Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1 (2018) Poster

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9/10
AJ!'s Effect on Society
martinjshen7 April 2020
This short little documentary amazingly covers the widespread effect the release of the first Air Jordan's had on, not just basketball, but fashion and society in general. It arguably started "sneaker culture" and draws from many different POV's, including those intimately involved in basketball (GM's, commissioners) but also people from many different aspects of life including music, film and art.

Who would have thought that the pair I bought in the early 80's would have such a profound effect on so many. I guess I probably shouldn't have worn them so much.

Great film, with great insight.
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4/10
I'm not sure what happened
KOOLAIDBRO8 September 2020
The first hour is really good and then it gets really boring the final thirty minutes. I was a little kid when the Jordans came out and I didn't understand many things that were going on at the time, but I did know. There's so many people of no contributing value that are just thrown in this. Most of these popped with their name and whatever the occupation was or expertise and then some crazy thing that they I guess made up themselves? Like one was a lyrical sorceress, a few says style icon when I know that nobody says this about them and a self proclaimed musicoligist which what does this have to do with shoes, but OK. Most talked about the significance of the Air Jordans to society and how it changed style, the NBA forever, and how it almost never happened. Nike executives, Nike designers, Spike Lee, Chuck D and several others talk about the fight with David Stern and the controversy from the NBA not allowing the shoes to kids being murdered for them to how everyone wanted these shoes from the ghetto to the suburbs. Then some random self proclaimed whatever pops up and says something like I do when I'm having drinks with a group of people having a conversation that I have nothing of value to contribute, but I want to be part of it so I just say some off the wall trash which leads to everyone just looking at my weird a** and then there's uncomfortable silence. The last 30 minutes is full of this. It was like um...... We need more input here, but how do I get it? Oh I know a musicoligist. YAY!

NO! If this was an hour it would have been great!
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4/10
From 8 to 4...
martypecciola21 January 2020
+ impressive amount of archives!
  • too many (useless) people interviewed saying some real bs
  • They lost me in the second half. Editing was messy to me. And so the progression of the documentary.
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4/10
Began well then fell off
jshmcbrm212 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I enjoyed the making of the shoe section, many different points of view coming together to make greatness, then the pointless interviews started to bother me. Who cares what Jason Sudeikis says about AJ1. Then a singular point of view was established and I guess the film is not meant for me to watch so I turned it off.
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1/10
Easily the worst documentary on an easy subject.
ExPresidents24 January 2023
This should have been a total slam-dunk: Air Jordans, Nike, Spike Lee and other celebrities. But that's how it got derailed: WAY too many people that we don't care about talking about shoes. No one cares about Jason Sudeikis and Shannon Sharpe. We just want to see how Air Jordans affected Americans in the 80s and 90s, which they barely even talked about. This honestly felt like a sub-par YouTube video. In fact, I bet there are BETTER documentaries about Air Jordans currently on YouTube.

This is just a mediocre display of archived Getty-images and a slew of forgettable celebrities you can tell the director is proud to have in their documentary.

Total garbage.
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