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Alex Cox: Director Alex Cox
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After graduating from Oxford University's law program, Alex Cox attended Bristol University as a film student. He was then awarded a Fullbright Scholarship for the UCLA Film School--ideal training for the young writer/director who would go on to direct classic cult films including: Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell and Walker. Sid & Nancy played at the Director's Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival and Walker was the hit of the Havana Film Festival. His most recent release, Highway Patrolman was shot in Spanish in Mexico.
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English director "Alex Cox" studied law at Oxford--at least until being deflected into theatre through his participation in the University's drama department. "Cox" switched to a film studies program at University of Bristol, received a Fulbright scholarship, then traveled to the United States to attend the UCLA film school. His plans to become the next Welles or Scorsese were muddied by several years' inactivity, during which time he took a job repossessing automobiles.
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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.
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In this film, Director Alex Cox chose to focus mostly on the characters Sid and Nancy instead of the effects of their relationship on the group (the Sex Pistols). Why did he chose this direction? Given the emotion of this film, would the effect on the audience have changed if the director had chosen otherwise?
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Sharing the same law school as Tony Blair didn’t impede Cox from pursuing artistic paths later studying at UCLA and making first film Edge City/Sleep is For Sissies in 1980. He even convinced legendary British director Nicholas Roeg to come to the premiere at the NFT after finding his name in the phone book. Cox was... soon called back down to earth when he subsequently penned a number of scripts that were never picked up, including The Hot Club loosely described as a comedy about nuclear blast veterans.
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Rounding out the platter is a info-packed feature-length audio commentary with writer/director Alex Cox, executive producer Michael Nesmith, casting director Victoria Thomas, and actors Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, and Del Zamora. As an extra goodie you'll ... get the original REPO MAN theatrical trailer.
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Director Alex Cox