EPISODE 108 — Con Air LIVE!

[Dedre_NvR 30]

You guys touched on the score for the movie in the podcast, but what I got from it was that the main characters all had their own theme song. When that person is on screen, that specific piece of music plays. It was the most evident in the scene where Poe and Cyrus are fighting on the fire truck, because they literally change the music every time the other one is on the screen. Then when Monica Potter comes on screen "How do I live" starts playing. The other thing that really got my goat, was when Bubba-o said it was him all along to save Poe's life, because at that point, when he got shot, I just went "So what was the point of the effing movie?" because he stayed on the plane to save Bubba, but if Bubba was just going to be an a-hole and sacrifice himself after Poe 1) didn't get off the plane when he had the chance and 2) almost got caught out looking for a syringe for him.

[the baa detective 64]

June loves plane movies, specifically plane thriller and plane action movie, because the stakes is higher. I wonder if she like romantic comedy and drama set in airplane?

[the baa detective 64]

Maybe Garland Greene didn't kill the little girl, simply because her head was too small. If he was to make her head into a hat, it won't fit into his head.

[TDFlynn 10]

[Cameron H. 23786]

Con Air goes to some lengths to convince us that Cyrus the Virus is kind of genius. In fact, I would go so far as to argue, even if they are not on Cyrus' intellectual level, none of the criminals seem to be cripplingly stupid. That being said, how come no one thinks to frisk or otherwise search the corpse of the man who smuggled a gun on a plane full of convicts and identified himself as a DEA agent? At the very least he might have another gun they could use, but using a modicum of deductive reasoning, they should have been able to suss out that he is probably wired.

 

Their line of thinking would be something like: he's a DEA agent, none of us are being incarcerated for drugs, we're already in prison, why would he be on this plane? This is obviously ignoring the fact that Cyrus is already in cahoots with Cindino which would make it even more obvious. It should be a pretty easy logic leap for Cyrus to figure out the only reason he is there is to get something out of Cindino, and for any confession or information he might get to stick in court, he would probably need to provide some kind of evidence other than "Cross my heart and hope to die, Cindino confessed to everything."

[jarrycanada 2483]

just delete.

[Smigg 1488]

Much like June talked about John Cusack becoming an action star in this movie. This movie also caused a change for Colm Meaney? What was that change? The realisation that Colm Meaney needs to stay the fuck away from planes! He's in Con Air, shit happens to the plane.

 

But, cast your mind back to a little film named "Die Hard 2: Die Harder"

 

 

Stay the fuck away from the planes, Colm!

[Blast Hardcheese 636]

I almost forgot about my favorite scene from this movie:

 

In their prison cell, Baby Oil tells Poe about his belief in God. Poe burst out with what can best be described as "an insane laughter hiccup." You, the viewer, are left wondering, "Is our hero laughing at his best friend's religious beliefs to his face?" A split second later, Poe let's out an exaggerated, "I'm going home!" It's a weird tonal moment that the editor of this film either missed completely or left in as a lark.

[Smigg 1488]

June not liking "Boat Movies", just reminded me of Opie & Anthony's "Jocktober" where one of their target's (Scott Shannon) wanted to see Captain Phillips, and just called it "The Boat Move"

 

 

If you haven't heard any "Jocktober" bits, imagine "How Did This Get Made?" but targeting radio shows. Absolutely hilarious, especially when they target Scott and Todd.

[seanotron 2307]

Much like June talked about John Cusack becoming an action star in this movie. This movie also caused a change for Colm Meaney? What was that change? The realisation that Colm Meaney needs to stay the fuck away from planes! He's in Con Air, shit happens to the plane.

 

But, cast your mind back to a little film named "Die Hard 2: Die Harder"

 

 

Stay the fuck away from the planes, Colm!

 

That's because Colm belongs on a starship or a possibly a deep space station.

[Smigg 1488]

 

That's because Colm belongs on a starship or a possibly a deep space station.

 

So, it was Aviatory Hubris? Arrogant Colm Meaney thought "Well, I've been on the Starships, this will be a piece of piss!" and then look what happened, people died.

[HaleyJRigsby 6]

First of all, I watched a super crappy, slowed down version of this movie on Youtube, so The Cage's terrible southern accent was magnified by about a thousand.

 

But, I just wanted to point out something that was neglected in the show, but I feel like it was very worthy of a mention...

 

THE DEA AGENT'S LICENSE PLATE SAYS "AZZ KIKR". If you go back to when he first drives up to John Cusack, you can see that not only does he have the douchiest car on Earth, but, also, the douchiest license plate on Earth.

[Joven 373]

He also parks in the giant handicap spot, because they weren't quite sure that you had gotten the hint that he might be a dickhead by that point.

