#rob strasser

[andithil]

Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser in Air (2023)

[snkrbonbon]

Rob Strasser （Nike, 1977）

[dippedanddripped]

Rob Strasser, who knew his way around a military metaphor, addresses the troops at a corporate retreat.

IMAGE: COURTESY PETER MOORE

On a stifling hot Saturday in the summer of 1984, three men met in the Washington, DC, office of sports agent David Falk. Rob Strasser, Nike’s director of marketing, and designer Peter Moore represented the ambitious sportswear company from Oregon. Falk represented a University of North Carolina basketball star who’d decided to skip his senior year of college and enter the NBA draft. The air-conditioning in Falk’s building didn’t run on weekends, making Strasser, then 36 years old, bearded, and about 300 pounds, perspire even more than usual.

Falk made his pitch, more like an unequivocal demand: if Nike wanted Michael Jordan, Jordan needed his own signature line of shoes and apparel, up-front advertising support, and a cut of future sales. All this was essentially unheard of—a stunning deal for a rookie in a team sport, just one knee injury away from disaster. Adidas and Converse would later tell Falk it would never work.

But Falk had dealt with Strasser for years. They trusted each other. The agent would tell Strasser about such-and-such young star, Strasser would ask Falk what he wanted for the athlete, and with little fuss they’d settle on a price for the prospect to wear and market Nike gear. (Now and then, as was the case with quarterback Boomer Esiason, Strasser didn’t even know what position the person played.) Nike’s top brass had seen the superstar-driven strategy work well with tennis, thanks in large part to John McEnroe. Now Strasser and his team wanted to make sports heroes a cornerstone of the business. “We’re going to Washington today to negotiate for Michael Jordan,” he told colleagues the day before meeting with Falk, according to one account. “We’re going to create shoes, advertising, and whatever else goes with him. If Jordan does what we think he can, and if we can execute, this can be big.”

A huge if. But success would put Nike that much closer to achieving its grand plan: to dethrone Adidas, become the world’s dominant athletic brand, and shift the epicenter of the sporting goods world from Europe to Oregon.

Today, about 32 years after that meeting in DC (and 23 years after Rob Strasser died), Nike’s mission has been accomplished. This March, London-based trade journal The Business of Fashion ran the headline: “Why You Need to Move to Footwear’s ‘Silicon Valley.’” That story—just one of countless testimonies—cited the 14,000 jobs and 800 companies percolating in the Oregon sportswear industry. This summer, cofounder and icon Phil Knight will step aside as Nike’s chairman after building the company into a $30-billion-a-year juggernaut that defines Oregon’s effort to remake itself in a new economy. At times, it’s hard to see where Nike’s influence over life here actually ends.

Adidas has perched its North American headquarters on the bluffs of North Portland, the better to battle its archrival. Deeper in the sportswear “ecosystem,” one finds outdoorsy Keen; a design unit for Under Armour; Nau, once a buzzy start-up, now owned by a South Korean wholesaler; Columbia, a historic Portland outfitter repeatedly reborn; and many other sports apparel businesses. Wieden & Kennedy, the ad agency that made its name building Nike’s image with campaigns like “Just Do It,” sits at the center of a broader “creative” industry of firms and freelancers. In a larger sense, the gestalt of 21st-century Portland—where the dominent cultural style combines antiestablishment ethos with relentless ambition—relies in large part on Nike’s money, clout, and aesthetics.

It’s quite possible that none of this would have come to pass without the gargantuan presence of Rob Strasser: the man whose unrestrained style earned him the nickname “Rolling Thunder.”

Strasser and Moore didn’t know much about Jordan. But Strasser, perhaps more than anyone, believed in star power. In a 1983 memo, he wrote: “Individual athletes, even more than teams, will be the heroes; symbols more and more of what real people can’t do anymore—risk and win.” At that moment, Nike itself desperately needed a win. After the company went public in 1980, its stock languished. In 1984 the company posted its first losing quarter ever. As layoff notices landed in a monthlong wave that some within Nike called the “St. Valentine’s Day massacre,” America fawned over newcomer Reebok, which had snuck up on Nike to capture the era’s aerobics boom.

Some of the conversation between Strasser, Moore, and Falk is now legendary, although accounts differ slightly. Strasser asked what this signature line would be called. Falk remembers that he said: “The Michael Jordan Line, of course.”

“Hello, Mr. Strasser.”

“Cut the bullshit. Call me Rob. So, Are you loyal?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut the ‘sir’ crap.”

Strasser and Moore, according to Falk, were unconvinced. Jordan was a 21-year-old basketball player, not a supermodel.

“What should it be called, then?” Falk asked.

“That’s the trick,” Strasser said.

A moment later, Falk recalls, he suggested “Air Jordan.”

“The moment I said it,” Falk recently told me, “Moore was sketching in this pad that he carried everywhere,” mocking up images. On the flight back to Portland, Moore asked a flight attendant for a set of wings, the kind airlines give kids. That little pin became the inspiration for a logo featuring the words “Air Jordan” arced over a basketball, set between two wings in flight.

Rob Strasser grew up in Milwaukie, attended Willamette University, got his law degree at Berkeley, and returned to Portland to begin climbing the ranks at a local law firm. In 1973, when he was 26, the firm assigned Strasser to a client locked in an international dispute: Blue Ribbon Sports, founded by ex-Cleveland High and University of Oregon track athlete Phil Knight, who had teamed up with his old college coach to sell imported running shoes. Blue Ribbon was battling Onitsuka, a Japanese manufacturer and former partner. Strasser and Knight, who both cared about sports far more than they did corporate-world etiquette, hit it off easily, and Knight soon hired Strasser away to work for the company that would be renamed Nike.

In his new memoir, Shoe Dog, Knight writes: “Strasser was our five-star general, and I was ready to follow him into any fray, any fusillade. In our fight with Onitsuka his outrage had comforted and sustained me, and his mind had been a formidable weapon.”

After a couple of years, it became clear to Knight that Strasser wasn’t just a sharp lawyer—he was a deal-making wizard. “I was sending him into every negotiation with total confidence, as if I were sending in the Eighty-Second Airborne,” writes Knight, in yet another deployment of the military metaphors so popular among people who make shoes to wear while playing games. Strasser even earned a reputation as someone who could underscore a point by hurling a book across a room.

“[H]e just didn’t care what he said or how he said it or how it went over,” Knight recalls in his memoir. “He was totally honest, a radical tactic in any negotiation.” Strasser’s impolitic, party-going personality made him an easy fit with Knight’s other lieutenants of the era—or, as they called themselves, the Buttfaces. (En route to annual meetings in Sunriver or on the Oregon Coast, they would stop along the way to drink and shoot pool. And that was only the beginning of the weekend.)

He was never a showy rich guy. He was a fun rich guy. He preferred Hawaiian shirts to suits.

