Tag: Ben Affleck

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Air

Matt Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro sits across from Viola Davis’ Deloris Jordan.

It’s newsworthy that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are once again making movies together in 2023. The duo first burst onto the scene in 1998, when their script for Good Will Hunting won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and also saw Robin Williams earn a Best Supporting Actor trophy. Fast-forward 25 years, and the duo is back with their new film, Air. Unlike Good Will Hunting’s coming-of-age plot, Air is a true story: the history of Nike footwear.

Air begins in 1984 when shoe companies Adidas, Nike, and Converse are battling for market share. The three firms are fighting, with varying levels of success, to catch famous athletes’ attention — especially in the NBA, where Michael Jordan is a rising star. Jordan has a clear interest in Adidas and a sponsorship from Converse; Nike, with its 17 percent market share, is an afterthought.

Basketball scout Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) sets out to make Nike a force to be reckoned with. Vaccaro goes way beyond his jurisdiction to create the Air Jordan, the now-legendary sneaker that catapulted Nike to the top table. Although Vaccaro’s risks lead to eventual success, many of the hurdles he encounters threaten the company’s stability and reputation. But in the end, Vaccaro created a new paradigm for celebrity endorsement.

Damon is only one of many familiar faces in Air, along with Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, and Viola Davis. As a director, Affleck uses each actor’s individual styles to evoke the very real people they’re portraying. One example is Viola Davis’ portrayal of Deloris Jordan, Michael Jordan’s mom. Making most of the decisions for him during that time, Michael Jordan’s parents were pivotal figures who negotiated contracts and dealt with the media. Davis’ firm motherly hand and emotional balance makes you believe Michael Jordan is her actual son. Similarly, Chris Tucker’s portrayal of Nike executive Howard White leverages Tucker’s comedic chops during tense scenarios, while also sincerely conveying the loyalty White had for Vaccaro and Nike.

From the start of the film, Affleck takes the viewer back to the ’80s, with clips of Mr. T and popular infomercials; ’80s hits like Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” soundtrack long drives. Even Affleck’s camera shots look like they came from ’80s films, like the repeated extreme close-ups of Sonny’s face. The bright wardrobe colors worn by Damon made this Gen-Zer run to my grandfather’s closet to find his Members Only jacket.

There’s one thing about the cast list that stands out: Michael Jordan, the man himself, is not in the film. Really? You had a $60-$70 million dollar budget, and you don’t even have a cameo of Michael Jordan? But Air is all the better without him. We get to know Vaccaro as a risk-taking go-getter, although he makes everyone around him anxious. Other minor characters like Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) are given opportunities to shine, especially through Strasser’s arc about his daughter and the risks he wasn’t able to take. Add in Michael Jordan and Air becomes all about him. The movie’s message about taking risks and the qualities that made it special would be overshadowed by the presence of the superstar.

The messages of this movie can be encompassed in one quote which keeps getting repeated: “A shoe is just a shoe until someone puts their foot in it.” This story was just an idea until Affleck and Damon got their hands on it — and made it something special.

Air
Now playing
Multiple locations

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Now Playing In Memphis: Video Games and Video Art

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Everybody’s favorite plumber-jumper gets a moment in the spotlight. The previous attempt to make The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the 1990s was an epic train wreck, but this one is animated and getting good buzz from audience, if not from critics. The all-star voice cast includes Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Seth Rogan, Fred Armisen, and Keegan-Michael Key, But will it escape the curse of video game adaptation? Spoiler alert: The princess is in another castle. 

In 1984, Nike was a struggling athletic shoe company on the verge of bankruptcy. Then they struck sponsorship deal with a young basketball player named Michael Jordan. Ben Affleck returns to the director’s chair for Air, the origin story of modern sneaker culture, with Viola Davis as Jordan’s mother Deloris and Matt Damon as Nike exec Steve Vaccaro. 

The winner of the 2023 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand And One film is the story of a poor, Black single mother trying to raise her son in New York City. Triple threat Teyana Taylor stars in what is being called the performance of the year. 

Come to John Wick: Chapter 4 for the great Keanu Reeves gun-fu-ing his way through hordes of assassins who disrespected his dog or something. Stay for the scene stealing turn by action movie legend Donnie Yen.  

Nam June Paik was the first, and many say still the greatest, video artist. The Japanese-Korean had a strong connection with Memphis — his last commission, Vide-O-belisk was created for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. On Thursday, April 14, Crosstown Theater will host the Memphis premiere of a new biographical documentary about the trailblazer, Nam Jun Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV.

