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Starring: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker, Viola Davis, Matthew Maher, Tom Papa, Jay Mohr, Julius Tennon
OUR RATING: ★★★★☆
Story:
Amazon Prime Video bio-comedy drama directed by Ben Affleck. Air (2023) centers on Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), a sports marketing executive at Nike, and Nike co-founder Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), as they pursue with then-rising NBA star Michael Jordan, in order to sign a deal with him to wear their shoes, and in doing so creating a partnership that revolutionizes the world of sports and contemporary culture.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'A shoe is always just a shoe until someone steps into it.' - Rob Strasser (Air) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes
Sonny Vaccaro: What is wrong with Nike?
Howard White: Nike is a damn jogging company, man. Black people don’t jog. You ain’t going to catch no Black person running twenty-six miles for no damn reason. Man, the cops probably pull you over thinking you done stole something.
Howard White: People don’t know what the hell a Nike is.
Sonny Vaccaro: What’s a Converse?
Howard White: NBA All-Star shoe.
Sonny Vaccaro: I could not do what you do.
Howard White: I know you can’t do what I do. You can hardly do what the hell you supposed to do.
Howard White: That damn slogan came from a convict about to get executed in front of a firing squad, and they asked him, “What’s your last words?”
Sonny Vaccaro: “Just do it”?
Howard White: Yeah.
Sonny Vaccaro: That’s where that comes from?
Howard White: Yeah.
'Just because you lose, it doesn't mean it wasn't a good bet.' - Sonny Vaccaro (Air) Click To Tweet
Sonny Vaccaro: Kind of a fitting metaphor for the way basketball is viewed at this company.
Howard White: I know. “Nike. Just get the s**t over with.”
Sonny Vaccaro: What did it say about me that I liked it?
Howard White: That says that you a fat middle-aged white guy that don’t want to exercise.
Sonny Vaccaro: That’s fair.
Rob Strasser: 1984 has been a tough year. Our sales are down. Our growth is down. But this company is about who we really are when we are down for the count. Am I right, huh? When you’re down on the canvas, bang, we pop right back up. Like Balboa. We got the eye of the tiger. We’re not going to go down to Mr. T. Pity the fool.
Sonny Vaccaro: Who are we going to get?
Rob Strasser: You tell me. Phil brought you here because you’re the Mr. Miyagi of high school basketball. You’re not supposed to lecture people. You’re supposed to tell us who’s going to paint the fence.
Sonny Vaccaro: Mel Turpin. We’d be better off signing my mom.
Rob Strasser: Not available.
Sonny Vaccaro: Well, even if she were alive, we can’t afford her.
Rob Strasser: You could afford my mom.
'It's hard. It's suffering. It's difficult. The illusion is that the finish line is the destination. But the act itself is the destination.' - Phil Knight (Air) Click To Tweet
Rob Strasser: This is where you come up with a brilliant idea that no one else can see. Let’s hear it.
Sonny Vaccaro: We need more money.
Rob Strasser: That’s not brilliant, okay? That’s what happens when things are successful. What’s happening right now is failure. And if it continues that way, Nike’s going to be out of the basketball business, and we’re going to be out of a job.
Sonny Vaccaro: What about Jordan?
Rob Strasser: Sonny, we can’t get f***ing Michael Jordan.
Sonny Vaccaro: I have a meeting.
Rob Strasser: With who?
Sonny Vaccaro: The shoe dog.
Phil Knight: Why do you think this guy is skateboarding to work? We’re a public company. Does he not have a car?
Sonny Vaccaro: Probably just some kid.
Phil Knight: He looks like he’s fifty years-old. He’s bald and he has a beard.
'When someone says it's not about the money, I know for sure it's about the money.' - Sonny Vaccaro (Air) Click To Tweet
Phil Knight: Why would Pete skateboard to work?
Sonny Vaccaro: Maybe he’s having a midlife crisis.
Phil Knight: [to Sonny] I brought you in here to grow the basketball business. It’s smaller now.
Sonny Vaccaro: Basketball is the future.
Phil Knight: The NBA finals are on tape delay. It’s literally the past.
Sonny Vaccaro: People watch basketball.
Phil Knight: You know, we took four golds at the Olympics.
