Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio across regional Victoria on July 6, 2023.

(M) ★★★

Director: James Mangold.

Cast: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann.

It turned out that "spelunking" didn't mean what she thought it meant.

For a generation of fans of a certain age, the first three Indiana Jones movies set the benchmark for escapist entertainment. They were, and are, the ultimate adventure films thanks to their classic set-pieces, a rampaging score, and one of cinema's most iconic heroes. In many a young mind, they inspired an interest in everything from archaeology and Biblical historicity to stuntwork and whipcracking. 

I land firmly within that generation. I've seen Raiders Of The Lost Ark more times than probably any other film. I've read the books and the comics, played The Fate Of Atlantis, cracked a whip, and dressed as Jones for a fancy dress party. I've even seen Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull three times. For me, any Indiana Jones is better than no Indiana Jones. 

Setting this high level of bias aside, I can say confidently that the fifth and final outing of Professor Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is solidly good without being great. It fails to reach the lofty heights of the first three films, but nails the tone of the series better than Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. It's authentically Indiana Jones, even though it's lacking in some departments and gets very weird in its final act.

After an opening sequence set during WWII featuring a CGI de-aged Indiana Jones, the film finds a 70-year-old Indy (played by an 80-year-old Ford) preparing for retirement in 1969. But a visit from his god-daughter Helena Shaw (Waller-Bridge) sets him on the trail of the film's MacGuffin - the Dial of Destiny. The powerful yet broken relic not only sent Helena's father Basil Shaw (Jones) mad, but it's also the target of a former Nazi scientist (Mikkelsen), hellbent on using the dial to correct some of Hitler's mistakes.

Re-watching Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull recently, I was struck by how that film's tone was ever-so-slightly off compared with the previous three Indy adventures. It accidentally erred towards goofy instead of charmingly amusing, its wackiness sucking a little too much of the tension out of proceedings. In Dial Of Destiny, the tone is spot on. The humour has a sincerity that avoids Crystal Skull's wink-at-the-audience silliness. Dial Of Destiny keeps its integrity and its sense of danger close to hand amid the silliness.

This means that even when the film ends up in a very strange place in the final third, we can still get a beautifully heartfelt moment and a hearty laugh out of it. It means that amid the seemingly endless car chases, the gags land and we worry this will be one scrape too many for this surprisingly spritely old man.

Age has certainly wearied Indiana Jones, even if Harrison Ford is in absurdly good shape for an octogenarian. That's a factor in Dial Of Destiny in so many ways, some good, some bad. It adds a certain thematic and emotional richness to the film in places - something not seen so prominently in the franchise outside of Last Crusade. Jones sees the world has passed him by in some moments, which is hard to take for him and the audience. He's as much of a relic as the ones he teaches about or recovers from lost temples. But his senior citizen status does bring its own "ooh, there goes a hip" kind of thinking to some of the action scenes.

Somehow it mostly works. The action set pieces - most notably an opening sequence involving a train full of Nazis and an early horse ride through a New York subway - are good, though a few more with iconic ambition would have been better than yet another car chase. Having very punchable Nazis as the baddies is a great move, Mikkelsen avoids chewing the scenery but brings a studied menace to his role, while Waller-Bridge makes a fantastic companion for Jones. 

As for Ford, it's one of his better performances, and easily the most well-rounded piece of acting he's delivered in the franchise. He always made Jones a man who could be hit and be hurt, but a desire to do what's right (mixed with bloody-minded stubbornness) always got him back on his feet. In Dial Of Destiny, Jones has been hit and hurt so much he's slightly broken, and he's angry at the world because of it. He's still bloody-mindedly stubborn and driven by a strong moral compass, but he has also kinda given up. And having nothing left to care about makes him dangerous. Somehow, Ford conveys all that - the rage, the fragility, the danger, the emptiness - and makes Indy more interesting than he's ever been.

Overall it's a bit long (I blame the car chases), some of it feels kinda tepid or lazily plotted, and the ending is going to take some getting used to, but it has its heart and its tone and its fedora in the right place. Is it a fitting end to all Indiana Jones movies? Its final moments are subversively perfect in one sense, while in another sense, they can't match the wit of Raiders' conclusion or the grandeur of Last Crusade's.

