Film Previews

“Air”
R | 112 minutes
Director: Ben Affleck
Stars: Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck

The film is based on the true story of how Nike created its iconic sneaker, the Air Jordan, and the company’s relationship with basketball great Michael Jordan. Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) and Nike pursue basketball rookie Michael Jordan, creating a partnership that revolutionizes the world of sports and contemporary culture with Ben Affleck as Nike’s CEO Phil Knight. This moving story follows the career-defining gamble of an unconventional team with everything on the line, the uncompromising vision of a mother who knows the worth of her son’s immense talent, and the basketball phenom who would become the greatest of all time. As for Michael Jordan’s involvement in the film, well, while his parents have been cast, he has not. He will instead be appearing in archive footage. 

“Tetris”
R | 118 minutes
Director: Jon S. Baird
Stars: Taron Egerton, Mara Huf, Miles Barrow

Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, the founder of a company called Bullet-Proof Software, and a man who basically stumbled into the legacy of Tetris at a gaming convention in his new home country of Japan. He instantly realizes the potential of a game that had yet to make its way around the Iron Curtain to any part of the world other than Tokyo. And he wants a piece of it.  Rogers narrates “Tetris,” a complicated film about a simple game. It’s just a rolling array of dropping blocks, but the details about market shares, legal rights and Cold War politics drive this plot, not the game itself. Rogers is a low-level player in the gaming world, and getting the rights to Tetris will require navigating around power figures in both business and politics.

“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”
PG-13 | 134 minutes
Directors: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Stars: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” brings the rich world and playful spirit of the legendary roleplaying game to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure. The movie has been described by one of its stars as “ ‘Game of Thrones’ mixed with a little ‘Princess Bride’ [and] just a smidge of ‘Holy Grail’ ” … it’s “poppy, it’s eighties heartfelt, [and] there’s a bit of ‘Goonies’ in there.”  n