374: Air

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, it's Henry with the Film Buds podcast. Please make sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show

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[00:00:11] 82

[00:00:12] Let's get to air

[00:00:14] Which came out I think springish summer of last year and it is on Amazon primed outs and Amazon original

[00:00:23] It's directed by Ben Affleck

[00:00:26] Stars Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Chris Messina, Viola Davis, Julius Tinnin, Chris Tucker

[00:00:33] few others and

[00:00:35] The synopsis is follows the history of sports marketing executive Sony

[00:00:40] O'Caro and how he led Nike in its pursuit of the greatest athlete in the history of basketball Michael Jordan

[00:00:47] So I've been meaning to get around to this one for a while. I really like Ben Affleck as a director

[00:00:54] I think when he directs and stars

[00:00:56] He typically makes his best work and I don't know exactly the reason for that

[00:01:01] But typically his directorial efforts are some of his best in his whole filmography both from an overall filmmaking

[00:01:08] Perspective and also acting as well, but I do think that unlike his recent four or five efforts

[00:01:16] Directing wise this is the one that I think captured my interest the least right away

[00:01:22] Like I'm all for a good movie and we'll get into why this works. So well, I love a movie whether it's a true story or not

[00:01:29] That can make you interested in something that you wouldn't immediately be

[00:01:34] Interested in learning about like I'm not a big basketball fan. Nothing against it

[00:01:38] Just personally not something I was ever really into growing up or now

[00:01:42] I'm more of a baseball soccer guy. And of course, I know Michael Jordan

[00:01:46] I mean, I'm from North Carolina. So that's a big deal in and of itself

[00:01:50] I knew all about him growing up and

[00:01:53] So I was fairly familiar with his story in his timeline

[00:01:56] I didn't know anything about making the air Jordan and how that all came to be and that's why I think this movie works

[00:02:02] Really? Well is even though I don't really care about basketball that much. I don't really

[00:02:07] Love or get freaked out geeked out by shoes cool shoes

[00:02:12] All the things in this movie got me interested directing acting the writing

[00:02:16] So that by itself is a big strong point that I was not immediately sure of going in and

[00:02:24] You do learn a lot about the story and on that one thing

[00:02:28] I really appreciated as it went on and I know that Ben Affleck didn't write

[00:02:32] The screenplay which is surprising because he often does at least will co-write it

[00:02:36] but the script something that I found very very refreshing and

[00:02:41] engaging was there's a lot of

[00:02:44] bits of

[00:02:45] Ashok's free chicken information

[00:02:48] fun facts

[00:02:49] sprinkled throughout this script that really make you think oh, that's good to know that's good to know like oh that's interesting like it's

[00:02:55] Stuff that feels I'm guessing it's true

[00:02:57] It seemed true from all the stuff that I heard and looked up afterwards

[00:03:01] But I really appreciated that they really did their homework or maybe they're just smart

[00:03:06] I know a lot about already or both

[00:03:08] but I love that there's all these bits of information that was picking up just through regular dialogue without being obnoxious or

[00:03:15] Heavy-handed it was just sort of characters

[00:03:18] Speaking of that world and speaking of the history without it being too clunky, so I loved the script

[00:03:23] I thought the script was very strong. It's not too long. It's like two hours

[00:03:27] The pacing is good like Ben Affleck very strong from a filmmaking perspective like I think he has a good understanding of what makes a

[00:03:36] Crowd-pleasing yet thoughtful

[00:03:39] entertaining fun comedic

[00:03:41] Dramedy I guess you could call it and so I think he really has a great sense of story both

[00:03:47] Directing and when he does write scripts, so overall it's a very good movie. Matt Damon is awesome

[00:03:52] He's perfect for that role Viola Davis is great as Michael Jordan's mom

[00:03:58] She's not always someone I love like sometimes I find her to overact occasionally, but Ben Affleck is great

[00:04:04] Really Jason Bateman everybody list goes on. It's a very very good cast and

[00:04:09] The story regardless of your interest as I was saying earlier, I think pretty much anyone could get engaged with this and find it interesting

[00:04:16] It's not so in-depth about

[00:04:19] basketball lore or anything that

[00:04:21] it's only gonna appeal to basketball fans, it's a

[00:04:25] wide broad look into this story and it's a very important one considering Michael Jordan as the synopsis says

[00:04:32] Really? He's the most famous

[00:04:34] Successful athlete ever at least in America, but probably in the whole world and

[00:04:40] The brand marketing aspect I won't get into it too much if you don't know the story

[00:04:45] but him getting his name attached to merchandise and how that has spread through all of

[00:04:53] Modern sports and players and getting marketing deals and brand deals and all that stuff. So it's really well thought out

[00:05:00] The direction isn't too obnoxious for the most part. There are a few points that are a little

[00:05:05] Trying too hard I think at certain times but not a big deal

[00:05:10] so it wouldn't be a best of the year like it wouldn't be in my top ten, but

[00:05:14] In the middle of the pack towards the top of Ben Affleck's directorial works

[00:05:19] One of his recent best just overall films because he definitely has a fair share of duds in his career

[00:05:26] So would recommend it it's on Amazon Prime so it's easy to pop on and

[00:05:31] Yeah

[00:05:33] So that is a heavy heavy four out of five