Strasser became the company’s marketing director, and exhibited an almost preternatural grasp of brand identity—in particular, how Nike’s insurgent play for control of the sportswear market relied on a combination of athletic performance and irreverent bravado. “Many afternoons,” writes Knight, “I’d sit around the office with Strasser, trying to figure out why some lines were selling and some not, which led to broader discussions of what people thought of us [Nike] and why…. We were more than a brand; we were a statement.”

Sometime near the end of 1984, for example, Strasser traveled to London to woo the All-England Lawn Tennis Club, overseer of Wimbledon. (This was just a couple of years after McEnroe, a Nike man, torpedoed the decorum of Wimbledon’s Centre Court with his legendary You cannot be serious! tirade.) For his pitch, Strasser printed out large black-and-white pictures of Wimbledon’s courts after they had been bombed by the Nazis. The tagline: “Brought to you by the people who wear three stripes,” a bald-faced reference to Adidas.

The tactic was classic Strasser, for its bluster but also its precision: one of the club officials listening to the pitch was a decorated World War II veteran—and Strasser knew it.

His accomplice on the trip, as on many other occasions, was Moore, a young designer who’d joined Nike in 1977. The two men gelled: both loathed meetings and bureaucracy and possessed a frenetic desire to experiment. (As work at Nike picked up pace for Moore, he began collaborating with a young copywriter from the William Cain advertising firm named Dan Wieden. Wieden soon split off to form his own firm, with Nike as its cardinal client.)

Strasser and Moore put great emphasis on presentation. In an age before PowerPoint or the pat ritual of the TED Talk, Nike’s marketing team went all in on videos, music, even smoke machines. Results could be mixed. For one big sales event in Sun Valley, Idaho, they assembled a production on the theme of (surprise!) heroes, featuring slides of icons—Jimi Hendrix, Mickey Mantle, Winston Churchill, and ... Mao Zedong? A few minutes in, the smoke machine went into overdrive. Moore thought Strasser was yelling for more smoke, when in fact he was shouting Moore’s name to get him to shut off the machine.

At Wimbledon, however, overkill seems to have worked. Moore remembers the session ending with an official telling the visitors that Nike would henceforth be the only four-letter word heard at the prestigious club.

When crunch time came in the 1984 negotiations to unite Jordan and Nike, Strasser faced one final obstacle: Michael Jordan. The kid wanted to sign with Adidas, even after Strasser and Falk, Jordan’s agent, had agreed to terms.

Nike brought Jordan and his parents to Oregon to hear Strasser’s presentation. He talked about Nike’s winning advertising campaigns, and about building up Jordan’s image. Moore showed off prototype apparel and a pair of shoes cut in the Chicago Bulls’ colors of red, white and black. The only response Jordan gave was something about missing the “Blue Heaven” colors of North Carolina. Otherwise, he kept quiet for much of the meeting. The night after the pitch, a limo took the player and his parents to meet Strasser, Moore, and a bunch of Nike people at a downtown restaurant called Broadway Revue.

Jordan recently told USA Today: “I absolutely fell in love with (Strasser) when he actually made the first presentation of the Jordan thing, the Air Jordan concept.” Nevertheless, Jordan still held out for Adidas: “I went back to my Adidas contact and said, ‘This is the Nike contract—if you come anywhere close, I’ll sign with you guys.’” Adidas didn’t.

Strasser could underscore a point by hurling a book across the room.

That fall, as Jordan debuted in Chicago, Strasser learned that a $1,000 fine had been levied against the superstar. Unbeknownst to the designers and marketers in Beaverton, the NBA—as if channeling the hauteur of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club—demanded that all players on a team wear similarly colored footwear, and that the color match the team’s primary uniform color. According to an account in a book written by Strasser’s wife, Julie, backed up by others’ memories, Strasser told Jordan to wear the shoes. Nike would cover the fines—and reap the publicity.

The dust-up hit just the right rebel note, and Strasser and his marketing team adroitly capitalized. They cut a television commercial featuring a now-famous voiceover: “On September 15, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. On October 18, the NBA threw them out of the game. Fortunately, the NBA can’t keep you from wearing them. Air Jordans. From Nike.”

Air Jordan became a culture-rocking sensation, so coveted the brand bred a dark side: a series of small riots, assaults, and even murders over the shoes, which some high schools would ban before the ’80s were out. The link to Jordan, who became the greatest pro basketball player of all time, transformed Nike’s fortunes. To date, the Jordan line has delivered a reported $2.6 billion in sales.

Strasser’s biggest win ever stoked his confidence. At one point, when he encountered internal opposition to the expansion of the Nike Air product line, he responded: “Fuck the world. Fuck the numbers. Air feels right. Air feels like Nike.” And he was right, in that instance and many others.

Soon after Jordan flouted NBA rules to debut his shoes, Nike was on track for global domination. In 1985, Knight told Willamette Week that “a whole lot of people were responsible” for the company’s turnaround, “but Rob is the M.V.P.” That story was about Strasser and the Air Jordan deal, and it was titled, “The Man Who Saved Nike.” According to Julie Strasser’s 1993 book Swoosh, Rob didn’t like the savior talk. It may have been tactical, but he even told the WW reporter as much: “Hey, there ain’t no heroes here.” Moore felt similarly about Strasser, that he just “wanted to be one of the guys.” One of Strasser’s favorite sayings, recalls daughter Avery, was: “Can’t a guy just be a guy?”

One day in 1989, a young job seeker named Tom Hughes showed up for an interview with Strasser. He walked into the room to find Strasser, all beard and bulk, hands folded.

“Hello, Mr. Strasser.”

“Cut the bullshit. Call me Rob. So, can you work hard? Are you loyal?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut the ‘sir’ crap. OK. Don’t fuck up.”

That was Strasser: a success on his own terms, no apologies. When Nike went public, he was an instant millionaire at 33. He was never a showy rich guy, but he was a fun rich guy. He preferred Hawaiian shirts to suits. Rumor had it he put a $25,000 European treasure hunt in his will, as well as a chicken costume. Fast cars come up in conversations about him, as does cocaine—this was the 1980s, remember. More than anything, Strasser enjoyed vacationing on the coast, often in Manzanita, or taking friends out on his 48-foot party boat to bomb up and down the Willamette.

Strasser printed pictures of Wimbeldon after the Nazis bombed it. The tagline: “Brought to you by the people who wear three stripes.”

Hughes, now corporate affairs manager at Adidas, recalls a night on the boat when Strasser, his wife, and others were entertaining business partners visiting from France. Another boat had just passed. “Jump the wake!” Strasser yelled to Hughes at the helm. Hughes hit the throttle as commanded, and the boat bumped up then thumped down, hard, sending glasses flying. Hughes says Julie hurried up on deck, yelling that all the crystal on board had shattered. “Rob looked at me and winked with this childlike twinkle,” says Hughes. “Then we toasted.”