But like I said, any Indiana Jones is better than no Indiana Jones. And if this is the end, well, thank you, Indiana Jones. It's been a wild ride, and we've loved every minute of it. Even the bit where you dodged a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined fridge.

Elemental

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio across regional Victoria on June 22, 2023.

(PG) ★★★

Director: Peter Sohn.

Cast: (voices of) Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Mason Wertheimer, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O'Hara.

"What makes you think we overwatered and then set fire to the plants?"

Water falls in love with fire. That's the elevator pitch here. Oh, and it's a reflection on the immigrant experience. And it's made by Pixar. How could it miss?

Pixar films are great at being several things at once. Inside Out is about anthropomorphic personifications of feelings go on a twisted journey through the human mind, but it's also about becoming a teenager and leaving childhood behind, plus the power and necessity of all our emotions. The Incredibles is a superhero movie, but it's also about being true to yourself, and what makes everyone special. Finding Nemo & Dory are great adventures, but are also about disability. This combination of deep themes and all-ages entertainment is the secret to Pixar's success.

Elemental is great at juggling its surface love story and its deeper immigrant themes, but, oddly, it only does a passable job at getting all the, ahem, elements to work together across the whole of its runtime. As a result, Elemental is good, not great. Maybe that says more about the "great expectations" that come with each new Pixar film, and maybe I'm wrong - I was wrong about Ratatouille after my first viewing. But Elemental has all the necessary pieces, yet it can't get the puzzle to fit together like you'd hope.

The romantic odd couple here are Ember, the fiery daughter of immigrants, who is destined to take over the family business, and Wade, the wet son of privileged upper class water elements, who works as a council inspector. Wade literally spills into Ember's life and puts Ember's family business at risk of closure, but the pair soon have to work together to find the source of a major water leak that threatens to cause major damage and loss of life in Fire Town.

Firstly: don't think too hard about the physics of Elemental, otherwise it will start doing your head in. Why is water different in its water form to its person form when a Water Person can disappear into the water water? And how come the heat of a fire person... anyway, I need to stop thinking about this, or I'll get a headache.

But, more importantly, its the story that seems to have pieces missing from the equation. A moment where a character professes their desire to see a particular flower as a child seemingly comes out of nowhere, leading to a beautiful but ultimately distracting divergence. And given we don't see a single other example of a Fire Person romantically or even platonically involved with a Water Person, it feels like their relationship doesn't attract as much interest/attention as it could or should. Similarly, a subplot about a leak threatening Fire Town feels underdeveloped - was there a villain removed from the story? And why aren't more people concerned about this leak given it could literally kill thousands of people?

The film really hits its stride when Wade and Ember are forced to work together and their romance can blossom, but getting there is a bit of a struggle. What's consistently good is the world creation (physics questions aside) - the otherness of the Fire People is captured wonderfully, and their experience will no doubt speak volumes to people from migrant backgrounds - but dotted in between are story elements that don't flow as beautifully as a Water Person on a slide.

The characters are great, and the visuals are impressive, even if the cartoonish nature of the Fire and Water People is sometimes jarring against the real-looking objects they interact with. Still, it's a wonderful feat of animation to make everything as stunning as it is. Fire and water are two notoriously  difficult elements to animate, but Pixar takes such challenges in its stride these days.

Lewis and Athie give vibrant performances, with Athie somehow making Wade's predilection for bursting into tears believable. There's a strong support cast as usual, and the match of voice-to-character is an under-rated part of Pixar's magic.

Enjoyable and beautiful, Elemental manages to nail its themes and its love story, but doesn't flow or sizzle quite like its fire-water combo suggests it should.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (no spoilers)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio across regional Victoria on June 8, 2023.

(PG) ★★★★

Director: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson.

Cast: (voices of) Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Vélez, Jake Johnson, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Karan Soni, Daniel Kaluuya, Oscar Isaac, Shea Whigham.

Come-As-Your-Favourite-Superhero Day was as predictable as ever.

So you've made a successful Spidey-movie. In fact some say you've made the greatest comic book movie of all time. Your success can buy you creative freedom, and the power to tell yet more Spidey-stories.

