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‘AIR’ is Supremely Likable But Short of a Slam Dunk

Ben Affleck’s unlikely sports drama Air is a surprisingly involving, often very funny piece of corporate histrionics. The Amazon Studios and Warner Brothers coproduction about Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon) and Nike’s risky venture to land a contract with hotshot NBA rookie Michael Jordan in a bid to invigorate their failing basketball sneaker line isn’t the kind of movie that pops on paper but under Affleck’s steady hand, it’s a verifiable upset of a feature. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK’

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a terrible name for a film. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. A clunky mouthful, the title is culled directly from the celebrated novel of the same name from Ben Fountain, who won several novelist awards for his work including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, but that doesn’t mean that such a jargony mouthful needed to remain in place when translated to film. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad name comes under fire again when you realize that Billy Lynn doesn’t really walk all that much, he kinda just plops down in his Dallas Cowboy stadium seat and remembers exchanging “I Love You’s” with Vin Diesel until it’s his chance to perform with Destiny’s Child. If the previous sentence didn’t make a lick of sense, welcome to Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.
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