AlexCox Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Do you like Repo Man? No, not Repo Men, the new organ-snatching action flick starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. I'm talking about Alex Cox's 1984 cult classic starring Emilo Estevez as a newbie repossession agent for the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation. If so, I'd like to know how this debut trailer for Repo Chick strikes you, because, well... you'll soon see why I'm curious.

Going solely off of what's in the trailer below, were Repo Chick made by anyone else, it would be laughed off of the Internet. Considering it was written and directed by Alex Cox, however, as a "spirtual sequel" to his excellent genre-bender (it looks to play in the same world sandbox without any story continuity), I'm willing to hold out hope that all this green screen, pulpy madness plays to a higher agenda; as opposed to looking only slightly more technically proficient than, say, Birdemic.

Jaclyn Jonet stars as the titular Repo Chick, an expert takerbacker who has set her sights on the white whale of repossessions: a moving train! The trailer looks to meld Public Access level green screen compositing with Spice World levels of We Know What We're Doing is Silly for a combination that is either going to be inspired or insipid. But what say you, Alex Cox fans? Is Repo Chick the Repo Man follow-up you've spent a quarter of a century hoping for or will you continue to live your life as if Cox' original creation stayed stag?

Alex Cox has a really crowded business card: Cult Filmmaker. Fallen from Grace. Hollywood Outsider. Looking for a Comeback. In the 1980s, he was a Next Big Thing after Repo Man (1984), which is undoutedly the greatest movie ever made about paranoia, cars, punks and aliens in Los Angeles. He quickly followed that with Sid and Nancy (1986), a dizzying biopic of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols and his deranged girlfriend Nancy Spungen. That film not only earned a cult following, but also got a fair measure of mainstream critical recognition.

Afterward, Cox's career struggled to regain the same kind of momentum. His next film, Straight to Hell (1987), was almost universally dismissed as an exercise in weird, but his fourth film, Walker (1988), was a hit among European film buffs, and it was recently bestowed with a high-class Criterion DVD release. Since then his films had very sporadic distribution and some of them remain very difficult to see, including the acclaimed Highway Patrolman. And the ones that are available on DVD tend not to generate much enthusiasm. But Cox is out there trying, and according to a recent Village Voice interview, he hopes to return to the concept of repo men.

This whole comic sequel thing is really getting quite big. If you can't make a continuation happen on-screen, or on television, just make a comic. Joss Whedon has been continuing the Buffy franchise through classic comic graphics, and now Repo Man is finally getting a graphic sequel that will hit shelves at the end of next month called Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday. To get the details on the follow-up to the ultra-weird '80s cult classic, EW recently talked to the flick's writer/director, Alex Cox.

Apparently, the story was originally going to be a cinematic sequel, but the talks went nowhere. Then, Cox was going to get it made on his own, and even talked to Willem Dafoe, Harry Dean Stanton, and of course, Emilio Estevez to take part. Obviously, that didn't come to be either. Enter: the graphic approach with Chris Bones.

Cox says all the characters in Waldo are "a coded version of somebody in Repo Man." However, he won't say for sure if Waldo is Otto. He describes the sequel about Waldo this way: "He's been away on a journey in a car for 10 years and just returned. He thinks he's only been gone for the evening. Now, he may indeed be Otto. He may have been transmogrified on the way back into Waldo. Or that may have happened to several people at the same time."

Yeah, still confusing. You can try to wrap your head around the new story on March 31.

Alex Cox is not too found of Hollywood. Perhaps this is because he says that he was blacklisted in 1988, when he used Universal's cash to make a film in Nicaragua while collaborating with the Sandinistas. Before that, he had a couple of really prominent cult indie flicks. The first was Emilio Estevez's repossession adventure The Repo Man, and the second was the Gary Oldman-starring biopic of Sid Vicious -- Sid and Nancy. Now he's got Searchers 2.0 on the horizon, and he's found the time to write up a little rant for The Guardian about actors-turned-directors.