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Film Features Film/TV

Justice League

I’m a big believer in form following function. That’s why my review of the new Warner Bros/DC movie Justice League will reflect the form of the screenplay: a series of bullet points presented without any overall organizing principle.

Justice League Dark: (left to right) J.K. Simmons, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher, Ben Affleck, and Ezra Miller

• Justice League is not a film. It’s a clip show. You know, like when a TV show has been on a long time and they want to save money late in season six by having all the characters snowed in together and swapping memories of that time in season two when they fought the bear? That’s what Justice League is like, except you’ve never seen the show before.

• At least our hypothetical sitcom on its last legs had an interesting villain. I’ll take the bear over Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) any day. At least the bear has a discernible motivation. Steppenwolf is just a mashup of other crappy villains like Apocalypse from the last X-Men movie and that fire-demon thing (checks Wikipedia) Surtur from Thor: Ragnarok. Justice League even lifts the “empty horned helmet clattering to the ground anticlimactically” gag from Ragnarok.

• Oh yeah. SPOILER ALERT: Steppenwolf is defeated. The good guys win.

• Now I want to know what happened with the bear.

• Another SPOILER ALERT: Superman (Henry Cavill) comes back from the dead in a “we promise, one-time-only, super-special Kryptonian procedure that must involve all of the other Super Friends … I mean, members of the Justice League.” Even though we all know Supes is going to be fine, the resurrection sequence takes up a huge chunk of Justice League‘s running time that could otherwise be used for advancing the “plot.” It’s the most tedious part of a tedious movie.  

• Speaking of which, the scene where the Flash (Ezra Miller) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) dig Superman’s body up from the Kansas graveyard where he’s buried as Clark Kent is probably the most entertaining moment of the film, just for the sheer perversity of it.

• The reason Justice League is better than Batman v. Superman is that there’s more Wonder Woman in it. Gal Gadot coasts on the excellent characterization she and Patty Jenkins created in Wonder Woman’s solo film. At one point, Batman (Ben Affleck) says she should be the leader. I’m totally down for that. But instead, they go for Zombie Superman.

• Henry Cavill is literally the worst person to ever play Superman. He’s not fit to hold George Reeves’ cape.

• Amy Adams is completely wasted as Lois Lane. I hope she got paid well.

• There are occasional flashes of life in swole Ben Affleck’s Batman. It made me feel kind of sorry for him. All those protein shakes for this?

• Of all of director Zack Snyder’s missteps, Aquaman (Jason Momoa) is the worst. He’s the exiled scion of Atlantis hiding in a human village in Norway, but he talks like a California surfer. What about that makes sense?

• Creeping Batman-ization Alert: Aquaman feels abandoned by his mother.

• Steppenwolf’s army of Parademons look like Arthur, the sidekick from the Tick, was assimilated by the Borg.

• The high-functioning sociopaths running the Hollywood studios are uniquely unsuited to making good superhero movies because they fundamentally cannot grasp what is appealing about a character motivated purely by altruism.

• When Aquaman asks Bruce Wayne what Batman’s superpower is, Batman replies “I’m rich.” Wrong answer. Batman should have said “I’m prepared.” Also acceptable: “I’m determined.”

• Since Roger Ebert is no longer around to point out these things, I feel it is my duty to note that at one point, Nazis emboldened by the death of Superman demonstrate their evil by turning over a fruit cart. Google it.

• In my notes, I referred to the McGuffins — glowing energy cubes that convey ultimate power to any creature that possess them — as “Infinity Stones.” In fact, those are the glowing energy cube McGuffins from the Marvel universe. These glowing energy cubes are variously called “the change engine” and “mother boxes” which must be combined to form “The Unity.” Everything in this film is a ripoff, and even the meaningless technobabble is bad.

• Jesse Eisenberg appears in the post credit scene as Lex Luthor, as if to say. “Who’s the lame villain now?”

• Aquaman’s trident has five points.

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Film Features Film/TV

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

The problem with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is right there in the title.

Granted, there are a lot of problems with Zack Snyder’s $250 million epic of super conflict, but the biggest one is that DC and Warner Bros. have tried to mash two films into one. The first film is Batman v Superman: Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) are set on a collision course by the machinations of Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). The second film is Dawn of Justice — Batman discovers the existence of hidden “metahumans,” and gets the idea of uniting them into a super team — a “Justice League,” if you will — to protect the world from extraterrestrial threats. Both plots have the potential of forming the spine of a good movie, but, in a cowardly move that is all too typical of contemporary corporate filmmaking, the producers have tried to make a movie that is all things to all people and delivered a soggy mess.

