‘Air’s cast intrigued me, and as I am a fan of Matt Damon, I decided to watch the movie without looking it up on Wikipedia first. To my utter surprise, I had landed on a sports drama – I love watching the ones made by Hollywood – and I carried on.
5 years ago, I had read ‘Shoe Dog’ and got to know a little bit more about Nike and Phil Knight. ‘Air’ presented another opportunity – I got to see how the marketing deal had been struck with a young Michael Jordon led by baseball talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon), who had identified his greatness very early on. It was fascinating to see how Matt Damon captured the body language of an earnest middle-aged man in reasonably poor physical shape. However, I liked Viola Davis the best in the movie – she plays Deloris Jordan, Michael’s mother.
There are many lines that made me smile, and I loved this one.
“Everyone at this table will be forgotten as soon as our time here is up - except for you. You're gonna be remembered forever, because some things are eternal. You're Michael Jordan, and your story is gonna make us want to fly.”After watching the movie, I read a bit more about Air Jordan, Michael Jordan, and his family. His father was shot dead in 1993 and Michael decided to retire from the NBA for the first time. His sister has indicated that she was sexually abused by their father, and I might read ‘In My Family’s Shadow’ written by her.
Similar to Jordan, there was expectation that Roger Federer would sign a lifetime deal with Nike, and that didn’t go through in 2018. I’ll not forget the “Advantage, Nadal” campaign in 2022 with Nike hailing him as the GOAT.
As an aside, Nike has been in the news for sexual harassment lawsuits, and I am waiting to see how it all ends. For now, watch ‘Air’.
No comments:
Post a Comment