But with great power, comes great responsibility (phew, got there in the end). After all, there is a rich web of Spidey-tales to honour and be true to, even while weaving a brand new strand. This is both the curse and the beauty of Spider-man storytelling in this day and age. Much like Batman, we are so familiar with the origin stories and raison d'êtres that we don't even need to have them explained, but it means you need to do something different and fresh each time because of that familiarity. 

But with great familiarity can come great innovation. Batman and Spider-man are ideal for telling a range of different stories in a range of different styles for this very reason. Want a noirish detective story? Both can work for that. Manga and anime? Go right ahead. Or, as is the case in Across The Spider-Verse, you can use a Spider-man story to explore the very nature of Spider-man stories. No Way Home did a similar thing, digging into what makes Spider-man Spider-man via the multiverse, but Across The Spider-verse goes even more meta. And a little bit crazy. In a good way.

The story again follows Miles Morales (Moore) AKA Spider-Man, 16 months on from his first adventure. It finds him more at home with his powers, but still struggling with his responsibilities. A new villain named Spot (Schwartzman) is giving him grief, he's finding it hard to balance his school/home life with his web-slinging life, and he misses Gwen Stacy (Steinfeld) AKA Ghost-Spider/Spider-Woman.

But when Gwen drops in from the multiverse, Miles finds there are more Spider-people out there than he ever imagined, and their role in the multiverse is more complicated than he ever realised.

Basically, like most sequels, Across The Spider-Verse is about doing "more" of everything. More of the insanely inventive visuals, more Spider-people to explore in relation to the mythos, more gags, more action, more everything. Chaotic, ferociously paced, frenetic and fun, Across The Spider-Verse almost goes too far in this more-is-more approach. Some action sequences only just stay on the right side of being too much, and the blurring of visual styles can be jarring and hard to take in some moments.

But the sequel is also excellent at expanding the themes of the first film. Whereas Into The Spider-Verse was very focused on the perils of teenage life, this one spends a welcome amount of time on the perils of being a parent of a teenager. The nature of what Spider-Man is and what he represents is taken to an exaggerated post-modern level, which actually gives the film a lot of its central tension.

Despite this bigger-is-better approach, the film still works. It's as fun and free as the first, though there's a dark undercurrent that grows as it barrels towards its cliffhanger ending (Beyond The Spider-Verse is due out in March next year). And it never forgets where its heart lies, which is in the teenage chests of its two main heroes. Their respective plights are painted in metaphorically rich colours to match the literal visual splendour going on around them.

Into The Spider-Verse was undoubtedly one of the great superhero movies, and easily one of the most important animated films of the past 20 years. That's a tough act to follow, but Across The Spider-Verse lives up to its predecessor, continuing to spin another vibrant thread in the tangled web of Spidey-stories.

John Farnham: Finding The Voice

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio across regional Victoria on May 25, 2023.

(M) ★★★★★

Director: Poppy Stockell.

"Bring forth the mollusk, cast unto me...."

No matter how popular John Farnham got - and he got about as popular as you can get in Australia in the '80s - he always seemed to retain his humility and his humour. In a country renowned for cutting down its tall poppies, the best we could muster against Whispering Jack himself was to poke fun at how many farewell tours he did. And even when his music became old-fashioned and out-of-touch, hearing You're The Voice on the radio could still send tingles up your Southern Cross. We, as a nation, love John Farnham, and this doco reminds us why that love is such a worthwhile one.

Finding Your Voice gives us the story of John Farnham the Underdog - the popstar who had it and lost it before he even realised he had it, and who then had to claw his way back. It's the story of a singer who had to wait until he was almost 40 to finally take control of his career and make the record he really wanted to make, which in turn became a smash hit beyond all other smash hits in this country. 

But it's also a beautiful love story about two mates. Farnham's tale is impossible to tell without a significant amount of the spotlight also being shone on his best friend/manager Glenn Wheatley - the man who mortgaged his house so his friend could make that long-awaited career-defining record.

These stories are told in an unassuming fashion befitting an Aussie idol who never lost his working class roots. There is no pretence here - the doco walks us through his life some start to present. We get the early highs of Sadie and Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, followed by the crushing lows of the '70s and his stint with Little River Band.

Naturally the film peaks with You're The Voice and spends a lot of time with that song, positioning it as the triumphant comeback many people forget that it was. It means Farnham's career after that gets shorter shrift here, but that's ok - Stockell has structured Farnham's story beautifully for full dramatic impact.