Sonny Vaccaro: And nobody gives a f***.
Phil Knight: Do you run?
Sonny Vaccaro: No, Phil, I don’t.
Phil Knight: It’s hard. It’s suffering. It’s difficult. The illusion is that the finish line is the destination. But the act itself is the destination.
Sonny Vaccaro: I found him.
Rob Strasser: Who’s that, Jesus?
'When you find a wise critic who will point out your faults, follow him as you would a map to a hidden treasure.' - Phil Knight (Air) Click To Tweet
Sonny Vaccaro: [referring to Jordan] I don’t want to sign three players. I want to sign one. I want to sign him. We build a shoe line around just him. We tap into something deeper, into the player’s identity. Into that.
Rob Strasser: What’s that mean?
Sonny Vaccaro: That he doesn’t wear the shoe. He is the shoe. The shoe is him.
Rob Strasser: You want to anthropomorphize the shoe? Put little legs and arms on it?
Rob Strasser: Jordan has made it abundantly clear, painfully clear, that he doesn’t want to come here. So you would have to have a pretty compelling pitch. Do you have that?
Sonny Vaccaro: Yeah, I can tell him the one thing the other companies can’t compete with. Our basketball division is f***ing terrible.
Rob Strasser: I do not love it.
Howard White: Phil is going to fire you.
Sonny Vaccaro: Well, I can handle Phil. The key to Phil is make him afraid.
Howard White: You going to get us both damn fired. Phil got a hundred million dollars, and a life supply of them damn pink, nut-hugging jogging shorts. What the hell is he afraid of?
David Falk: Sonny, world-class players don’t wear third-rate shoes.
'Don't confuse desperation with vision.' - Phil Knight (Air) Click To Tweet
David Falk: We all have a past.
Sonny Vaccaro: Look, David, some of us have our past, and some of us were Nazis. There’s a line.
David Falk: Well, he’s dead.
Phil Knight: For a rookie who’s never set foot on an NBA court?
Sonny Vaccaro: That’s the literal definition of rookie. Yeah.
Sonny Vaccaro: I’m willing to bet my career on Michael Jordan.
Phil Knight: Oh, come on, man.
Sonny Vaccaro: You asked me what I do here. This is what I do. I find you players. And I f***ing feel it this time. Yeah. Okay, it’s risky. When you were selling sneakers out of the back of your Plymouth, that was risky. It took balls. I mean, that’s why we’re all here. Don’t change that now.
Sonny Vaccaro: I mean, if you look at him, if you really look at Jordan, like I did, you’re going to see exactly what I see.
Phil Knight: Which is what?
Sonny Vaccaro: The most competitive guy I have ever seen. He is a f***ing killer.
David Falk: [referring to Jordan] He’s a kid. He’s not thinking about what he will have. He’s thinking about what he doesn’t have right now.
'If you say what you want, that's fine and good. But doing something about it, now that's what really counts.' - Deloris Jordan (Air) Click To Tweet
George Raveling: There’s nothing cool about Nike. Even what it means, “Adidas”, “All day I dream about sex.” “Puma”, “Please use my a**.”
Sonny Vaccaro: That’s not what it means.
George Raveling: “Nike” has no meaning.
George Raveling: [to Sonny] You bypass the agents and talk directly to the family, you’re going to lose your job.
Sonny Vaccaro: I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I been doing this twenty years. I’ve never had a feeling like this. You know when you get a feeling. You know?
George Raveling: Yeah. Know what? Don’t lose that.
Sonny Vaccaro: Even if I get fired?
'Poetry only makes the world bearable. It's engineering that got us to the moon.' - Peter Moore (Air) Click To Tweet
Sonny Vaccaro: So, are you saying I should contact the Jordans and…
George Raveling: F*** no!
Sonny Vaccaro: You just f***ing said that that’s what I should do.
George Raveling: No, but that’s your voice. Your voice tells you to do stupid s**t. My voice made me a part of history.
Howard White: Now, it don’t matter about what Phil is thinking, or anybody is thinking. All that matter is, how much do you believe? I believe in you.
Sonny Vaccaro: You know, I was actually expecting you to try to talk me out of it.
