record in the division and conference (along with the Eagles). Many Vikings teams of the past would lay an egg in such a spot, but not this time. These Vikings made fairly easy work of the Bears, and took their place among the NFL's elite.  The Bears were very willing accomplices. For no reason, they went for a 4th and 1 on their own 39 on the opening drive. We stuffed em, and even though we went 3 and out, we were close enough for Will Reichard to bang in a long field goal. The Bears 2nd drive ended when Jonathan Greenar...

VIKINGS 42 FALCONS 21 Sunday's game at the purple palace turned into a celebratory atmosphere, as the Vikings turned a close game into a 4th quarter runaway, and moved to a stunning 11-2. But the fact they did this at the expense of Kirk Cousins, in his much anticipated return to Minnesota, did add a tinge of bittersweetness to the proceedings. The first mystery of the day was answered quickly. Would Kirk get booed. The answer was yes, and a lot. Worse than any opposing QB that I have ever seen. As long as I live, I will never understand why so many Vikings fans bought into all the bullshit narratives surrounding this guy. He was mostly a very good QB here for his 5 1/2 healthy seasons, and while it didn't translate to enough playoff success to satisfy the "if you don't win a super bowl you're a bum" crowd, we had some great times. Plus....these same fans are the ones who wanted him gone the whole time. So why are you neanderthals mad that he left, especially ...

VIKINGS 23 CARDINALS 22 Returning home to the purple palace after nearly a month away, the Vikings spent the first 40 minutes of their game against the Arizona Cardinals as if in a catatonic state. I mean, they had NOTHING. They were a dead team trudging towards a disappointing loss. And then a switch flipped, the team snapped out of their stupor, and with a couple of key breaks, they managed to pull off their least likely and most thrilling win of the year. But oh, those first 40. Did the Vikings have a late Thanksgiving meal, and were still feeling the tryptophan? They came out flat on both sides of the ball. On offense, we were getting the bad version of Sam Darnold, the one who stands there holding the ball far too long. Add to that an OL that was getting crushed, often by Cardinal blitzing. Aaron Jones fumbled twice, losing one deep in Vikings territory. The offense was getting killed on time of possession, cause they couldn't stay on the field. On defense, we were struggling ...