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...

In theaters: CREED 3 Am I nuts or are the 1st 3 Creed movies better than the 1st 3 Rockys? I loved Creed 1 and 2, and 3 is possibly the best of the bunch. Michael B. Jordan directed this, which could have gone poorly, but MBJ proves to be a natural. These films would seem to be running out of hooks, but Creed 3 finds a really gripping one with Creed's adversary this time, a childhood friend played by the magnetic Jonathan Majors. We know the two will end up fighting, but the journey to get there is really absorbing, and Majors's unusual energy makes his character really interesting. And when they do fight it is just awesome. Loved the part where the crowd disappears. And the way it is resolved is really satisfying. Yes this is a Stallone-free film, but this story honestly didn't need a handful of shoehorned-in Rocky scenes. That's the best news yet for this franchise, that it can keep going and thrive even without its original star.  OPERATION FORTUNE This Guy Ritchie m...

2003: The Core was a pretty big box office flop. I don't think it has had much of a second life over the years either. But I really like it. It's a big budget throwback to the kind of high concept sci-fi adventures that were made a lot in the 50s and 60s.  The premise is crazy in a fun way. The earth's core has stopped spinning, causing all sorts of disasters and eventually meaning all life on the planet is doomed. Unless, of course, America can come up with a plan. And hey they do! The plan is to travel down to the core, aboard a special ship, and set off a bunch of nukes to restart the core. Cause it's gotta be nukes.  There is of course a team rassled up to undertake the mission, a collection of scientists and a couple astronauts. The Core was wise to be cast extremely well. Aaron Eckardt never really took off as a leading man, but he's really engaging here. Hilary Swank, sporting a brutal hairdo, is also really good. Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Greenwood ...

 I am REALLY excited for the 2023 MLB season. Not for a team or a player, but because of a rule change.  Among several other rule changes, MLB has finally made a pitch clock official. No more of this preposterous garbage of watching pitchers take 45 seconds between pitches for no reason other than that they like the attention.  I didn't get a chance to watch too many spring training games, but I can read a box score, and seeing games routinely ending in 2 1/2 hours even if it isn't a pitcher's duel was thrilling. Some people are really cranky about this, but this shortening of games is not taking away anything good.  Will it help baseball from a ratings standpoint? Can't hurt. I love baseball, but I couldn't stand watching a 9 inning game go for 3 1/2 hours for no reason.  So, on to the Twins. Their September collapse last year was so complete that it is easy to forget that they spent more days in 1st last year than not.  The big news of the offseason was t...