At work, though, Strasser was dead serious—especially about crushing Adidas. “Rob referred to Adidas as ‘the Germans,’” recalled Falk. They were the sworn enemy, and Strasser was as “passionate in his hatred” as anyone in the company, including Knight. In 1981, Strasser moved to the Netherlands, charged with building Nike business on the Germans’ doorstep. “We can’t aim a howitzer at Adidas’ homemarket heart,” he wrote in one memo. “And we can’t fight them everywhere else at once. Not now.” What Nike could do instead was pursue a country-by-country guerrilla approach, steadily chipping away at its rival’s market dominance.

As the years went by, however, some of Strasser’s joie de guerre drained away. If one accepts the account coauthored by his wife, by 1987, Strasser had grown exasperated; the huge company he now worked for no longer felt like the maverick start-up he had nurtured. Strasser and Knight increasingly saw things differently. In his memoir, Knight attributes it to ego: “He felt that he should no longer be taking orders from anyone, including me. Especially me. We clashed, too many times, and he quit.”

Moore rejects any suggestion that Strasser aspired to run Nike or that he couldn’t take orders. Still, he says, “Rob’s persona was as big as Nike itself,” and perhaps that bothered Knight.

Rob “loved problems,” says Hughes. “He liked to fix things.” What problems remained at Nike, by then a brand approximately as recognizable as Coca-Cola? “Smart and talented people like Rob are never satisfied,” Moore told me. “It’s like great painters who are reluctant to sell anything because the work never feels quite done. We had, and we knew we had, put Nike on a path. But we wanted to keep doing new things.”

After Strasser left Nike in 1987, he and Moore launched their own consulting firm, Sports Inc. They dabbled in new brands, like a style-focused shoe line called Van Grack. At one point—and here memories of exactly what transpired differ—they may have attempted to poach Jordan from Nike. Even so, a certain restlessness endured. “I think Rob wanted back in the big-time,” says Moore. “The limos, working with top athletes, the huge marketing budget, the deal-making—it was addictive.”

Sometime in 1989, less than two years after Sports Inc began, Strasser’s phone rang. The Germans wanted to meet.

After landing in Munich, Strasser, his wife, and Moore drove through the Bavarian countryside to the small town of Herzogenaurach, Adolf “Adi” Dassler’s birthplace and home to Adidas world headquarters. It was a cold, gray autumn morning. Then they saw it: a monolithic building, an almost cartoonish Soviet-style fortress, topped by a neon blue trefoil spinning in the fog.

“Oh, fuck,” said Moore. “Let’s get out of here.”

That night, over dinner with Adidas’s CEO and other company officials, Strasser was his usual life of the party, enjoying a steak and more than a little red wine. Moore, still perplexed about why he was there, remained guarded. After all, he and Strasser had helped orchestrate Nike’s takeover out of the global sportswear market’s top slot. He confessed his discomfort to an Adidas exec.

“No offense, but for a decade, our mission was to kick your ass.”

“But Peter,” the man replied politely. “You did kick our ass. That is why you are here.”

“For a decade, our mission was to kick your ass.”

“You did. That is why you are here.”

The next morning, Moore wandered into the Adidas company museum, a concentrated history of modern sports told through footwear: Spikes worn by Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Boxing shoes worn by Muhammad Ali. Stan Smith’s Stan Smiths, and the pair of soccer cleats that would become known as the Copa Mundial. On and on it went. “I suddenly realized that, with the exception of the waffle trainer and that air bag [Nike Air Max], this guy Adi was the father of 90 percent of the industry,” says Moore. (Note: Moore still consults for Adidas.) Moore wondered how Adidas had managed to “fuck it up so bad” in recent years. Maybe he and Strasser could be helpful after all.

They left Germany with an agreement to try and revive the brand—somehow.

Peter Moore’s studio is wedged next to I-405 in the Pearl District. Above the entryway is a large silver question mark. When I arrive, I can see Moore through the window, looking over a stack of prints. He is now 72 years old. He answers the door after some loud banging and arm-waving (he is nearly deaf), and then we sit down at a large, glass-topped table to discuss his business partner of nearly 20 years.

At one point, Moore brings out an old photo album with pictures of Strasser and a dozen young professionals on a visit to the Oregon Coast. They are dressed for the early ’90s, in light-blue jeans, big hair, colorful sweaters. This was the original team that worked on an Adidas project known simply as “Equipment.”

Equipment was Strasser and Moore’s strategic concept to get Adidas off life support and begin its recovery. The austere name signaled radicalism through reduction. “The idea was to create products, shoes, and apparel that were to be ‘the best of Adidas’—the essentials,” Moore recalls. “All you need, and nothing more.” In other words, strip the brand down to its iconic core, an Adidas everyone would recognize. Moore and Strasser also advised ditching the trefoil for three streamlined, tilted stripes, and a limited four-color palette, which Moore says was then unheard of.

And one last thing: move Adidas’s North American headquarters from New Jersey to Portland.

After recovering from the initial shock, Adidas top brass said yes.

Strasser was now very much back in the big time, and back to working nonstop. He would spend day and night reading the rolls of faxes coming into Portland from Germany. He’d work all day, then he and his team would go out for dinner and drinks.

Hit repeat so many hundreds of times. Mix in stress, travel, and an ironic but chronic lack of exercise, and a person’s health will suffer.

“He once tried to do some walking meetings and things like that, but it never took,” Moore recalls. “Mostly he just got defensive.” Strasser knew he had a weight problem, but he either couldn’t or didn’t want to change his ways. Others like to say he “lived the life he wanted to.”

The Adidas America team was at a sales meeting in the resort town of Sonthofen, in southern Germany, when Strasser turned to a colleague and said: “I think I’ve got something going on here,” gesturing at his torso. An ambulance rushed him to a local clinic; a few days later, a chopper transported him to Munich. A cardiologist there said he couldn’t be sure what was happening—Strasser’s size made diagnosis difficult—but it was probably a heart attack. Strasser returned to the US for treatment, and even told Moore that he planned to change his lifestyle. But his condition was already worsening.

Rob Strasser died on October 30, 1993. He was 46. Thousands of people attended his memorial service at the University of Portland’s Chiles Center, many of them wearing Hawaiian shirts. Phil Knight didn’t show.

Despite his lasting impact on our economy, and even the personality of this town, Strasser isn’t known to many people outside of those two rival companies, and even within them his role is fading into ancient history. Why? Possibly because his work was vital to both, which makes it difficult to neatly write him into the mythology of either one. For Adidas, it was a brand revival conceived and executed by a fat American ex-Nike guy and his arty partner. For Nike, Strasser’s achievements are overshadowed, if not severely tarnished, because he was a traitor. “It might have been okay if he’d just quit,” writes Knight. “But he went to work for Adidas. An intolerable betrayal. I never forgave him.”

Yet the fact that Strasser doesn’t easily fit the lore of either firm underscores the debt Portland owes him: his loyalty to this city, above either company, helped draw so much investment, industry, and creativity here, and helped make Portland what it is today.