We don't see present-day Farnham in the film - we only hear him - and coupled with its sad final moments makes the whole thing feel like an obituary. And that's ok - too often we don't fully appreciate our great talents until they're gone, so why not pay powerful tearful tribute while they're still around. 

For those of us who have forgotten the power, influence and place Farnham's music has had in our culture, Finding Your Voice is a timely reminder of his greatness, talent and his remarkable triumph. For everyone else, sit back and enjoy one of the great Aussie success stories, writ large on the big screen, as befits a man with a big voice.

89 songs that could make it into triple j's Like A Version Hottest 100

 According to The Music, there have been over 850 cover songs featured on triple j's Like A Version  (LAV) segment since it began in 2004. That's plenty of fodder for the upcoming LAV Hottest 100, which airs from noon AEST on Saturday, July 15.

So which cover is going to win? I'll probably do a deeper dive on the favourites closer to the date (voting opens Tuesday, May 23, and closes Monday, July, 10) but I just wanted to share this list of all the previous LAVs to make it into the Hottest 100... and the Hottest 200.

There have been 36 LAVs that have made it into the Hottest 100 in the past, and as far as public records show, a further 53 were voted between 101-200. Could the upcoming LAV Hottest 100 list look a little something like this (original positions for where these songs came are in brackets)?

1. Elephant - The Wiggles, 2021 (1)
2. Bulls on Parade - Denzel Curry, 2019 (5)
3. Believe - DMA's, 2016 (6)
4. Baby Come Back - Ocean Alley, 2018 (16)
5. I Touch Myself - Lime Cordiale, 2019 (17)
6. I Was Only 19 - The Herd, 2005 (18)
7. (Lover) You Don't Treat Me No Good - Chet Faker, 2014 (21)
8. Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again - Dune Rats, 2022 (23)
9. Pumped Up Kicks - Owl Eyes, 2011 (28)
10. Real Love - Regina Spektor, 2007 (29)
11. Here Comes the Sun - Spacey Jane, 2021 (30)
12. Shooting Stars - Flume ft. Toro y Moi, 2022 (30)
13. Get Lucky - San Cisco, 2013 (39)
14. Blood - Gang of Youths, 2017 (41)
15. Yellow - King Stingray, 2022 (43)
16. Dumb Things - A.B. Original ft Paul Kelly & Dan Sultan, 2016 (45)
17. Brother - Thundamentals, 2012 (49)
18. Love Yourself - Halsey, 2016 (52)
19. Do I Wanna Know? - Chvrches, 2014 (54)
20. Breathe / Comfortably Numb / Money - Ocean Alley, 2021 (54)
21. Keeping Score - Paces ft. Guy Sebastian, 2016 (56)
22. Ausmusic Month Medley - Illy, 2013 (66)
23. A Girl Like You - Tame Impala, 2021 (66)
24. Sweet Nothing - Something For Kate, 2013 (68)
25. Lonely Boy - Matt Corby, 2012 (69)
26. Such Great Heights - Ben Folds, 2006 (70)
27. What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out? - Nothing But Thieves, 2018 (72)
28. Electric Feel - Tash Sultana, 2017 (78)

