Kelly WandThe Winner
November 18th 2006 00:56
A decade and a half before Tarantino “invented” his twisted worlds of quirky lateral dialogue and equally quirky protagonists, there was Alex Cox. Conspiracy theorists point to the bizarre similarities between “Straight to Hell” and “Pulp Fiction” but you know conspiracy theorists. I’m looking at the suits and I’m looking at the black guy. I’m listening to the pop culture references. The only thing that blows the idea out of the water is the fact that only three people went to the movies to see “Straight to Hell” and I was one of them.
Alex was a whole lot more quirky, anarchic and political. He admired the films that everyone else hated. When given the job of presenting cult movies on Britain’s BBC2, he stuck on “Django” and sung the praises of Dennis Hopper’s “The Last Movie”. “Repo Man” and “Sid and Nancy” managed to convince the establishment that he had talent. “Straight to Hell” was mistaken for a self indulgent piss up by those who didn’t understand what he was doing. After “Walker”, his fourth movie, he was all but black listed by Hollywood because his historic adventure went out of its way to draw parallels with American foreign policy. If you did miss the point, the cavalry rolled up in helicopters.
Cox went to Mexico and made the brilliant Spanish language film “The Highway Patrolman.” It has only been recently that he seems to have found a way to make films again. Where “The Winner” fits into this saga, I have no idea. I’ve gone through the bios and a pile of reviews and I’ve come up with nothing: just a DVD I picked up by chance starring Michael Madsen, Vincent D’Onofrio, Billy Bob Thornton and Rebecca DeMornay. It is not the kind of thing you would leave off of your fairly thin resume.
There can be no doubt that it is Cox’s film and this could easily be an immediate follow up to “Repo Man”. His style is more distinctive than the Coens or Lynch and here he is in a particularly playful mood. Within moments of the film beginning, he has pastiched the opening of “Once Upon a Time in the West” and introduced us to a female lounge singer playing to the strains of a really cheap Casio. There is a long succession of outrageous tracking shots that suggest an overdose of Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”. The camera work is especially brave in this film. It often left my jaw scraping on the floor in disbelief that someone could kick so hard against the prevailing trends of short scenes and fast editing.
D’Onofrio plays a man with the power to win at Roulette every Sunday. Everybody wants his money. They plot to steal it yet inexplicably they cannot help but like the guy. The crosses, double crosses and triple crosses begin to mount up until all that is left is honesty.
Coming out of nowhere as this did, I would personally say that this is one of my happier finds of late. After one viewing, I know that this will become a favourite of mine.
I hope you’ll at least give it its day in court.
Alex was a whole lot more quirky, anarchic and political. He admired the films that everyone else hated. When given the job of presenting cult movies on Britain’s BBC2, he stuck on “Django” and sung the praises of Dennis Hopper’s “The Last Movie”. “Repo Man” and “Sid and Nancy” managed to convince the establishment that he had talent. “Straight to Hell” was mistaken for a self indulgent piss up by those who didn’t understand what he was doing. After “Walker”, his fourth movie, he was all but black listed by Hollywood because his historic adventure went out of its way to draw parallels with American foreign policy. If you did miss the point, the cavalry rolled up in helicopters.
Cox went to Mexico and made the brilliant Spanish language film “The Highway Patrolman.” It has only been recently that he seems to have found a way to make films again. Where “The Winner” fits into this saga, I have no idea. I’ve gone through the bios and a pile of reviews and I’ve come up with nothing: just a DVD I picked up by chance starring Michael Madsen, Vincent D’Onofrio, Billy Bob Thornton and Rebecca DeMornay. It is not the kind of thing you would leave off of your fairly thin resume.
There can be no doubt that it is Cox’s film and this could easily be an immediate follow up to “Repo Man”. His style is more distinctive than the Coens or Lynch and here he is in a particularly playful mood. Within moments of the film beginning, he has pastiched the opening of “Once Upon a Time in the West” and introduced us to a female lounge singer playing to the strains of a really cheap Casio. There is a long succession of outrageous tracking shots that suggest an overdose of Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”. The camera work is especially brave in this film. It often left my jaw scraping on the floor in disbelief that someone could kick so hard against the prevailing trends of short scenes and fast editing.
D’Onofrio plays a man with the power to win at Roulette every Sunday. Everybody wants his money. They plot to steal it yet inexplicably they cannot help but like the guy. The crosses, double crosses and triple crosses begin to mount up until all that is left is honesty.
Coming out of nowhere as this did, I would personally say that this is one of my happier finds of late. After one viewing, I know that this will become a favourite of mine.
I hope you’ll at least give it its day in court.
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