Henry Cavill

Batman and Superman are supposed to be two very different characters. Batman is a brooding, tortured soul haunted by the loss of his parents. Superman’s disposition is sunny, optimistic, and virtuous, the result of some exceptional child rearing by Ma and Pa Kent in Smallville. Ben Affleck does a pretty good job as Batman/Bruce Wayne — at least he’s no George Clooney. Henry Cavill, on the other hand, plays Superman as a brooding, tortured soul, haunted in his dreams by the loss of his father (Kevin Costner) and the deaths of innocents in the climatic battle of Man of Steel. This isn’t Batman v Superman. It’s Batman v Batman. But the biggest miscalculation is Jesse Eisenberg playing Lex Luthor as a cross between Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and a twitchy, 12 Monkeys Brad Pitt, when he should have been portrayed as a megalomaniacal Elon Musk by someone other than Eisenberg. There’s more than a whiff of Heath Ledger’s Joker in this Luthor, another symptom of Batman Poisoning.

Ben Affleck

The women fare a little better. Amy Adams is inoffensive as Lois Lane, but she’s wearing the same grim countenance as everyone in this dark nightmare. When she and Cavill share the screen, there’s no hint of the explosive chemistry between Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve that propelled the Richard Donner Superman. Gal Gadot makes a big impression as Wonder Woman, but there’s simply no reason for her to be introduced in this super mixture rather than in her own headlining picture. In the post-Katniss Everdeen era, there’s no excuse for Wonder Woman to play third fiddle.

Snyder’s direction is a cavalcade of bad decisions, beginning in the opening sequence with the baffling notion that we needed to see Bruce Wayne’s parents die again, when the second sequence, where we see the battle between Superman and General Zod (Michael Shannon) from Bruce Wayne’s point of view, is so much stronger. Multiple dream sequences and momentum-killing digressions, including one trip into a parallel universe, pad out the running time to a grueling 151 minutes. Snyder’s good at composing an interesting image, and the top-billed Bats/Supes throwdown delivers the goods before its emotion is dispelled by the completely unnecessary team up with Wonder Woman to fight Kryptonian mutant Doomsday.

To be fair to Snyder, who has produced one of the greatest comic book movies in 2009’s Watchmen adaptation, Batman films have been overstuffed messes since Tim Burton left the franchise. There hasn’t been a decent Superman movie since the Carter administration, and the decision to glom the Justice League origin story onto the Batman v Superman story probably came from the corporate level. But none of that excuses the fact that this film is just no fun. DC vs. Marvel is the closest thing to a sports rivalry in the geek world, and while DC fans are still showing up in droves, they now know what it feels like when their team is in a rebuilding year.

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Gone Girl

Gone Girl is based on a bestselling crime novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay. With its byzantine plot, morally ambiguous characters, and obsession with peeling back layers of “reality,” it is the perfect material for director David Fincher. It is the stylistic and thematic cousin of Fincher’s masterpiece Zodiac, and may surpass the 2007 film in reputation. One of the few useful notes I took before surrendering to Fincher’s dark spell was: “Perfect frame after perfect frame.”

Gone Girl is currently teaching me how much of my weekly word count is taken up with summaries. The expertly executed whiplash plot has earned word of mouth that is the envy of Hollywood, and yet recounting it here would be useless. If you’ve read the book, you already know what happens. If you haven’t, you don’t want to know. Here’s the setup: On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home to find his wife Amy (former Bond girl Rosamund Pike) missing, apparently the victim of a kidnapping. In less than 48 hours, the case becomes a full-blown media circus. Then things get weird.

Gone Girl is about the media. It’s probably the best filmic critique of our industry’s effect on society since Natural Born Killers predicted the metastization of the 24-hour news cycle 20 years ago. It’s marketed as a mystery, but it’s closer to Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole or Sidney Lumet’s Network than a classic mystery like The Big Sleep. Once observed by the media’s electron microscope, the characters behave like a quantum particle forced into choosing a definite state. Is Nick a hero, villain, or victim? Like Schrodinger’s cat suspended between life and death, he exists as all three at once. In a memorable exchange near the end of the film, he confronts his greatest tormentor, talk-show shouter Ellen Abbot (Memphian Missi Pyle), with all of the lies and distortions she has spread about him. “I go where the story is,” she says, even if that means inventing details to support the most lucrative narrative.

