1 minute read
Movie Review
has exactly one line in the film and is mostly seen from behind and in silhouette. It is about the men – and they were all men –of Nike who defied the odds and signed the rookie despite being a very distant third to Adidas and Converse in the basketball sneaker game in 1984.
This is not a sports movie, however. If “Moneyball,” a spiritual cousin to “Air,” was baseballadjacent, “Air” is about as far away from the game of basketball as one can get. The sport and romance of basketball in “Air” is almost completely beside the point, which is in some ways the most honest way for a couple of Gen-Xers to make a sincere movie about a corporate brand’s biggest success.
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“Air” is more “Mad Men,’’ but without the glamour. In 1984, everything was brown and drab, except for the grape-colored sports car driven by Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck, in a comedic role about C-suite eccentricities and ineffectuality). Even the new stuff looked old. There are only so many ways cinema- tographer Robert Richardson can shoot a corporate office park and series of conversations between men in ill-fitting polos and khakis. But Affleck and his music supervisor do have fun with their conventional but not ineffective needle drops.
The center of “Air” is Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), a Nike exec with a basketball scout’s eye for rising talent. He is not, at least on the surface, a slam
Good: HHH
dunk movie hero. Sonny is out of shape, as the movie reminds us with cruel frequency, he’s middle aged, he doesn’t have a family and he seems to do all his grocery shopping at the gas station.
All he has is this job, which isn’t going especially well. And
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‘Patsy Cline’ returning to Gem
One More Productions is bringing back the popular musical “Always, Patsy Cline!” for a limited engagement at the Gem Theater in Garden Grove. Performances are scheduled for Thursday, April 20 though Sunday, April 30 in the historic theater on Main Street. Nicole Cassesso will reprise her role about the legendary country music singer and Adriana Sanchez will co-star as Louise Seger, Cline’s best friend and the play’s narrator. The Gem is located at 12852 Main St. Call (714) 741-9550.
