January 2 movie: Con Air. I like a dumb action movie as much as the next person, but sometimes enough is enough. This is just too stupid, too overblown, too preposterous. In fact I think that Con Air was the movie that put us off seeing every big dumb action movie. After this we realized that lots of stuff blowing up was not enough to make a movie worth watching.
I've often heard New Yorkers complain about movies that film in New York and mess up the geography, and I never really understood their annoyance before Con Air. The final set piece was filmed in Las Vegas, and yes, they get it all wrong. In this version of Vegas, the strip is nowhere near the airport, is only a couple of blocks long, and stops abruptly with the Sands at its end. Glitter Gulch has a long tunnel at one end, and the other side of the tunnel is blocked by the Debbie Reynolds casino. And best of all, right in front of the Debbie Reynold casino is a giant hydraulic poundy thing that operates even at night with no workers there. What the heck is the poundy thing doing in front of a casino? It doesn't make any sense!
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