It looks like this is all coming about from Madonna, who is currently filming a short film in London based on her life, and aptly called Filth and Wisdom. (Not to be confused with the other directorial project she's been attached to.) Cox then threw in Kirsten Dunst, whose directorial start I posted about in April. In what he considers short films "exciting for connoisseurs of awful movies," Cox goes on to wonder if these stints will be like Johnny Depps short, The Brave, or Vincent Gallo's Brown Bunny. That seems like a bit of a jump. Wondering if Dunst's short will resemble the penis-worshipping Bunny is... I don't know, like wondering if David Lynch's next movie will be a Julia Roberts-heading romcom. Besides, she was asked to do it as part of the Reel Moments series that brings reader's ideas to the short screen. It's not quite the same as ego-filled cinematic masturbation.

Now, he does have some points. In the piece, he mentions when Brando fired Stanley Kubrick and Sam Peckinpah from One-Eyed Jacks. One of the more recent and prevalent accounts of this is American History X, which Tony Kaye fought to get his name removed from when Edward Norton reportedly re-edited the film. There's also all those behind-the-scenes flareups, from Lindsay Lohan to David O. Russell. While I do agree that some egos need to be shot down, it's a bit one-dimensional to say that actors "are not, as a rule, highly intelligent." Many aren't, but what about all of those who've made impressive switches? Who would have thought that the dumb sidekick in Aspen Extreme would also direct films from Very Bad Things to Friday Night Lights? Or that the man who was afraid of a mouse on Sex and the City would later write the screenplay for Capote? Cox has had his say, now what do you think about the whole scenario?

I've been sitting here for a while now, staring at the blinking cursor on my blank screen, trying to think of something to say about the collector's edition--out this week--of the 1984 Alex Cox film, Repo Man. What do you say about a film that is quoted, still to this very day and largely unknowingly, by young punk wannabes, suburban potheads, and 30-something film nerds, but probably would elicit a "what?" from this decade's stock of yawning teenagers? Let alone that Repo Man couldn't get made in this decade, or the next, or the next after that. It's too political, satirical, and absurd; it reaches way beyond any current measuring stick we have for political, satirical, absurdist films--beyond Mean Girls, beyond Election, beyond whatever's dubbed the newest "piercing look at today's youth." Bah. Piercing look my ass.

Maybe I'll use some kind of joke for an introduction, something political and absurd, you know, just to mirror what I feel about this film? How about this: "So, a British guy wearing a headband and the inventor of the neutron bomb are sitting around one afternoon watching clips from the film Repo Man..." That's the start of a pretty great joke, no? Except, right then when you were thinking, "Hey, great joke!" I  was chuckling because what you don't know is that the British guy is director Alex Cox and the inventor of the neutron bomb is Sam Cohen, inventor of the neutron bomb, and yes, they really are sitting around watching Repo Man--in fact, they're part of a bonus featurette on the disc. Cohen is relaxing in a barcalounger, his feet up.   He wonders aloud in a gravelly voice, "What's that Emilio Estevez--that is his name?--up to these days?" Alex Cox doesn't know. He thinks Emilio might be trying his hand at directing, but he's not sure.

That's so obviously punk rock, right? A winking put-on by Cox for the DVD release, the disheveled scientist an unwitting stand-in for The Man. You think, "Poor guy's gonna get eviscerated by this aging punk rocker!" But it turns out that Sam Cohen called Alex Cox--essentially invited himself over--because next to Dr. Strangelove, Repo Man is his favorite film.

Rolling Roadshow is an outdoor theater setup that enables the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse theater chain to stage some unusual film experiences: The Big Lebowski at a bowling alley, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre near the locations where it was shot, Jaws on a lake.

Rolling Roadshow is currently touring the southwest US, showing movies in extremely appropriate settings. Some of the events look spectacular: Repo Man will be shown at a fenced yard in Los Angeles where the movie was shot, preceded by a road rally (to find a 1964 Chevy Malibu, natch), and followed by a Q&A session with director Alex Cox and actors from the film including Tracey Walter. No, they won't be serving plates of shrimp. However, you can get mashed potatoes at the screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind at Devil's Tower, Wyoming.

A full list of dates, movies, and locations is available after the jump. You can get a ticket for all the Rolling Roadshow tour events if you want to follow the big truck across the Southwest (I wish I could). One word of advice: Rolling Roadshow screenings are often held in parking lots, empty fields, etc. and no seating is provided. The movies start at dusk and the ground can get damp and uncomfortable. Bring a nice thick blanket, a couple of big towels, or some lawn chairs.