As for Strasser’s ultimate allegiance, Moore still suspects that if Knight had ever called him to make peace or vice versa, the two men could have reunited at Nike. In light of the fact that that never happened, Moore suspects that up in heaven somewhere, a burly Oregonian is wearing Nike on one foot, and Adidas on the other.

[brucesterling]

All the booze in all the gin-joints in this crazy world

Bruce Sterling Jan 22, 2019 9:04 AM

*Boy, they drink a lot in the classic movie "Casablanca." Granted, they've all got plenty to drink about, but gee whiz.

*I tried to keep up while watching. I had to do some research.

“CASABLANCA,” a classic movie set in a number of cafes and bars

Wine – English couple in the opening scene are drinking wine at the outside cafe when robbed by a sly pickpocket.

Cocktail – A desperado is waiting, waiting, waiting and drinks while lamenting that he will never get out of Casablanca.

Cocktail – Man tries to negotiate a passage out of Casablanca.

Wine – Man buys passage on a fishing vessel

Wine – Women trying to get more money for jewels

Cocktail – Englishmen are served by Sascha in Rick’s bar, and toasting cheerio.

Wine – Women gambling at Rick's while drinking

Champagne glass (already empty) – In front of Rick as he is toying with a chess problem

Wine – Ugarte drinks while bargaining with Rick.

Brandy (Boss’s Private Stock) – Sascha serves the good stuff to the spurned Yvonne, because Yvonne is Rick’s private stock.

Brandy – Captain Louis Renault drinks at Rick’s. He's a steady customer, since the bar also has loose women.

Brandy – the Italian Fascist Captain Tonelli drinks while harassed by Lieutenant Casselle in Rick’s.

Brandy – Rick gives some free brandy to Renault in Rick's office.

Veuve Cliquot 1926 – The top French champagne that Renault recommends to Strasser as the Nazi crassly gobbles caviar.

Wine – Ugarte has a glass when arrested

Wine – Resistance member Berger drinks wine at the bar as Laszlo and Ilsa walk into Rick’s.

Cointreaux – Laszlo orders two for himself and Ilsa as their first of many drink orders in Rick’s.

Champagne – Captain Renault orders “a bottle of the best” when invited by Laszlo to join him and Ilsa at their table.

Champagne Cocktail – Laszlo orders one as he joins Berger to conspire at the bar.

Champagne Cocktail – Renault orders for himself and Laszlo at the bar as Berger flees.

Champagne – Renault orders some for Rick when Rick joins the Laszlo party.

Bourbon – Rick drinks American bourbon to console himself for his former mistress Ilsa somehow walking into his gin-joint, of all the gin-joints in the world.

Champagne – Rick opens a bottle of champagne in Ilsa’s flashback room in their happy liaison in Paris.

Wine – Rick and Ilsa drink in Paris at the Cafe Pierre.

Champagne – Rick, Ilsa, and Sam hastily guzzle three bottles of Mumm Cordon Rouge as the Nazis occupy Paris.

“The Bourbon” – Ferrari demands his special bourbon in his own bar, the Blue Parrot, when Rick arrives to negotiate. Somehow, Rick refuses the bourbon, saying he never drinks in the morning.

Wine – The pickpocket toasts another sucker in Rick's before he robs him.

Brandy – Rick is drinking heavily on the second night in his club and Renault joins him for a brandy.

French 75s – The cocktail Yvonne orders when she comes in as the brand-new floozy of a German officer. A “French 75” is an American drink named after a caliber of French artillery in World War One.

Recipe of the “French 75” cocktail 2 oz French cognac 5 oz of chilled champagne 1.5 oz lemon juice 1 tsp. superfine sugar

Champagne – Strasser and fellow German officers are joined by Renault while living it up for the second night in Rick’s.

Brandy – Carl serves brandy to the Leuctags to salute their escape to America.

Brandy – Rick offers brandy to Annina (Bulgarian refugee girl) as she prepares to prostitute herself to Renault to save herself and her husband.

Cognac – Laszlo orders for himself and Ilsa the second night in Rick’s.

Brandy – Rick continues drinking recklessly at his own bar.

Champagne – After the publicly defiant singing of the Marseillaise, Lazslo and the French officers toast the humiliation of the Germans.

Champagne – Ilsa and Rick drink in Rick's room the second night.

Whisky – Rick doses Laszlo with medicinal whisky after Laszlo gets roughed-up while escaping a police crackdown on the Resistance.

Vichy Water – Renault pours himself a non-alcoholic drink of this after Rick has shot Strasser, but in a symbolic act drops Vichy into the trash.

THE END

[hobbitpottaaaa]

Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser in “Air” (2023)

[dreamingincolorrr]

Original Nike Principles from Rob Strasser (1977)

[houseofgeekery]

Movie Review: 'Air'

Plot: In 1984, Nike’s basketball shoe division is a disaster. A third and distant banana behind Adidas and Converse, sales are abysmal. In fact, things have become so bad that Co-Founder Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) and Marketing VP Rob Strasser (Justin Bateman) are considering shutting down the entire division. Enter Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) Nike’s basketball talent scout. Vaccaro sees Michael…

[whitepolaris]

He Just Did It

In Nehalem Cemetery stands a grave so bold, a grave that stands out so clearly among the rest, that you'd think it was designed by an advertising agent.

You'd be right. This grave marks the remains of Robert Jay Strasser, the ad man who helped create Nike's "Just Do It" campaign and the Air Jordan craze before moving on to help revitalize the adidas brank of sneakers.

Child-sized adidas hang from the trees surrounding Strasser's grave, and loved ones leave decorations, bottles, and other trinkets nearby. The tombstone is an impressive boulder, split down the middle, engraved with Strasser's own words. He is a sampling:

Rob's Words

Here lies a man bigger than life, A builder of teams, a dreamer of dreams. A visionary who saw around corners of stone. A friend who protected strangers as well as his own. Passionate and warm, loyal and kind, Generous of heart, brilliant of mind, He loved and was loved for all that he grave And that love will live on, far beyond this grave.

[theloniousbach]

ALMOST LIVESTREAM: TAD SHULL with Rob Schneiderman, Paul Gill, and Joe Strasser, SMALL’S JAZZ CLUB, 21 JANUARY 2024, 7:30 pm set

I went back to August 2022 for a show of Mark Turner joining Miki Yamanaka’s tour. Since Turner and TAD SHULL recorded a very nice albums of ballads and because Shull was conveniently on the schedule, I picked this one for enjoyment and a writing puzzle to answer.

So, comparisons: Turner is the more elegant saxophonist. I have seen Shull before and enjoyed him. His gigs, like this one, are very off the cuff with him calling tunes and keys seemingly on the fly. That adds a certain unpolished-ness to his playing. But, the Eddie Harris/Cryin’ Blues late in the set along with Mellow Mood from a Wes Montgomery/Jimmy Smith recording helped me recognize a soul jazz element to his playing. The roughness is intentional. So it took me about half the set for me—and perhaps them—to get their bearings. The On the Trail opener hadn’t quite settled in and Mellow Mood wasn’t exactly mellow. John Lewis’ Milestones didn’t quite settle in. Oddly I Want To Talk About You as the ballad worked very well as did Beautiful Love as a closer.