 

Its like a cliched 80s dickhead character version of Last Action Hero, if you followed his life backwards a few weeks or something you would have seen him burst his AZZ KIKN car through a theater screen showing different movie made 15 years earlier.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Does it strike anyone else as odd that Larkin apparently keeps a prison uniform in his filing cabinet?

[Kevin D 0]

I have a suggestion for the mini episode. Since this episode, and presumably the next, stars Nicolas Cage the "Would this be better with Nic Cage" segment would not apply. I suggest asking if the other frequently appearing star of this podcast Sylvester Stallone would be better.

[BobH 26]

I agree with Jason, great move that somehow manages to defy all objections to its flouting of time, geography, legal procedures, biology, physics and everything else.

 

Quick note, I'm not sure if it was mentioned in the crosstalk, but Diamond Dog was whipping the hostages/guards when they were dragging out the plane, not the other prisoners. I guess he thought the extra muscle he got whipping them was more than he'd get by pulling himself. Or he just wanted to whip some guards.

 

I only saw it once years ago, but I think the extended edition had Garland killing one of the guards, so that would erase the idea of him being wrongfully imprisoned. If his confession didn't. There was also something about Baby-O saving Poe's life during a prison riot. Speaking of Baby-O, I always thought there was a line missing about him being on the plane, since they do mention that they also transport prisoners for medical treatment, so a quick line about him being sent for some operation (and maybe a different disease so you don't have to comically mis-interpret diabetes symptoms and treatment) would have explained his presence on a plane full of hardcases.

[carroll_10 4]

Corrections and Omissions: When the cons grab the plethora of guns from the belly of the plane, Vingh Rhames' character grabs a grenade launcher from the case. In what situation would a grenade launcher be useful in an aircraft?

[Darbler Cheesegarbler 1110]

If you are a fan of Star Trek you've probably already read some Chief O'Brien At Work comics, but if not here's a link:

 

http://chiefobrienatwork.com/post/106684455801/episode-1-resume-builder-read-the-next-episode

 

Seeing Colm Meaney reminded me of these, possibly one of the best things about watching Con-Air for me.

[Helwilliams 1]

This has been touched upon in a couple of earlier comments but I feel I really must elaborate more. I am a nurse and I was fairly outraged at the inaccuracies of the diabetes story line in this movie. Firstly throughout the movie Baby-O is displaying hypoglycemic symptoms i.e. sweating, shaking, and feeling woozy. Theres symptoms would mean he needs glucose (sugar) not insulin. The first flaw with this is that hypoglycemia is typically caused in a patient with diabetes by taking too much insulin or in some cases over exertion or use of certain medications. None of these things seem to be present with Baby-o's situation. An injection of insulin in a person with hypoglycemia would cause the blood sugar to bottom out and send the person into a diabetic coma and eventual death.

 

It has been earlier hypothesized that Baby-o is a Type I diabetic because of his use of insulin but I do not believe this to be true. While it is a fact that many Type II diabetics do not need insulin shots it is by far not a rule. Many Type II diabetics do need insulin in addition to or instead of oral diabetes medications for a variety of reasons and the ones that need insulin are often the ones that appear to be a "normal" weight or in otherwise healthy condition. I make my judgment that he may in fact be a Type II diabetic because he is African American and the incidence of African Americans with Type I diabetes is relatively low (http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/risk/age/youth.html), also the debated "snowball" scene in which he is shown to enjoy overly sweetened treats as even in the abcense of obesity African Americans who consume greater amounts of surgery foods and drinks have a much higher incidence of Type II diabetes than other racial groups, lastly hypoglycemia is more prevalent in those with Type II diabetes as opposed to Type I diabetics (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3510957/).

 

It makes absolutely no sense that Baby-O would be freaking out about not having his insulin when he is not expected to be eating during the flight and he absolutely would not be assured of his own death as seen in the movie. He would probably start to worry once he began to experience symptoms of hypoglycemia but again would have no use for insulin and would probably be fine for a fairly extended period of time due to his Type II Diabetes which confers a greater resistance to negative symptoms of hypoglycemia (http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/28/12/2948.full) before it became life threatening and if push came to shove he could eat a couple of hard candies and that would bring his blood glucose up enough to get him through until the plane landed at its final destination in South America or whatever Spanish speaking extradition free country they were going to.

 

Basically what I am saying is the entire premise of why Nicolas Cage has to stay on the plane to save his friend is 100% unnecessary and everything would have been fine for Baby-O if Cage would have exited the plane at Carson City like he originally intended to. In fact Baby-O would probably have been in a better state since he wouldn't have gotten shot by Cyrus the Virus. Unfortunately that would also ruin the greatest plane based movie all time and crush the hearts of both Jason and I.

