It would be easy to write off this bottom feeder as a slicked-up rehash of The Dirty Dozen and let it go at that. On reflection, though, the contaminating effect of the film nags at you. Good-guy parolee Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) — he killed in self defense — is sent home after eight years. His air transport, monitored from the ground by a U.S. marshal (John Cusack), is moving hardened convicts to another prison. They're "the worst of the worst."

So's the movie. The creeps are played by such terrific actors as John Malkovich, Ving Rhames and Steve Buscemi. Writer Scott Rosenberg gives them flip, hip dialogue as they hijack the plane and a rapist lunges for the female guard. Malkovich's killer calls Buscemi's pederast "a national treasure — I admire your work." It's an in-joke between two pros stooping for a big payday. But since producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Simon West — he does commercials — care nothing for the connective tissue of character, the film comes off as cynical pandering, an invitation to revel in the perversity and join in. Con Air has all the signs of a hit. That's depressing.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."