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Speaker 1: Well, good morning.

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Speaker 2: Ben, Good morning guys. It's an exciting one to talk

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Speaker 2: about it today. I'm quite excited about this one. So

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Speaker 2: Ben Affleck's new movie in a director capacity Air And

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Speaker 2: you might be thinking, you know, is it really the

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Speaker 2: best use of resources to spend millions of dollars and

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Speaker 2: use the talents of multiple Oscar winners to tell the

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Speaker 2: story of a shoe. That's basically what we're doing here.

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Speaker 2: But when that shoe is the Air Jordan one, which

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Speaker 2: was the first shoe worn by Michael Jordan his rookie

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Speaker 2: year in the NBA, which really went on to kickstart

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Speaker 2: sneaker culture as we know it today and launched a

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Speaker 2: brand that's now worked, according to Forbes magazine, fifteen billion dollars. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: like maybe maybe it is a story works ell. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's a big shoe. Yeah, it is a huge, huge

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Speaker 2: and because back and the film is actually quite fascinating

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Speaker 2: because back when Jordan signed with Nike, the company wasn't

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Speaker 2: doing that well. Certainly when it came to basketball, Converse

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Speaker 2: had about, you know, fifty percent of the market, and

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Speaker 2: certainly all the big stars like Larry Bird and Magic

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Speaker 2: Johnson and Julius Irving at the time, added Das was

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Speaker 2: the new player on the scene, but they had about

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Speaker 2: thirty percent of the market. Nike had about fifteen percent

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Speaker 2: of the market, and they didn't really have any marquee

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Speaker 2: players signed to use the shoe. They weren't seen as

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Speaker 2: very cool. They were seen as a brand that was

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Speaker 2: really only for you know, track athletes like Bruce Jenner

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Speaker 2: at the time, who just you know, won the Decathlon

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Speaker 2: and for people who like to go running jogging around

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Speaker 2: the block. They weren't seen as a brand that basketball

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Speaker 2: players would wear. And so this movie tells the story

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Speaker 2: of how this company managed to sign the hottest prospect

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Speaker 2: in basketball, which is Michael Jordan, and you does that

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Speaker 2: by sort of focusing on all of the Nike executives

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Speaker 2: in the marketing department. There was this dude, Sonny Vakara,

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Speaker 2: who's played in the film by Matt Damon. He's kind

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Speaker 2: of the guy who thought, you know what, we need

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Speaker 2: to get Jordan. No matter what we do, We've got

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Speaker 2: to use our whole marketing budget to sign Jordan. And

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Speaker 2: who went down to visit Jordan's parents, which was a

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Speaker 2: real kind of breach of protocol because normally, you know,

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Speaker 2: companies would go through player agents, but he bypassed the

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Speaker 2: agent who's played in the film by the great Christmas Sina,

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Speaker 2: who's always very funny, who's kind of like Jerry Maguire

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Speaker 2: if you can imagine Jerry Maguire just swearing and threatening

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Speaker 2: people all the time, so kind of an anti Jerry Maguire.

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Speaker 2: And so he goes to visit Jordan's parents and the

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Speaker 2: mom is played by Oscar winner Viola Davis, and he

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Speaker 2: convinces her that, you know, just give Nike a chance,

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Speaker 2: like you'll go to Adidas and you know, they won't

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Speaker 2: really have a plan for what's going on because they're

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Speaker 2: based in Germany. They don't know anything about basketball. And

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Speaker 2: you go to Converse and you know, you'll just be

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Speaker 2: one of a number of star players that they have

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Speaker 2: at Nike. Our main selling point is we're not very good.

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Speaker 2: We don't know, we don't have any good players, so

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Speaker 2: you'll be our kind of number one guy. And that

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Speaker 2: was kind of that was kind of the start of it,

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Speaker 2: and it goes on from there. Because Jordan didn't want

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Speaker 2: to go to Nike at all. He wore added ass.

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Speaker 2: They were super cool at the time. Run DMC and

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Speaker 2: all the breakdownsers wearing added as the tracksuits. Everybody was

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Speaker 2: wearing them. But the interesting thing about this movie is

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Speaker 2: you don't see Jordan. You see the back of his head.

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Speaker 2: You see an actor playing Jordan from behind, And to

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Speaker 2: be honest, that's a little weird by Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck,

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Speaker 2: he said that the reason behind that was because Jordan

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Speaker 2: is so famous, he's such a big icon that it

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Speaker 2: would just be impossible to ask a young actor to

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Speaker 2: play Jordan believably because and audiences are just going, come on,

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Speaker 2: that guy is not Jordan. And so I wouldn't necessarily

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Speaker 2: say I agree, because there was a TV show that

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Speaker 2: came out last year called Winning Time about the Lakers

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties, which is just so fair fantastic

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Speaker 2: as the cast and actor to play Magic Magic Johnson.

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Speaker 2: It was fine, So you know, it was a brilliant show.

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Speaker 2: So I think it's kind of like that as a gimmick.