Ben Affleck in Gone Girl

Gone Girl is not misogynistic. Nor is it misandristic. It is misanthropic. Its worldview is so cynical it makes Double Indemnity look like It’s a Wonderful Life. Everyone in the film stoops to their basest level, confirming their sexes’ worst stereotypes. Nick’s glibly charming exterior hides a lazy, emotionally distant philanderer. Amy’s perfect woman exterior hides untold depths of emotional manipulation and cold-blooded lies. As she says, “We’re so cute, I want to punch us.” If, as has been suggested, Fincher’s adaptation tips the moral scales toward the male, it’s because Affleck’s job description as a movie star is: “Be sympathetic on camera.” And Affleck is very good at his job.

Gone Girl is exquisitely well acted. Pike shows complete control over her instrument, shifting into whichever version of Amy the director needs her to be as the points of view change. Kim Dickens shines as Detective Rhonda Boney, the Marge Gunderson-like investigator who proves impotent in the face of overwhelming evil. Neil Patrick Harris manages to take his character Desi Collings from creepy to nice and back again with very limited screen time. But the best of the bunch may be Tyler Perry as the Johnnie Cochran-like defense attorney who cheerfully plots the character assassination of a missing woman who, for all he knows, could be rotting at the bottom of a lake.

Gone Girl is about class. It’s one of the most insightful movies made about the Great Recession, exposing films like Up in the Air as classist dreck. The fear of losing economic status permeates everything. The story’s real inciting incident isn’t Amy’s 2012 disappearance; it’s 2009, when the couple lose their media jobs and are forced to move from New York City to a Missouri McMansion, propped up by debt and illusion. In one telling moment, when one of the movie’s many middle-class Machiavellians finds themselves confronted with actual, desperate lower-class criminals, they are summarily beaten at their own game.

Gone Girl is circular. It’s an appropriate structure for a story where everyone is trapped, either by their sex, their class, their perceptions, or by a whole sick society whose death throes make missing white girls into a growth sector for cable conglomerates.

Gone Girl is a very good movie. You should go see it.

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Film Features Film/TV

Affleck rebounds with genre flick that’s more than a mystery.

A butt of cinematic jokes because of his roles in Michael Bay flicks and his disastrous on-and-off-screen fling with Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck has always seemed smarter as himself than in movies. (Few recent celebrities have seemed brighter or more decent during election season.) It’s refreshing then — and not really surprising — that Affleck’s best film work since his affable, believable turn in Chasing Amy comes in this directorial debut.

Affleck and screenwriting partner Aaron Stockard adapt Boston crime-fiction writer Dennis Lehane’s finest detective-series title in Gone Baby Gone, the story of a young couple hired as private investigators to assist the police in the search for an abducted 4-year-old girl.

Affleck took a big risk in the central casting of his younger brother, Casey, as private investigator Patrick Kenzie, a hardened Boston product able to get information from people who won’t talk to the police. The younger Affleck looks too callow for the part, something the script acknowledges by stating the character’s age of 31 and allowing that Casey Affleck looks younger.

But the director’s younger brother pans out, making the character believable while shrewdly underplaying around a strong, more ferocious supporting cast, led by Ed Harris as a cop also looking for the girl and Amy Ryan (Beadie Russell on HBO’s The Wire) as the missing child’s negligent mother.

It helps, also, that Affleck — a Boston native — does right by the movie’s low-rent Beantown setting and characters. The Dorchester denizens in Gone Baby Gone feel less like a romanticized working class than the round-the-way Bostonians of, say, Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, another Lehane adaptation.

Gone Baby Gone seems extremely faithful to Lehane’s novel (from what I remember — it’s been a few years since I read it), so much so that cramming the book’s plot contortions into an under-two-hour movie makes the big reveal at the end feel even more contrived. That there’s a limit to the damage done by this is because Gone Baby Gone, much like the novel, rises above its genre. It’s true concern lies beyond the plot mechanics of a mystery or police procedural. It’s a story about moral ambiguity amid societal decay and about the utter sadness that inflicts the lives of too many kids.

Affleck never loses sight of this, with a series of small touchstones — the deftly heartbreaking cut to the girl’s aunt holding a picture of the missing child; the film’s title uttered by a bit character; Kenzie’s work and life partner Angie (Michelle Monaghan) pleading to decline the case because she doesn’t want to be the one to find a baby in a dumpster; a deflating, perfectly framed final shot — making more of an impact than the twisty storyline that would be the emphasis of a lesser film. Gone Baby Gone is a mystery in which solving the case is easier than deciding what actions to take with the information.

Gone Baby Gone

Opening Friday, October 19th

Multiple locations