29. Lady Marmalade - G Flip, 2020 (78)
30. Big Jet Plane - Tuka, 2015 (81)
31. Welcome to the Black Parade - Alex Lahey, 2019 (83)
32. Delete - Sticky Fingers, 2015 (84)
33. Edge of Town - Paul Dempsey, 2017 (88)
34. Here Comes Your Man - Skegss, 2019 (90)
35. Bridges - Meg Mac, 2014 (91)
36. Charlie - Bugs, 2020 (91)
37. Running Up That Hill - The Wombats, 2022 (103)
38. Time After Time - Triple One, 2021 (104)
39. Why Does It Always Rain On Me? - Gang Of Youths, 2022 (105)
40. So Into You - Childish Gambino, 2015 (108)
41. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Art Vs Science, 2011 (114)
42. My Happiness - Ball Park Music, 2017 (114)
43. Romeo And Juliet - Lisa Mitchell, 2009 (116)
44. Life On Mars? - Sarah Blasko, 2016 (118)
45. When The Party's Over - Cub Sport, 2019 (118)
46. How To Make Gravy - Luca Brasi, 2016 (127)
47. Big Yellow Taxi - Allday, 2019 (130)
48. Hey Ya! - Sarah Blasko, 2010 (131)
49. Two Weeks - #1 Dads ft. Tom Snowdon, 2015 (131)
50. That Don't Impress Me Much - HAIM, 2017 (131)
51. Catch My Disease - The Terrys, 2022 (132)
52. My Boo - Flume ft. Vince Staples & KUČKA, 2017 (133)
53. Let It Happen - Meg Mac, 2017 (138)
54. Sex From The Bong - Something With Numbers, 2009 (139)
55. Hearts A Mess - Missy Higgins, 2012 (139)
56. Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Andy Bull, 2011 (141)
57. Happy - The John Butler Trio, 2014 (141)
58. Crave You - Elk Road ft. Lisa Mitchell, 2016 (142)
59. Say My Name - Glass Animals, 2022 (142)
60. Under Pressure - Ben Harper & Relentless 7, 2009 (149)
61. I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Yungblud ft. Halsey, 2019 (151)
62. Hey Now - Karnivool, 2014 (152)
63. Ultralight Beam - Cub Sport, 2016 (152)
64. Girls Just Want To Have Fun - Busby Marou, 2011 (155)
65. Kids - The Kooks, 2008 (161)
66. Chains - Matt Corby, 2016 (161)
67. Forever Young - Tones & I, 2020 (164)
68. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards - Alex Turner, 2014 (165)
69. The Special Two - Dear Seattle, 2019 (165)
70. Black Fingernails, Red Wine - Polaris, 2020 (165)
71. Stolen Dance - Ásgeir, 2014 (167)
72. Not Many - One Day, 2015 (167)
73. Hey, Ma - The Vanns, 2020 (168)
74. Pony - Abbe May, 2013 (169)
75. West Coast - James Vincent McMorrow, 2014 (170)
76. It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over - Ruel, 2021 (170)
77. Seventeen Going Under - Camp Cope, 2022 (174)

78. Video Games - Bluejuice, 2012 (176)
79. Never Tear Us Apart - Allday, 2014 (176)
80. No Surprises - Regina Spektor, 2010 (178)
81. Breathe Life - Vera Blue, 2016 (179)
82. I Try - Hockey Dad ft. Hatchie, 2019 (182)
83. Changes - JK-47, 2021 (188)
84. Don't You Forget About Me - Boy & Bear, 2021 (189)
85. Better In Blak - Beddy Rays, 2021 (190)
86. Read My Mind - Catfish And The Bottlemen, 2015 (192)
87. Runaway - Plan B, 2011 (193)
88. Sunny Afternoon - The Cat Empire, 2009 (194)
89. Song 2 - Baker Boy, 2022 (200)

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 3 (no spoilers)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio across regional Victoria on May 11, 2023.

(M) ★★★★

Director: James Gunn.

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, Sylvester Stallone.

The Wiggles In Space was surprisingly trippy.

Characters. Get them right, and you're more than halfway towards making a great movie. When we understand who they are, what they want, and what they stand for, it raises the stakes, and, to quote a legendary Faith No More song used in Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 3, we care a lot. When we see them grow, learn, fall down, and get back up again, we care even more.

It's why Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania misfired - no character arcs or development or depth. But it's why the first Guardians Of The Galaxy film worked so well. We cared about the weird tree with the three-word vocabulary, the trigger-happy space raccoon, and the rest of the motley crew of intergalactic heroes, because we got to know them and understand them and watch them grow. We came to care about them.

This is thanks to James Gunn, who bows out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in style with Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 3. The same level of attention and affection he put into the ragtag band of weirdos in the first two Guardians films (and the superb Holiday Special) is here again in Volume 3. It's full of everything that made the first one great - heart, humour, spectacle, and characters to care about.

This trilogy wrap-up centres on Rocket Raccoon (voiced to perfection by Cooper), exploring where he came from via a series of flashbacks interspersed The Godfather Part 2-style between his friends' quest to save his life. Meanwhile Star Lord AKA erstwhile Earthling Peter Quill (Pratt) is torn up over Rocket's condition and the fact his former girlfriend Gamora (Saldana) no longer knows who he is because she's a different version from an alternate timeline (quick, go and watch Endgame).