[Valerieblaise 74]

 

It has been earlier hypothesized that Baby-o is a Type I diabetic because of his use of insulin but I do not believe this to be true. While it is a fact that many Type II diabetics do not need insulin shots it is by far not a rule. Many Type II diabetics do need insulin in addition to or instead of oral diabetes medications for a variety of reasons and the ones that need insulin are often the ones that appear to be a "normal" weight or in otherwise healthy condition. I make my judgment that he may in fact be a Type II diabetic because he is African American and the incidence of African Americans with Type I diabetes is relatively low (http://www.cdc.gov/d.../age/youth.html), also the debated "snowball" scene in which he is shown to enjoy overly sweetened treats as even in the abcense of obesity African Americans who consume greater amounts of surgery foods and drinks have a much higher incidence of Type II diabetes than other racial groups, lastly hypoglycemia is more prevalent in those with Type II diabetes as opposed to Type I diabetics (http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3510957/).

 

Well, in all honestly we can't even come close to accurately guessing which kind of diabetes Baby-O has, because he's a fictional character written by people who are clueless about diabetes altogether. However, I just want to point out that your own cite contradicts what you just said. From that last link, "In the earlier stages of type-2 diabetes when glucose counter-regulatory responses are still functional, hypoglycemia is less common than in patients with type 1 diabetes. However, since progressive β-cell failure is a key patho-physiological feature of type 2 diabetes, the characteristics of disease and frequency of hypoglycemic episodes eventually approach that of type 1 diabetes.[8]" So hypoglycemia is always more prevalent in Type 1, but as Type 2 progresses, they almost catch up.

 

I do agree with you that w/o Baby-O's diabetes, the movie couldn't have happened, unless they figured out a better medical emergency/Nic Cage heroism opportunity. I'm mostly amused that they gave him a problem that could have been easily solved with a can of soda and didn't know it. The movie was still tremendously fun.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

I do agree with you that w/o Baby-O's diabetes, the movie couldn't have happened, unless they figured out a better medical emergency/Nic Cage heroism opportunity. I'm mostly amused that they gave him a problem that could have been easily solved with a can of soda and didn't know it. The movie was still tremendously fun.

 

Now that you mention it, this movie would have worked SO much better if the film actually knew that all Baby-O needed was a can of soda or something. Baby-O could be periodically sweating and crashing and whatnot throughout all of Nic Cage's escape attempts, fights, and tribulations, occasionally trying to provide Baby-O with some sugary junk food (and product placement opportunity). However, just like the way the syringes get broken in the film now, the cans of soda or Twinkies or whatever get shot or smash amid all the chaos. Then, at the end, Cameron Poe FINALLY hands Baby-O something to stifle his buddy's crashing: the SAME kind of Pink Sno Ball that he handed off in the beginning of the film! Get on that, Simon West!

[IMAHUGEHDTGMFAN 1837]

I never saw ConAir until now before listening to the episode... And I'm glad I finally did

 

1 Correction

 

* Paul was baffled that Cyrus made a scale model of the junk-yard to explain the plan to the other convicts (Loved the "Back To The Future" reference BTW) but John Malkovich has a line in wich he says that he did that because he thinks they are too dumb to understand the plan without the model...

 

 

2 Omissions

* I hypothetically thought that Nic Cage was maybe going to overhear Danny Trejo's and / or the drug dealer's secret plans with his spanish speaking skills that he picked up in his 7 years in prison... But NOPE I thought that somebody else would maybe notice the setup near the beginning of the film and mention it...

 

* When the plane is taking off with the car attached to it the physics displayed are completely impossible... The steel rope / cable becomes solid and suddenly the car glides like it has no weight... Not to mention the plane taking off and flying without a hitch... No deadweight or drag to worry about

[AmandaArreola 3]

The actor who played sally can't dance is the same actor who played phreak in hackers. I wonder if sally is phreak 2 years later after he gets arrested for hacking and became the prison bitch.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Eh ... probably not, the things are bone dry for 90% of the year, and actually smell terrible due to the lack of water (like when you don't have water in the U-shaped pipe under your sink). Although they're built to handle flash floods, so that bunny should've fallen like 15 ft into a tiny shaft.

 

That still makes me think that even a bone dry sewer that smells terrible should have tons of germs. But you are certainly correct that he shouldn't have been able to have grabbed it that quickly cause that thing would have fallen down.

 

All in all that bunny should have been cleaned before being handed off to a 7 year old haha.

[NateLiles 1]

How has nobody mentioned Cage's wink to the camera during the end credits?! This alone makes this movie amazing!