Howard White: You weren’t going to listen anyway. But if you get fired, I got a one bedroom apartment. I ain’t got no more room for nobody. I’m sorry. I got two rags. One towel. That’s all I got.
'Sometimes, the most you can do is all you can do.' - Rob Strasser (Air) Click To Tweet
Sonny Vaccaro: [referring to Jordan’s parents] It would have been unprofessional for me to just call them up.
Rob Strasser: Right. So you just thought you’d show up at their front door.
Sonny Vaccaro: Look, if anybody back there asks where I am, just tell them I’m sick.
Rob Strasser: You got it. Sick in the head.
Sonny Vaccaro: I’m with Nike.
James Jordan: Oh, man. Here we go.
Deloris Jordan: Do you typically make it a habit of showing up at people’s front doors unannounced?
Sonny Vaccaro: Well, it may be the worst of all my faults. And believe me, there are many, but I don’t like to take no for an answer.
'Money can buy you almost anything. It can't buy you immortality. That you have to earn.' - Sonny Vaccaro (Air) Click To Tweet
Deloris Jordan: [to Sonny] You know, it’s quite presumptuous of you to show up at my door. But I believe the saying that if you say what you want, that’s fine and good. But doing something about it, now that’s what really counts.
Deloris Jordan: I think it’s admirable, giving your life for your family. You give and give until there’s nothing left to give. Then you give some more, but it’s worth it.
Sonny Vaccaro: Ask my why I’m in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Deloris Jordan: Why are you in Wilmington, North Carolina?
Sonny Vaccaro: Because I believe in your son. I believe he’s different. And I believe you might be the only person on Earth who knows it. That’s why I’m in Wilmington, North Carolina.
'A lot of people can climb that mountain. It's the way down that breaks them. Because that's the moment when you are truly alone. And what will you do then? Can you summon the will to fight on through all the pain and rise again?' Click To Tweet
David Falk: You show up at the house?!
Sonny Vaccaro: Well, you said it would be unprofessional to call.
David Falk: That’s real f***ing funny.
Sonny Vaccaro: Look, if your irrelevance is becoming self-evident to your client, I don’t see how that’s my fault. I mean, I think that’s maybe something you should take up with your therapist.
David Falk: You don’t want to talk to my therapist. You don’t want to have a life half as f***ing miserable as my therapist.
'Every once in a while, someone comes along that's so extraordinary that it forces those reluctant to part with some of that wealth to do so, not out of charity, but out of greed, because they are so very special.' - Deloris Jordan Click To Tweet
David Falk: Now, after what you did, unless you make some f***ing miracle dream deal with the Jordans, unless you stop making that f***ing Air Sole, and start making the entire company Air f***ing Michael Jordan, I’ll bury you alive, and light you on fire, and dance, and pi** on your grave, and f*** the eyehole of your skull.
Sonny Vaccaro: You’re right, I don’t want to be your therapist.
Sonny Vaccaro: You know, the fact that you know there’s a second simplex of herpes makes me think that you might have it, David.
David Falk: Of course I do! Everyone has herpes! You know why you don’t, Sonny? Because no one will f*** you. No one.
Sonny Vaccaro: I never looked at it that way.
'You're remembered for the rules you break.' - Phil Knight (Air) Click To Tweet
David Falk: Unless you make an offer to Michael and close him, I will personally ensure that no client of this agency ever signs a contract with Nike. And Nike will be out of the basketball business permanently. And so will you.
Sonny Vaccaro: What if we do make the deal?
David Falk: You and I will be best friends.
Sonny Vaccaro: I’m giving away these ideas, Phil, free.
Phil Knight: That’s the problem is you see them as your ideas. It’s about you, and yourself, and your ego. There is no self. There’s just the nonself.
Sonny Vaccaro: The nonself?
Phil Knight: That’s right.
Sonny Vaccaro: Does the Dalai Lama have a grape colored Porsche, Phil?
Phil Knight: You can be impetuous. You can make mistakes. You can be reckless. But let me tell you how we do things at this company. We make careful, strategic, measured, thoughtful decisions with knowable outcomes.
Sonny Vaccaro: Right. Knowable, and thoughtful, and careful. How did you ever build this place, Phil?
Phil Knight: F*** you, Sonny.
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