Volume 3 is a great response to the all-to-real phenomenon of "superhero fatigue". It's a quality story based around quality characters. It's script is by turns heartfelt and ridiculous. There are great visuals and some epic sequences, including a single-take fight in a corridor that is pretty mindblowing. It's soundtrack is out-of-this-world. Superheroes or no, it's just a damned good film. How can you be fatigued about superhero movies when they're this good?

The cast is mostly returning favourites, slipping back into their old roles like a pair of slippers. Pratt is ever-reliable, Bautista has made Drax one of the funniest characters in the MCU, Gillan has helped transform Nebula from C-villain to fan favourite, Klementieff perfectly fits the vibe of the film as Mantis, and Saldana gets to really cut loose for the first time as Gamora.

The newcomer is Iwuji, who is fantastic as villain High Evolutionary. Taking every opportunity to rage-spit when required, he makes the role memorable and entertaining. He's a great mix of cerebral and evil, with credit again to Gunn for making such a strange villain work in this universe. 

Gunn is firing on all cylinders again here. He's made a trilogy that ends as it starts - with great characters telling a great story, all with a song in its heart.

Air (2023)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio across regional Victoria on April 27, 2023.

(M) ★★★★

Director: Ben Affleck.

Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker, Viola Davis, Matthew Maher, Julius Tennon.

"It looks blue now, but get it away from these blue lights and... it's still blue."

Air answers two very important questions: "Can you make an entire film about a shoe?" and "Can you make a film about Michael Jordan without really having Michael Jordan in it?".

In the hands of director Affleck, the answer is a resounding "yes" to both questions. So the next round of questions becomes "Why make an entire film about a shoe?" and "Why make a film about Michael Jordan without really having Michael Jordan in it?".

To put it simply, the shoe in question is more than just a shoe. Not since Cinderella has a shoe played a more pivotal role in something. This is a shoe that made the '80s - it changed an industry, shaped a sport, warped popular culture, and helped make a man into an icon before he became a legend.

Air is the story of Nike's efforts to court and sign then-NBA rookie Michael Jordan. While you can file this in the "I Know How It Ends" basket alongside Titanic, this Moneyball-like drama milks every ounce of tension, humour and pathos out of its tale of The Little Shoe Company That Could.

Affleck takes Jordan out of this film as much as possible to focus on everyone else who helped create the must-have fashion accessory of the '80s. While it could be distracting, it's a smart directorial choice, helping keep Damon's basketball guru Sonny Vaccaro front and centre, while also subtly playing into the mythic nature of His Airness.

Damon's great as the unlikely hero, and well supported by his buddy Affleck, Bateman, the rarely seen Tucker, a sweary Messina, and a scene-stealing Davis as the quietly spoken Mrs Deloris Jordan. The cast can't be faulted, even if their characters are sketched thin. It's tempting to remark "it's just a shoe" repeatedly throughout the film, but that's because the protagonists' motivations are somewhat obscure and the stakes seem sadly low. Are they doing this because it's their job? It's not like Nike will go under if they don't sign Jordan and make a shoe for him - it's just that history will be different.

Yet the script keeps your interest, dragging you along to the inevitable. Because in the end it's about history - it's about a weird moment in our popular culture where a group of oddly dedicated men chased a dream and re-shaped our reality. And that's Air - it's about the inevitability of history and making dreams reality. Jordan was always going to be a phenomenon, and a sport star was always going to transcend their sport in a way that altered pop culture. Air celebrates the team who were smart enough to see history's wave before it broke, and then surfed it all the way to the bank.

A bangin' '80s soundtrack and some somewhat gratuitous prop placement ("Hey look it's that game/cereal/ad from the '80s") help sell the vibe of it all. And that vibe is about fun. If there are two things that the '80s were really all about, it was having a good time and making a metric fuckton of money. In that sense, Air is the perfect '80s movie.

Inspired by The Last Dance, Air serves as a perfect entrée to that acclaimed Netflix doco series. But best of all, Affleck has done a Moneyball/The Big Short; he's taken something esoteric and niche and made it enjoyable light entertainment for the world at large.