{"id":3693,"date":"2023-12-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3693"},"modified":"2023-10-19T21:00:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:00:05","slug":"movie-air-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/26\/movie-air-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Air (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Air\"Air
<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2023
Rating: R
Length: 111 minutes \/ 1.85 hours<\/p>\n

As a child of the 90s, I never gave much thought to Nike shoes. They were always this popular brand that\u2014in my child-like brain\u2014would make me run faster and jump higher. I had no idea that the singular reason they were so ubiquitous in my childhood came down to one incredibly risky decision to bet the entire company’s future on a single athlete. That this athlete was Michael Jordan is what made this deal as historic as it was. Air<\/em> (2023) does a great job of giving the audience a look behind that fateful curtain.<\/p>\n

It’s fascinating to me how a third-tier company like Nike used to be below shoe producers like Adidas and Converse. I also had no idea these other companies had the foreign commitment to excellence (Adidas) or star power (Converse) to place them above a company mostly known for jogging activewear. Despite these obvious choices, Air<\/em> really tells the story of advocacy. Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) had a gambling addiction, but his experience with big payoffs made him see Jordan’s potential. Of course, nobody saw Michael Jordan’s potential more than his mother, Deloris (Viola Davis).<\/p>\n

There’s a lot to recommend Air<\/em>. It hits that “sports underdog” trope in an interesting way. The plot buildup was riveting\u2014especially when the team came up against problems (like shoe design standards). The weird problem I have with this movie has to do with its all-star cast. These actors have proven to be excellent in their craft in other films. Here, though, it feels a bit distracting to have all these big names together because I don’t see them as the characters they’re playing. Instead, I just see Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman having a conversation with Matt Damon. I see Viola Davis being Viola Davis. Still, despite this odd qualm, I still think Air<\/em> is a good watch.<\/p>\n

A star-studded look at a risky Nike decision, I give Air<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AirYear: 2023Rating: RLength: 111 minutes \/ 1.85 hours As a child of the 90s, I never gave much thought to Nike shoes. They were always this popular brand that\u2014in my child-like brain\u2014would make me run faster and jump higher. I had no idea that the singular reason they were so ubiquitous in my childhood came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[3407,3570,3565,3569,359,3571,140,3566,13,3568,8,3573,3572,3567,521],"class_list":["post-3693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-movie","tag-3407","tag-advocate","tag-air","tag-basketball","tag-ben-affleck","tag-jason-bateman","tag-matt-damon","tag-michael-jordan","tag-movie","tag-nike","tag-review","tag-reward","tag-risk","tag-sneakers","tag-viola-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3697,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3693\/revisions\/3697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}