Another comparison: Yamanaka as the leader called the shots with Turner and she is a vivacious pianist. Rob Schneiderman was perfectly fine but the dynamics were just different. I appreciated Paul Gill and, especially, Joe Strasser as this night’s rhythm section. They could be polished in the service of Shull’s vision. Strasser, like Yamanaka’s drummer Jimmy McBride, was inventive and propulsive.

I expected and got a straightahead set of standards. The contexts and comparisons were a nice bonus.

[htsportt]

Giày Bóng Đá Adidas Chính Hãng Sân Cỏ Nhân Tạo  – Thương Hiệu Toàn Cầu

Adidas luôn biết cách hoàn thiện thiết kế và công nghệ sản xuất giày của mình. Bởi vậy, những sản phẩm giày bóng đá chính hãng Adidas khi ra mắt tạo được hiệu ứng rất tốt. Đối với những người yêu bóng ��á trên toàn thế giới. Chính thành công chinh phục sự hài lòng của khách hàng. Với những sản phẩm giày bóng đá chất lượng đã đưa thương hiệu vươn lên vị trí hàng đầu thế giới.

Tìm Hiểu Lịch Sử Hình Thành và Phát Triển Của Dòng Giày Bóng Đá Adidas Chính Hãng 

Adidas là thương hiệu giày đá bóng chính hãng từ Đức. Được thành phần lập năm 1924 với tiền thân là công ty Gebruder Dassler Schuhfabrik. Trải qua nhiều biến cố mà đỉnh điểm là cuộc đối đầu giữa 2 nhà sáng lập Gebruder Dassler Schuhfabrik và Rudolf Dassler đã khiến Adidas lâm vào khủng hoảng.

Tuy nhiên sau đó với sự lãnh đạo tài tình René Jäggi. Cùng các cộng sự tài năng là Peter Moore và Rob Strasser đã đưa Adidas giành lại ngôi vương thế giới. Các mẫu giày đa dạng, thiết kế đẹp mắt của Adidas chinh phục tất cả những người yêu bóng đá. Đến nay, thương hiệu này đã trở thành biểu tượng bất hủ trong làng thể thao thế giới.

Vì sao nên sở hữu một đôi giày bóng đá Chính Hãng Adidas

Giày đá banh Adidas chính hãng  sở hữu chất lượng tuyệt vời chinh phục mọi tầng lớp khách hàng. Từ những cầu thủ thi đấu chuyên nghiệp cho đến những người yêu môn thể thao vua này.

Sở Hữu Công Nghệ Sản Xuất Giày Bóng Đá Hiện Đại

Adidas luôn dẫn đầu xu thế khi sở hữu hàng loạt công nghệ hiện đại, tối tân như.

Công Nghệ Non-stop Grip trên upper giày đá bóng chính hãng Adidas

Đây là công nghệ mà Adidas rất tự hào. Nó có khả năng giúp các đôi giày tăng ma sát với da bóng. Chống thấm nước tốt và đặc biệt là có khả năng chống trơn trượt. Phù hợp thi đấu trên mặt cỏ sân nhân tạo.

Để nhận biết đôi giày bóng đá cỏ nhân tạo Adidas. Bạn đang sở hữu có sử dụng công nghệ này hay không. Bạn chỉ cần chà giày và một quả bóng sẽ thấy độ ma sát rất ổn định. Đồng thời, bạn cũng có thể kiểm tra bằng cách xem phần chữ dòng chữ NSG được trên thân giày với những đôi giày trang b�� công nghệ Non-stop Grip.

Control Skin Trên Bề Mặt Giày Đá Banh Adidas Chính Hãng 

Công nghệ Control Skin nổi bật với vân nổi trên thân giày đá banh adidas. Từ đó giúp cho sự tiếp xúc giữa bóng với mặt giày có kiểm soát hơn. Và cầu thủ có thể hoàn toàn chủ động trên sân với những đường chuyền bóng và dứt điểm chính xác.

Công Nghệ Speed Mesh Của Dòng Giày Đá Bóng Adidas

Công nghệ này giúp tối ưu và giảm tối đa trọng lượng đôi giày đá bóng Adidas với một lớp da mỏng. Chắc chắn giúp cầu thủ cảm thấy “đi như không đi”. Đồng thời hỗ trợ gia tăng tốc độ di chuyển một cách dễ dàng và khả năng xử lý tình huống trở nên mượt mà hơn.

Thiết Kế Giày Bóng Đá Đẹp Mắt, Vô Cùng Đa Dạng

Hiếm có thương hiệu giày đá banh chính hãng trên thế giới nào vượt mặt được Adidas. Về sự đa dạng trong thiết kế mẫu mã. Hầu hết các thiết kế của Adidas đều trẻ trung, thời trang và khỏe khoắn. Nó không chỉ là người bạn đồng hành bảo vệ đôi chân của bạn trên sân cỏ. Mà còn giúp bạn trở nên nổi bật và thời trang hơn.

Với thiết kế đa dạng như vậy, khách hàng có nhiều lựa chọn khác nhau phù hợp với từng mặt sân thi đấu như. Giày bóng đá sân cỏ nhân tạo, giày bóng đá sân cỏ tự nhiên,…Khi mang giày bóng đá chính hãng Adidas. Có cảm giác ôm sát chân vô cùng thoải mái theo từng chuyển động linh hoạt trên sân.

Phù Hợp Với Nhiều Loại Sân Và Vị Trí Cầu Thủ Trên Sân

Với thiết kế đa dạng như vậy, khách hàng có nhiều lựa chọn khác nhau phù hợp với từng mặt sân thi đấu như. Giày bóng đá sân cỏ nhân tạo, giày bóng đá sân cỏ tự nhiên,…Khi mang giày bóng đá chính hãng Adidas có cảm giác ôm sát chân vô cùng thoải mái theo từng chuyển động linh hoạt trên sân.

Ngoài ra, còn rất nhiều mẫu giày phù hợp với từng vị trí trên sân khác nhau. Từ đó giúp tăng mức độ phủ sóng rộng khắp của các đôi giày thể thao bóng đá Adidas trên sân bóng toàn thế giới.

Về giá cả giày đá bóng chính hãng Adidas được đánh giá. Là rất phải chăng phù hợp với chất lượng vượt trội mang lại cho người dùng.

Những Mẫu Giày Bóng Đá Adidas Cỏ Nhân Tạo  Được Yêu Thích Nhất

Giày Bóng Đá Cỏ Nhân Tạo Adidas X

Sản phẩm giày sân cỏ nhân tạo Adidas X được ra mắt trên thị trường từ năm 2015. Đã nhận được đánh giá rất cao từ khách hàng. Có 2 phiên bản: dành cho cầu thủ chuyên nghiệp và giày dành cho cầu thủ tập luyện được phát triển phù hợp với nhu cầu sử dụng của các nhóm khách hàng khác nhau.

