Eyes pop, skin explodes, everybody dead

June 18, 2010 10:21 PM

Alex Cox, director of Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, and one-time presenter of Moviedrome, which was a cult movie education for an entire generation of British people, has posted a ton of free stuff on his site: 10000 ways to die (pdf) - his book on Spaghetti Westerns, the Moviedrome guide parts 1 and 2 (pdf), a video defence of Walker (quicktime), and much much more.
posted by Artw (50 comments total)

Cox has a site for an unreleased western, Searchers 2.0, and his site has other stuffs as well.
posted by mwhybark at 10:27 PM on June 18, 2010

I'm probably just feeling abit homesick and nostalgic right now, and I am nursing a BEER, but the kinds of movies on Moviedrome basically created my artistic sensibility and informed my sense of waht could be good about film. By the end of of a Moviedrome movie I'd often be enthused with the possibilities of story and film and want to go out and make something of my own. So in the modest amount of creative works that I've completed I probably owe a huge debt to Alex Cox.
posted by Artw at 10:43 PM on June 18, 2010 [5 favorites]

Thanks for this, Artw.

I don't know why Walker needs a defence, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 10:57 PM on June 18, 2010

My favorite Alex Cox story: Toronto Film Fest. Seeing Highway Patrolman. There's a shot/scene in it where a guy is standing in front of a desk looking at the man behind the desk and the desk dissolves into a giant skull and then back again. No other effects that I can recall in the movie. It's just... baffling. Q&A comes up and someone puts up their hand and asks, "What was with the skull?"

Cox takes two steps forward to the microphone and says, "That was the grinning visage of death," and takes two steps back and points to the next raised hand.
posted by dobbs at 10:58 PM on June 18, 2010 [15 favorites]

You know, I was just thinking of a plate of shrimp a couple of hours ago.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:59 PM on June 18, 2010 [5 favorites]

Repo Man's got all night, every night.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:51 PM on June 18, 2010

Artw: for me it was catching Repo Man on cable sometime around... 1984? So somewhere around my fourth or fifth grade. It ruined my life for the better - I specifically remember sitting there with my mouth agape as I learned that movie characters didn't all act like people in movies, and that there were bands that sang about things like TV and modern art, and that sometimes people looked tough because they were afraid. THANK YOU ALEX COX~!

and then a dozen years later Straight to Hell came into my life right when it needed to but that's another story
posted by jtron at 11:55 PM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

LET'S GO DO SOME CRIMES
posted by jtron at 11:55 PM on June 18, 2010 [4 favorites]

Let's go get sushi, and not pay!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:58 PM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

Ever feel as if your mind had started to erode?
posted by Crane Shot at 1:47 AM on June 19, 2010

John Wayne was a fag!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:56 AM on June 19, 2010

There goes my weekend. Thank you Artw (and mwhybark, too).
posted by squasha at 2:39 AM on June 19, 2010

I am the snowflake which landed on the poised pebble which fell to the leaning rock which tilted the field of scree which cascaded down the granite face onto the bed of stones which rolled into your internet.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:48 AM on June 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

That was intense.
posted by Aznable at 3:17 AM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Repo Man posts are always intense.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:31 AM on June 19, 2010 [8 favorites]

I don't know a single Metafilter user who doesn't take speed.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:46 AM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

And I am having friends over for a _Straight to Hell_ viewing tomorrow! What timing!

"Hey, let's make the wiener kid sing his song!"
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:25 AM on June 19, 2010

Always liked reading Cox's articles when they turned up in the Guardian

And there's this great piece slagging off screenwriting software
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:34 AM on June 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Put it on a plate, dear. You'll enjoy it more.
posted by dirtdirt at 4:38 AM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

I keep waiting for Straight to Hell to find it's cult audience, and I keep coming to the conclusion that I may be it.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:07 AM on June 19, 2010

The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:16 AM on June 19, 2010

MetaFilter: MelonFarmer.
posted by escabeche at 6:32 AM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

So talented! He also is one of the founding core Linux coders, right?
posted by clvrmnky at 6:55 AM on June 19, 2010

I had an old tape of American Werewolf in London that I taped off Moviedrome. I loved Alex Cos's introduction to it, set it up perfectly for me.
posted by arcticseal at 7:02 AM on June 19, 2010

Since time is short, and you might lie, I'm going to have to torture you. But I want you to know, it isn't personal.
posted by longsleeves at 7:14 AM on June 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

Walker is an excellent movie, despite all the hatred for it. Great soundtrack by Joe Strummer. It also has an awesome Paul Mavrides poster which read something like "BEFORE RAMBO...BEFORE OLIVER NORTH...THERE WAS...WALKER."
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:21 AM on June 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

I adore "Straight to Hell", I know most of it by heart even though I haven't seen it in a few years since I only have a VHS copy and no hooked-up VCR currently. Just about the only Courtney Love role I thoroughly enjoy. Plus JOE FREAKIN' STRUMMER! And Dennis Hopper AND Grace Jones AND Jim Jarmusch AND Elvis Costello (not to mention the Pogues, of course)!

"What's the matter with this car?"
"NORWOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!"
"Well, if it ain't old Bruno, and Angel Eyes Muck-Ma-Hawn"

And the "synchronize watches" bit is golden.

