Angelina Jolie critic Peter Stack wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." She won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review. In 1999, Jolie starred in the comedy-drama "Pushing Tin", alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. The film met with mixed reception from critics, and Jolie's character—Thornton's seductive wife—was particularly criticized; writing for "The Washington Post", Desson Howe dismissed her as "a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of
Angelina Jolie Olympic track star who survived a plane crash over sea and spent two years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. She also served as producer under her Jolie Pas banner. "Unbroken" is based on Laura Hillenbrand's , the film was scripted by the Coen brothers and starred Jack O'Connell. After a positive early reception, "Unbroken" was considered a likely Best Picture and Best Director contender, but it ultimately received mixed reviews and little award recognition, though it was named one of the best films of the year by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. In a typical