This week we go back to almost the beginning of Cate Blanchett’s illustrious career with Pushing Tin (1999). To discuss Mike Newell’s film and the performances of Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton, Murtada welcomes to the podcast Mitchell Beaupre, senior editor at Letterboxd.

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What is the film about?

From IMDB:  A feud develops between two air traffic controllers: one cocky and determined while the other is restrained and laidback, which inevitably affects their lives.

Who does Cate play?

Connie Falzone, the New Jersey wife of an air traffic controller whos feuding with a co-worker.

What year did it come out?

1999.

Box Office: US= $8.4 MM Outside US = unavailable

Critical Response: Metacritic : 47    RT: 48 

Topics Discussed:

• This cast! Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. Where they were in 1999 and where they are now.
• The Blanchett look – the fringe, the earrings, the makeup – very Jersey.
• Unforgivable that they had Blanchett and Jolie and did not give them at least one meaty scene together. Their only interaction is a brief one with the other “wives.”
• Mike Newell from Four Weddings (19944) to Donnie Brasco (1997) to this. He was on a roll. Was this the film that derailed him? His follow-ups are all flops – Mona Lisa Smile (2203), Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) and Prince of Persia (2010).
• Sometimes plays like an anthropological look at a certain frat bro culture. The one upmanship, the competitiveness, the explanation of what ”being a man” is, 
• “He said attractive?” – Cate’s best moment.
• Pre 9/11 – so much shenanigans that would never happen around planes these days.
• The “big gesture” ending, perhaps of that “boombox serenade” from Say Anything (1989).
• When Bily Bob abd Angelina kiss with everyone’s mouths agape – the same reaction of the whole world to their antics at that time “we fucked in the car.”

Film within context of Cate’s career:

• Released 4/23/1999, a month after the Oscar ceremony where Blanchett recieved her first nomination for Elizabeth. 1999 also saw the release of An Ideal Husband and The Talented Mr Ripley. 

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