Trong đó nổi bật nhất chính là sản phẩm Adidas X Ghosted. Được coi như bóng ma tốc độ. Đôi giày này sở hữu thiết kế độc đáo 3 sọc trên bề mặt giày. Nó được lấy cảm hứng từ cảm hứng từ sải cánh của loài chim ưng – Peregrine Falcon. Con  vật có tốc độ nhanh nhất thế giới đạt đến 322km/h, là biểu tượng cho mẫu giày bứt tốc Adidas X Ghosted.

Giày Bóng Đá Cỏ Nhân Tạo Adidas Copa

Giày sân cỏ nhân tạo Adidas Copa sở hữu thiết kế đẹp mắt với tính năng vượt trội. Đã đưa tên tuổi của Adidas vươn xa. Thậm chí nó còn trở thành đại diện cho hãng Adidas trong thị trường giày bóng đá.

Giày Bóng Đá Cỏ Nhân Tạo Adidas Predator

Giày sân cỏ nhân tạo Adidas Predator sở hữu lịch sử phát triển lâu đời. Tuy nhiên, Predator chỉ thực sự bước lên tầm cao mới khi có cuộc cải tiến vào năm 2018. Sau khi hồi sinh giày bóng đá Adidas Predator, nó đã đạt được nhiều thành tựu đáng nể và được khách hàng trên khắp thế giới yêu thích.

Cách Nhận Biết Giày Đá Banh Chính Hãng Adidas

Adidas đã quá nổi tiếng và trở thành niềm ao ước của tất cả những người yêu bóng đá. Để không mua phải hàng giả, hàng nhái, hàng gia công kém chất lượng. Bạn cần xem xét tỉ mỉ đôi giày.

Đầu tiên là kiểm tra tem giày. Đối với giày đá banh chính hãng Adidas tem giày được in sắc nét. Do dùng mặc chất lượng cao sẽ không bị phai màu. Sau một quá trình sử dụng hoặc gây dị ứng cho da.

Sau đó, bạn cần xem xét chi tiết đường may có sắc nét, đều và chắc chắn hay không? Với giày bóng đá Adidas đế giày có những hạt nở ở bên ngoài, nếu sờ vào sẽ cho cảm giác mềm mại, êm ái và chắc chắn. Form giày chuẩn, khôn, không bị méo mó. Đặc biệt phần lót giày sẽ có mã sản phẩm ở phần đuôi. Bạn hãy xem xét để biết được hành thật và hàng giả.

Tại HT SPORT, chúng tôi chuyên bán giày đá banh chính hãng Adidas với chất lượng tốt nhất. Quý khách hàng có nhu cầu tư vấn và mua sắm vui lòng liên hệ với chúng tôi theo thông tin sau:

HT SPORT – GIÀY ĐÁ BÓNG ADIDAS CHÍNH HÃNG SỐ 1 HÀ NỘI

Hotline: 0988466455 – 09694982660

Website: https://htsports.com.vn/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Giayhangre

Email: mailto:htsports.com.vn@gmail.com

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@giayhangre

Địa chỉ: Kiot 9 277 Nguyễn Trãi, Phường Thanh Xuân Trung, Quận Thanh Xuân Hà Nội

[wittywinks]

Air - Movie Review

AIR

A movie by Ben Affleck

These days people watch movies while commuting to office, during office hours (shocking, but true!), on road trips, in restaurants while eating, bathing…yes, the list is endless. With the advent of OTT platforms and cheap internet we watch anything, everything and all the time.

But I still prefer the “old fashioned” way of watching movies on weekends. To select something that will make a lazy Sunday noon interesting and entertaining is quite a task at times but I make sure it is worth the wait.

Last Sunday I saw “Air”, a movie based on Nike’s transformation from an also-ran sports shoe company to the leader in basketball shoe sales.

Initially I thought the movie was an adaptation of Nike founder Phil Knight’s bestseller memoir “Shoe Dog” but it isn’t. Instead, it focuses on one of Nike’s foremost employees, basketball talent scout Sonny Vaccaro, played by Matt Damon, who is hired to sign NBA players for marketing their basketball shoe line. Seeing Damon as a middle-aged man with a paunch and a weary face, in simple t shirts and pants working in a typical 80s office setting felt so refreshing somehow. Every other office-based movie or show these days has slick suits, ray-ban shades, super sleek bodies, razor sharp looks with employees looking more like models off the ramp walk than college graduates with degrees.

Along with Matt Damon, the movie boasts of an impressive star cast of –

Ben Affleck as Phil Knight

Chris Tucker as VP of Nike’s Basketball division

Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan, Michael Jordan’s mother

Chris Messina as David Falk, Jordan’s agent

Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser, Director of Marketing at Nike

Matthew Maher as Peter Moore the creative director

Matt Damon is at the top of his game in this sports drama while traits of understated elegance and nonchalance with an unexpected dash of arrogance in Ben Affleck’s Phil makes him a delight to watch. The argumentative verbal banter over telephone (yes, it is the 80s, remember?!) between Matt Damon and Chris Messina is thoroughly entertaining making you chuckle while the depth and grace portrayed by Viola Davis steals the show from everyone around her. Matt Damon’s short, game-changing speech addressing Michael towards the end makes you sit up to listen and process each word as future is unveiled in the form of newspaper cut-outs and headlines on the screen.

A casual scene in office where Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser, laments about his personal life to Matt is so realistic and superbly enacted, that though you may have heard similar conversation before, it emits a high emotional wave. It shows us how little we know about those who we work and spend time with 5 days a week and often for years at a stretch. It made me reflect upon the sacrifices made by so many of us at some point or the other, with respect to our family lives and our personal gratification for our organization, our jobs, for that monthly pay check.

And so, when Matt Damon says to Michael in the end, “Each of us sitting here at this table will be forgotten when our time over here is up but for you” it hits you all the more. It tells you in plain, simple words – most of us are replaceable, forgettable. It makes you realize that legends are born once in a while and are one among millions.

Apart from the serious dialogue exchanges, the movie has its fair share of laughs and witty one-liners as well, especially those delivered by Ben Affleck wearing a deadpan expression. The wonderful comic timing of Chris Tucker and his matter-of-fact life truths gives the movie many light moments. The banter amongst employees as they are discussing, brainstorming or arguing is so natural, you will be able to relate to it instantly if you have ever worked in a corporate environment.

Even though the entire movie is a pursuit of Michael Jordan, Affleck chooses not to show his face even once, adding enigma and arrogance to the then future legend.

Though we all know how the end will pan out, (who hasn’t heard of Air Jordan shoes from Nike, bestsellers since its launch?) the slick editing and smooth direction keep you riveted to the screen. Maybe cause somewhere behind all the negativity in life, we all believe in the power of dreams, no matter how absurd or unattainable they may seem.

