"Pushing Tin" and "Never Been
Kissed" on DVD
20th Century Fox video's
DVD release of "Pushing Tin" has a lot of promise, and for the most part
delivers.
The film stars John
Cusack as ace air traffic controller Nick Falzone, who has the world by
the tail until mysterious loner controller Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton)
transfers in and upsets Nick's comfortable little world.
Nick becomes very
competitive with Russell, who doesn't appear competitive at all - he just
keeps quietly raising the performance bar on and off the job, making Nick
ever more obsessed with Russell and life in general.
Things really come
to a head after Nick has a "momentary lapse of judgment" with Russell's
wife, Mary, (Angelina Jolie), after which all hell breaks loose in all
their lives.
Pushing Tin is less
about airplanes and air traffic than it's about men versus men and men
versus women. The performances are first rate, as are the production values
- with the exception of the digital special effects aircraft, which look
like the 1990's version of the old "spacecraft on a string" school of
FX.
This is a shame, because
there are some beautiful aircraft models; unfortunately, they look fake.
The DVD is in widescreen,
and Dolby Digital (though, as is usual with Fox, the audio track defaults
to Dolby Pro Logic and you have to change it to AC-3 in the "language"
menu). Extras are limited to the trailer, chapter stops and the language
choices.
Pushing Tin is a promising
concept, and is set in a fascinating world about which most of us never
learn much, but in the end the movie itself ends up being relatively routine.
Pushing Tin, from
20th Century Fox Video,
Widescreen (2.35:1) Dolby Digital
Starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton,
Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie
Written by Glen and Les Charles,
Produced by Art Linson, Directed by Mike Newell
Never Been Kissed
Never Been Kissed
is a bit traditional romance film and a bit coming of age movie, with
some healthy shots against the mainstream media mindset thrown in for
good measure. It succeeds on all of these levels and ends up being a charming
movie.
Drew Barrymore stars
(and was executive producer) as a young copy editor for one of Chicago's
big daily newspapers. But she aspires to greater things. She wants to
be an honest to goodness reporter and go after the real story.
Well, she gets her
chance, via an assignment to go undercover at a high school to get whatever
scoop she can dig up. Her superiors at the paper want something hard,
something they can put on page one (preferably above the fold, where the
most "important" stories go).
But the story they
really want is an expose of teacher/student romance, set off by her and
her teacher's obvious attraction to each other. Drew can't bring herself
to destroy a person for whom she cares, however, and ends up "outing"
herself rather than compromise her principles.
For which you'd think
she would be acclaimed, but of course the opposite happens and her life
and career are destroyed.
Or are they? She actually
does get the story, not a front page expose but a far more appropriate
and quite moving feature in which she bares her soul while capturing the
essence of her experiences. We won't spoil the ending by saying more than
that.
"Never Been Kissed"
is also about revisiting your own past - and how you can never really
go home any more - as well as giving some gentle but well-placed digs
at the school's "cool crowd" whose superficial lives are dedicated to
self indulgence and tormenting the "geeks."
Barrymore herself
is as charming as the film. She plays a fish out of water (both in high
school and in the boardroom), and is joined in the likable cast by David
Arquette (as her brother), and Michael Vartan as the teacher she so very
nearly destroys.
A
nice touch - that must have brought some initial horror to the cast and
crew - is the use of their old school photos over the closing credits,
an act that says a lot about the mindset of this film and its makers.
The DVD is in widescreen,
Dolby Digital (with the usual menu-activated AC-3 setting). Picture and
sound quality are excellent - as is the musical soundtrack. Extras are
limited to chapter stops, language choices, and the trailer.
Never Been Kissed
from 20th Century Fox Home Video
approx. 105 minutes, widescreen (2.35:1), Dolby Digital
starring Drew Barrymore, David Arquette, Michael Vartan, Molly Shannon,
Leelee Sobieski, Garry Marshall
Written by Abby Kohn, Mark Silverstein, Produced by Sandy Isaac, Nancy
Juvonen
Directed by Raja Gosnell.
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