Dammit...Artw I have had stuff to do today.
posted by biscotti at 7:37 AM on June 19, 2010

Thought I was one of the only people on the planet to unreservedly love Straight To Hell. Kudos to MetaFilter for spreading the love.
posted by Stan Carey at 7:38 AM on June 19, 2010

Somehow it became our St. Patrick's Day tradition to watch "Straight to Hell." Although the much talked-about theme party has never actually come together.
posted by JoanArkham at 7:55 AM on June 19, 2010

It's a crisp, refreshing feeling. Crystal clear and light.
posted by porn in the woods at 8:56 AM on June 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Walker is an excellent movie, despite all the hatred for it.

I'd rate it very high in my list of movies-that-make-me-despair-because-nobody-gets-how-fucking-great-they-are-even-people-I-usually-respect. Cox, his career riding as high as it ever got (on the relative successes of Repo Man and Sid + Nancy), goes beautifully mad in Central America and creates a mind-bending masterpiece of Magic Realism. And yes, those TIME magazines (in 1855), and that scene roughly half-way through where there's suddenly a modern automobile zooming past, that's what seals the deal, that's what makes it f***ing brilliant. You're supposed to be confused. You're supposed to be feeling about as mad and WRONG and out of place as William Walker was (and "manifest destiny" driven America).

And the book's good too.
posted by philip-random at 9:14 AM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

'Sid and Nancy' is one of my all-time favourite movies. I can't remember which critic called it "a mature treatment of a group of willfully immature people", but I have to agree with him. Every time I watch it, I see something new in it.

"Whatsa matter, Sidney? You on spe-e-e-e-ed or somethin'?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:19 AM on June 19, 2010

And the [Walker] book's good too.

GAH! I remember as a kid looking up that book at my library. It was always listed as being in the stacks. But: it had been stolen or lost. So it just kept showing up in the computer searches, taunting me, teasing me.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:30 AM on June 19, 2010

Siiiiiiiiiiid! What about the farewell drugs??
posted by Nabubrush at 9:42 AM on June 19, 2010

Never trust a junkie.
posted by Artw at 9:53 AM on June 19, 2010

Obligatory note that Johnny Rotten claims that Sid and Nancy is very nearly complete fantasy.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:11 AM on June 19, 2010

Here's the real story!
posted by Artw at 10:14 AM on June 19, 2010

Alex Cox also has a book about his work that is a pretty fascinating read. I think it's called X Films, and he just goes through what he was thinking and doing as he made all of them. It's definitely worth picking up, even for just the Joe Strummer bits.
posted by history is a weapon at 10:56 AM on June 19, 2010

BitterOldPunk: "I am the snowflake which landed on the poised pebble which fell to the leaning rock which tilted the field of scree which cascaded down the granite face onto the bed of stones which rolled into your internet."

This is 100% true, this post grew out of a BOP tweet.
posted by mwhybark at 11:58 AM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thanks a lot for this, Artw -- there's tons of good stuff here. There used to be a midnight showing of Repo Man every Friday, backed with Buckaroo Banzai, and I would see it with my friends as often as possible. Loved that movie, loved Sid & Nancy, loved Straight to Hell.

Has anyone here seen Repo Chick? Or Revenger's Tragedy?
posted by chavenet at 2:49 PM on June 19, 2010

The Revengers Tragedy is horribly bad, and contains Chumbawumba. Avoid.
posted by Artw at 3:48 PM on June 19, 2010

There used to be a midnight showing of Repo Man every Friday, backed with Buckaroo Banzai, and I would see it with my friends as often as possible.

I would be interested in attending meetings of this church.
posted by jtron at 4:04 PM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

There used to be a midnight showing of Repo Man every Friday, backed with Buckaroo Banzai

add Brazil and Blue Velvet to this and that's pretty much every 1980s movie anyone needs to see.




and Blade Runner, of course.
(still stuck in the "B"s)
posted by philip-random at 4:17 PM on June 19, 2010

Obligatory note that Johnny Rotten claims that Sid and Nancy is very nearly complete fantasy.

Print the legend.
posted by Bookhouse at 10:20 PM on June 19, 2010

add Brazil and Blue Velvet to this and that's pretty much every 1980s movie anyone needs to see.




and Blade Runner, of course.

You forgot Poland They Live!
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:21 PM on June 19, 2010

Cut to extended fight scene in an alleyway - "watch the damn movie!".
posted by Artw at 10:27 PM on June 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

so I almost saw the stooges tonight (does hearing them count? the crowd was huge) and this thread is making me really nostalgic.

also, I totally agree with this: The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:45 AM on June 20, 2010

I liked Revenger's Tragedy very much, despite the presence of Chumbawumba (and Christopher Eccelston). Death and the Compass, on the other hand, was a mess. An interesting experiment in some ways, but a failed one, at least for me.
posted by Stan Carey at 3:51 AM on June 20, 2010

I saw Walker in a theater in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1987. As this film was about the US's involvement in Central America in the 19th century and was shown when the US was again involved in Central America, the audience had a quite different reaction to the film than, say, a bunch of art film types here in the US. Quite an uncomfortable experience being one of the few Americans in the theater.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:11 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Alright, so I discovered Walker about a year and a half ago, and then this post set me to forcing those in proximity to me to watch it. I'm in the middle of my third viewing of the film right now. I think it's become my favorite movie of this period in my life. It is most certainly its own defense.
posted by jrb223 at 7:05 PM on June 23, 2010 [1 favorite]