With this movie, we get to know and carry with us a story about a legend, or maybe two legends. And isn’t that one of the reasons we watch movies for? To be a part of stories, to peek into the lives of people who seem like us in every way but still so different, so inaccessible, so inspiring.

Watch this movie for its story-line, acting, simple but thought-provoking dialogues, direction, and yes, to see Ben Affleck’s purple Porsche, or rather “grape” coloured Porsche!

[andithil]

Happy 55th Birthday Jason Bateman → January 14th, 1969

[unfoldingmoments]

Air

Nike Principles from Rob Strasser 1. Our business is change 2. We’re on offense. All the time. 3. Perfect results count — not a perfect process. Break the rules: fight the law. 4. This is as much about battle as about business. 5. Assume nothing. Make sure people keep their promises. Push yourselves push others. Stretch the possible. 6. Live off the land. 7. Your job isn’t done until the job is done. 8. Dangers Bureaucracy. Personal ambition. Energy takers vs. energy givers. Knowing our weaknesses. Don’t get too many things on the platter. 9. It won’t be pretty. 10. If we do the right things we’ll make money damn near automatic.

SONNY VACCARO Vaccaro is best known for his tenure with Nike, Inc., where he signed Michael Jordan to his first sneaker deal. Vaccaro left Nike for Adidas, then Reebok. My fav Sonny's speech below: I just can’t understand why kids want to make less money with a rival shoe company. People that know what the hell a Nike is. I always go through the mommas. The mommas run sh*t. I need my job, Sonny. Don’t play.

That slogan came from a convict in front of a firing squad who was asked what his last words were. Just do it.

We’d be better off signing my mom. We need more money. We can’t get f*cking Jordan. I brought you here to grow the basketball business. Basketball’s the future. Is this going to lead to some Buddhist afroism I don’t want to hear?

He’s too small to be that good in the NBA as he was in college. I need you done now. I don’t want to sign three players, I want to sign one. Him. He doesn’t wear the shoe. He is the shoe. The shoe is him.

I do see what you’re doing with this. A shoe is always just a show until someone steps into it. I gotta say, it’s beautiful. Sometimes the most you can do is all you can do. He doesn’t want to be here, but he will listen. I promise you that you have our attention. Young boys got to have some fun too. It’s an American story, and that’s why Americans love it. Once they build you up as high as they can, they are gonna tear you down. A lot of people can climb that mountain, but it’s the way down that breaks them. You are Michael Jordan and your story is going to make us want to fly. Nike has long been in search of its basketball star, we believe you are the star.

Great speech. Emotional. We got ’em. I appreciate that you believe in me, man.

You eat; we eat. That’s all he’s asking. I agree that the business is unfair. You’re remembered for the rules you break. Hey Michael, welcome to Nike. We just signed Michael Jordan! Big steps is how we made this place. I don’t have friends; I have clients. If we ruin the business, at least we had fun doing it. You’re a brilliant guy, Sonny, and you have courage. That is what you do here. Everybody knew.

RIP Visionay Shoe Designer Peter Moore "The first Air Jordan set the standard for footwear obsession in America." — Brendan Dunne, sneaker podcaster ---- PETER MOORE

But Moore spent most of his career with Adidas, where he worked in various executive capacities for more than a quarter of a century. 

Moore died last April after a career of transforming not just the sneaker industry, but global consumer culture, with the power of his imagery. 

He’s best known for his role with Nike. 

Moore worked with company executives to land Jordan as a client at the start of his NBA career in 1984, then worked with the budding superstar to create Air Jordan sneakers.

Among other highly visible contributions to global brand culture, Moore created the Nike Jumpman logo in 1988, now the icon that represents Jordan Brands, and the familiar Adidas three-stripe mountain logo, which debuted in 1991.

Further Reading: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Documentary: 30 for 30 : "Sole Man", 2015 Sony Vaccaro Netflix: The Last Dance

[glenngaylord]

Swoosh! - Film Review: Air ★★★★

I’m not the world’s biggest sports fan, although give me two weeks of Olympic Games and I’ll watch almost every solo event. I enjoy watching people push past their own limits, seeing the years and years of training right there in the focus of their hard stares and that beautiful release when they stick their landings. Team sports, however, trigger me, sending me right back to gym class where the dumb jocks would knock me down onto the basketball court surface for a rousing game of “Trip-A-Fag”.  I’d always get up, brush myself off and adopt a “You guys!” attitude, but inside, I died just a little bit each time. So is it any wonder I can only stomach the halftime show at the Super Bowl or watch a graceful gymnast execute a perfect dismount as she vies for the gold?

 Despite all of the past trauma, I still enjoy a good sports movie. When Jimmy Chitwood promises to make that final winning shot in Hoosiers, he’s swearing a blood oath to all of us hoping for a better tomorrow. Is it possible to look at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s entrance steps without thinking of Rocky and the promise the title character represents?

 The same feeling, I thought, must be true for any sports fan who first tried on a pair of Air Jordan sneakers and recognized what it meant to step into the shoes of the most legendary basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan. In Ben Affleck’s fifth feature as a director, Air,  he, with debuting writer Alex Convery, explores the incendiary time in 1984 when Nike sought to sign the then little known basketball player to their company, changing forever the way athletes participated in the profits of products to which they attached their names. It may be your typical David vs. Goliath story, but it’s still a tremendously fun triumph nonetheless.

 The story gets told through the lens of schlubby Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon, a far cry from his 2007 People magazine Sexiest Man Alive days, and relishing every bit of it), a sports marketing executive for Nike who we meet as he scouts players for his company’s flailing product line. He has a career going nowhere fast and needs to prove himself. Desperate to compete with the much more popular Adidas and Converse brands, Vaccaro faces an uphill battle when met with a dwindling budget and CEO Phil Knight (Affleck), who doesn’t think they have much of a future with basketball shoes at all. Vaccaro’s fellow marketing pals, led by the wonderfully deadpan Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) don’t seem to have one good idea, until one evening, Vaccaro watches footage of a young Michael Jordan, replaying a particular shot over and over. Something about the way Jordan handles himself clues Vaccaro into the fact that he was witnessing a once in a generation player.

 Vaccaro springs into action willing to go all in on Jordan. He confers with fellow exec Howard White (Chris Tucker, delightful here) and decides to break some rules to get what he wants. That includes bypassing Jordan’s Agent David Falk (Chris Messina) and going straight to Michael Jordan’s parents, wonderfully played by real live spouses, Julius Tennon and Viola Davis. While Davis delivers a strong performance and gets to the heart of what really matters, that those who get taken advantage of, be they athletes, artists, writers, or any number or people who are not the 1%, deserve their share of the pie, for me, it’s Messina who nearly walks away with the whole film. His Falk, who spends most of his time on the phone, delivers some of the funniest and filthiest arias of anger I’ve heard since Paul Newman put on his hockey gear in Slap Shot. Matthew Maher also proves memorable as Peter Moore, the designer of the original Air Jordan prototype and who arguably came up with the name. His scenes crackle with the awe of a man who loves his own creativity.