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Speaker 1: I don't mind it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, it's not having him. It'll depends though,

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Speaker 2: right like, if you can if you can deal with that,

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Speaker 2: then that's fine. But it's got the cast is great.

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Speaker 2: So you've got Ben Affleck, who directs it and also

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Speaker 2: plays Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, Matt Damon, who

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Speaker 2: I mentioned, you know, Afflex BFF. You've got Jason Bateman

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Speaker 2: as the head of marketing at Nike, who is awesome

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Speaker 2: as always. Viola Davis always excellent, and you've got Chris Tucker,

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Speaker 2: who we don't see on screen very much anymore, but

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Speaker 2: he plays Nike's kind of head of basketball and he

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Speaker 2: is fantastic. And interestingly, Viola Davis's character and Chris Tucker's

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Speaker 2: character weren't really in the original version of the script,

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Speaker 2: and it wasn't until Affleck went to visit with Jordan

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Speaker 2: and was talking to him he realized that actually it

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Speaker 2: was Jordan's mum who was the brains of the operation.

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Speaker 2: And Affleck said to Jordan, who do you see playing

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Speaker 2: your mum? And Jordan said, oh, no, one but Viola

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Speaker 2: Davis then Affleck. Then Affleck had to go and try

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Speaker 2: and convince Viola Davis to do it, and it all

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Speaker 2: turned out pretty well. And people who grew up in

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Speaker 2: the eighties will love the way the film shows off

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Speaker 2: the culture of the time. You know, it's all the

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Speaker 2: great songs, all the great and great maybe not the

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Speaker 2: word to describe the fashion, all the interesting fashion of

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Speaker 2: the eighties and and for all, and it's interspersed with

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Speaker 2: you know, little clips of things that were happening at

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Speaker 2: the time, so Reagan and you know, all of that stuff,

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Speaker 2: and so as a kind of a snapshot of a

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Speaker 2: moment in time, the film does a pretty good job

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Speaker 2: of that. But in the end it's probably a little

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Speaker 2: bit hampered by you know, there's just this idea that

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Speaker 2: you know, like, what is the point here, Like, you

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Speaker 2: know this this was ultimately, you know, how a shoe

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Speaker 2: deal got done, but you know, they weren't curing cancer

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Speaker 2: if we're being honest. And the film maybe, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: maybe tries in the last ten minutes tries to tack

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Speaker 2: on all of this extra stuff to give it a

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Speaker 2: bit more weight and importance that it kind of diminishes

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Speaker 2: the overall package, I think a little bit when it

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Speaker 2: tries to say, well, you know, like you know, this

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Speaker 2: deal is why college athletes got paid so much money,

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Speaker 2: which has really nothing to do with the film at all.

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Speaker 2: And so it's not perfect. But I think as a

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Speaker 2: sports film, anybody who loves basketball and anybody who just

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Speaker 2: loves quality acting, you know, like, I think there's a

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Speaker 2: lot to like here, Like this is a super solid

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Speaker 2: movie that's not a superhero movie that we know, you know,

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Speaker 2: cinemas are just inundated with at the moment, so it's

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Speaker 2: kind of like adult drama. Okay, it was right at

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Speaker 2: the start.

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Speaker 1: Eighty four was right at the start of that great,

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Speaker 1: glorious here for the Chicago Bulls, for those obsessed with

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Speaker 1: my balls, is there something in it for them?

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Speaker 2: The Post Club, Well, there's not a lot of basketball,

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Speaker 2: but I would say it's got some fun stuf though

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Speaker 2: for sure, Like I think Ben Affleck was saying, his

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Speaker 2: character was saying, you know, like before Jordan came along,

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Speaker 2: the most that ever sold of a shoe in one year,

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Speaker 2: with three million dollars, so it wouldn't hurt to give

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Speaker 2: Jordan a cut of the profits. The first year of

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Speaker 2: selling the air Jordan one one hundred and sixty two

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Speaker 2: million dollars. I saw it.

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Speaker 1: I heard he shall remain nameless. But I heard a

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Speaker 1: sports person who had been to see the film at

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Speaker 1: a preview say, for a movie that's just about people

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Speaker 1: talking to each other, it's not bad.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, Well, I think we know what his Loyalty is

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Speaker 1: the superhero movies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly like I think, you know, like if

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Speaker 2: you think about a movie that is just you know,

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Speaker 2: sort of two hours of marketing executive stalking to each other,

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Speaker 2: probably filiar with excitement, but Ben Affleck and the cast

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Speaker 2: do a great job of making it entertaining. It's a

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Speaker 2: fun watch. So yeah, I think I think it's very solid.

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Speaker 2: It's probably more of a John Stockton than a Michael

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Speaker 2: Jordan when it comes to movie, but he was more

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Speaker 2: solent and a bit more boring. Any dream teams, are

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Speaker 2: you giving it? You know, something that was good, that

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Speaker 2: was good, that was good? You cut yourself slack on

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Speaker 2: the one From the of it, I'm going to give

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Speaker 2: it three and a half. Okay, very good? All right,

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Speaker 2: then talking movies,