 Air has that uncanny ability to maintain suspense despite the audience already knowing the outcome. The entire film has a natural quality which feels like it was made back in the 1980s, like some long lost journalistic procedural. It has this understated aesthetic thanks to Robert Richardson’s unfussy cinematography, William Goldenberg’s well-paced editing which flies by yet allows for grace notes, Francois Audouy’s perfectly muted production design, and especially Charles Antoinette Jones’ costume design, which hilariously nails every pleat on Damon’s khaki’s and every shade of purple on Affleck’s track suit.

 As we follow Vaccaro on his journey, I started to feel something for him and the other characters. Even though this is a story of a corporation trying to stay afloat and probably screw over a young fledgling athlete in the process, it spoke to me about the dream of excellence, of talent, of Black excellence, of breaking the rules to go after what you want. Every character in this films pops and has a chance to shine. Other standouts include Marlon Wayans in a brief scene as a former coach who dispenses great advice to Vaccaro, and Affleck himself, who brings a prickly yet bohemian quirkiness to his big boss character.

 If I had to gripe about anything, and I hate to because this is one funny and sweet film, it’s the fact that it has a surplus of endings and still misses out on one. Earlier in the story, Bateman’s character sets up something so emotional, I was certain it would get paid off in the end. I imagined it in my head, knowing when I saw it, I would cry. In fact, I get teary-eyed thinking about it even now. Yet, the filmmakers decided not to include it, opting instead to overplay their hand with 10 other endings. Oh well, all is forgiven when you can get a guy like me to stand up and cheer for a sports movie like Air.

[nothieflike]

Air (2023)

★★★☆☆

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Written by: Alex Convery

Based on: Actual events

Perhaps not surprisingly, the film this brought to mind most by way of comparison was another Ben Affleck-directed inspired-by-true-evenets movie, 2012's Argo. Both are slickly produced period pieces telling stories whose outcomes are already well established (or at least easily inferred). The trick of both movies is that in Affleck's able directorial hands, there is a genuine air of tension and suspense. Argo covers the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the CIA operation tasked with rescuing them. Air covers the efforts of the flagging Nike basketball shoe division in 1984 as they try to convince young Michael Jordan to sign a shoe deal with them despite his preference for Adidas. In Argo, we know the hostages will be rescued so the operation will succeed. In Air, we know the Jordans will make the deal, and yet somehow the pre-determined outcome doesn't feel foregone while watching either.

The story follows Sonny Vacarro (played portly but exquisitely by Matt Damon), who is Nike's in-house basketball ambassador. The Nike basketball division in these years is getting clobbered by Converse and Adidas and Nike's board of directors is pressuring CEO Phil Knight (played as mystifyingly complex by Ben Affleck) to focus more on their bread-and-butter business: running shoes.

Marketing Exec Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman playing Michael Bluth again only without the convenient scapegoat of, well, the rest of the Bluths) is content to stick to their old losing strategy of picking up sponsorships for a few third tier players but Sonny wants to make a hail mary run at getting projected third round pick in the draft, Michael Jordan, by eschewing the diversification angle and blowing their whole budget on the one player.

The biggest obstacle to this is that Jordan has publicly and definitively stated he has no interest in working with Nike. Sonny then spends the first half of the movie slowly convincing everyone around him, Strasser, then Knight, that the plan has merit. The second half of the movie focuses on the dance between Sonny and Michael's mother, Deloris (played with room-shattering gravitas by Viola Davis) to give Nike a fair shake. The uphill climb and Sonny's shifting, ballsy strategies to overcome each hurdle are what make the movie really shine and the scenes with Damon and Davis are electric.

Some of the details of the creation of the iconic first edition Air Jordan are featured as well including a memorable performance by Matthew Maher as in-house shoe designer Peter Moore. Chris Messina also turns in a fun, over-the-top turn as Jordan's agent, David Falk. The one somewhat mystifying inclusion in the cast is Chris Tucker as Howard White. Tucker is... fine, doing more or less his usual hyper-verbal Chris Tucker thing, but the character brings very little to the overall narrative. Marlon Wayans's brief appearance as George Raveling is more impactful to the story and feels like the kind of character that would have been merged with White in a cleaner version of the script, but I understand one of real-life Michael Jordan's stipulations to Affleck was that White (a friend of Jordan) be included as a character in the film. I guess that makes Tucker's presence a necessary mistake?

The acting is universally excellent and the script and direction work in tandem to set just the right pace to give the story room to breathe while not bogging down with unnecessary side plots or belaboring the point. Like Argo, this isn't a flashy film that will make you want to rush out to see it again or even stick with you for a long time afterward, but it's got a lot going for it. That said, a couple of minor details did irk me a little. The way Michael Jordan himself is handled in the film is a bit peculiar; he's present in the film but fleetingly and Affleck goes a long way out of his way to keep the stand-in actor's face hidden from view and he says maybe two lines. I get that de-aging or deepfake style CGI (such as with the Luke Skywalker scenes in The Mandalorian) was probably out of scope for the project, but I think I'd have preferred to just let the actor be seen. The other small gripe is there is a framing device using what I presume are some of Phil Knight's zen koan-esque business strategies as title cards. I don't know much about the real life Phil Knight but the film portrays him a bit unevenly, making him out to be both a bit of a maverick-guru as well as kind of a dippy hack. It wasn't clear if I was meant to see the title cards as sage advice responsible for the unbridled success of Nike the company or if my initial eye-rolling reaction to them was in fact correct. Either way, it was a small directorial or editorial decision that I thought added very little to the end product.

I went in thinking, "Okay, it's a free movie, it only has to be worth the couple of hours" and I walked out thinking, "That was more than just worth the time, I genuinely enjoyed that." I recommend the movie, it doesn't have anything particularly revelatory to say or an edgy take on a particular moment that matters mostly to sports fans, shoe collectors, and I guess Nike fans, but it's a well crafted film that provides great entertainment value, even if it weren't free.

[ziadanworld]

9 افلام مثل فيلم Air 2023 شاهدها الآن | توصيتنا

‘فيلم Air‘ هو فيلم درامي رياضي مبني على أحداث واقعية أدت إلى إنشاء خط أحذية Nike’s Air Jordans ، والذي بدوره ساعد في إطلاق Nike في العلامة التجارية الضخمة الناجحة كما هو عليه اليوم. الفيلم من إخراج بن أفليك ، الذي يلعب دور البطولة فيه إلى جانب مات ديمون ، وجيسون بيتمان ، وفيولا ديفيس . بعد نزول مطرد إلى الإفلاس ، قام رئيس شركة Nike Inc. Rob Strasser والمؤسس المشارك Phil Knight بتعيين Sonny…