Alex Cox
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Connections, in both directions
What starts as a clever comedy involving a guy who discovers an edgy superpower, becomes a crazed science fiction film reminiscent of indie cult oddities like Alex Cox’ “Repo Man.” It’s all very exciting, at least to me, and I’ll bet that I’m not alone.
There are shades of The Twilight Zone and Repo Man in Sorry to Bother You, as well as the classic Eddie Murphy “White Like Me” skit from Saturday Night Live.
Written and directed by Oakland rapper Boots Riley -- his filmmaking debut -- Sorry to Bother You has the makings of a cult film, à la other everything-including-the-kitchen-sink movies such sa Repo Man , Idiocracy , and How to Talk to Girls at Parties .
Instead, it’s a gleeful kitchen sink throwback to the satiric, absurdist, wildly inventive indies of the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s like “Repo Man”, “Being John Malkovich”, “Bamboozled”, and “Fight Club” combined with a dash of Mike Judge’s 2006 comic (yet eerily prescient) dystopic fantasia, “Idiocracy”.
It’s like if “Get Out” got all mixed up with “Repo Man,” Robert Downey Sr. and scabrous early Brian De Palma satires like “Greetings” and “Hi, Mom!”
It might be a bit unfair to compare the Bay Area rapper-turned-filmmaker to other directors when he’s so clearly on his own trip, but if you dig the handmade surrealism of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry or the antiestablishment weirdness of Repo Man , then this one is undoubtedly for you.
In the movie, it's filled with a strange, glowing, possibly atomic device; Alex Cox's Repo Man and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction famously paid tribute to this device.
It introduced me to punk music, and it also referenced many cool older movies, the most obvious being Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955).
The chaotic result is a gonzo slab of 1980s underground grunge that also riffs on Kiss Me Deadly’s famous apocalypse briefcase, dangerous-youth films like Clockwork Orange, the West Coast hardcore scene, and the cults that have long bloomed in the Southland’s smoggy, deadening warmth.
The tangy preamble -- crumby flatlands, "Oh My Darling Clementine" warbled off-key, Kiss Me Deadly in the trunk of a Chevy Malibu, ominous surf-music thrumming -- sets the free-associational guerilla timbre.
There's a reason the Criterion edition of the 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly includes a 4-minute tribute by Cox, considering he borrows that movie's visual of an otherworldly glow for his own uncompromising effort.
And while it pays subtle homage to films ranging from Kiss Me Deadly to A Clockwork Orange to E.T., and has itself influenced the disparate likes of Pulp Fiction, Napoleon Dynamite and Southland Tales , it remains entirely sui generis – which is why it seems as fresh and original today as it was in 1984 (the suitably Orwellian year of its release).
The Bride! (2026)
Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal
influenced by Sid and Nancy (1986), Repo Man (1984)
Themes Plot Characters
You could add the punk nature of Sid and Nancy…
Love story: Can you get audiences to root for the monster couple (like Romeo and Juliet) or be awed by their depravity (like Sid and Nancy).
Sid & Nancy…
Buckley, who kept reminding me of Chloe Webb in Sid and Nancy, has a marvelous insouciant deadpan as the nattering Bride, covering a fiercely angry heart.
…a go-for-broke reimagining of The Bride of Frankenstein by way of Sid and Nancy…
I was here to see a monster movie take on the structure of a Bonnie & Clyde meets Sid & Nancy…
Pee Wee Herman and Tracey Walter ("Repo Man") are truly wasted as a pair of FBI agents -- inspired casting cast adrift.
As scripted by Anthony McCarten (“Darkest Hour,” “The Theory of Everything”), it lacks the cathartic intimacy, the rippingly authentic you-are-there excitement of a great rock-world biopic like “Sid and Nancy” or “Get On Up” or “Love & Mercy.”
Think 1986’s cult classic Sid and Nancy, in which Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb spend most of their time super-blotto and screaming at one another when they’re not smooching in an alley as pieces of garbage fall around them in slow motion.
And how did the story of an Amish preacher (Harry Dean Stanton, "Repo Man") first told by Zachariah circle back to Hans?
And while it pays subtle homage to films ranging from Kiss Me Deadly to A Clockwork Orange to E.T., and has itself influenced the disparate likes of Pulp Fiction, Napoleon Dynamite and Southland Tales , it remains entirely sui generis – which is why it seems as fresh and original today as it was in 1984 (the suitably Orwellian year of its release).
Cowriters Edward Neumeier, also coproducer, and Michael Miner, who developed "Repo Man" with Alex Cox, see little difference between the mores in the streets and those in the glass boxes.
From then on, the film grabs armfuls of "Terminator," "Repo Man," "Blade Runner" and "Frankenstein" (and a fistful of "Miami Vice") and runs.
The vibe and verve are like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World meets Repo Man, but the material needed an extra punch-up at script stage.
The film exists somewhere between Repo Man, No Country for Old Men, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and South Park.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
influenced by Sid and Nancy (1986)
Characters
With their wild pitch black and white blond locks, these two are a thinker's "Sid and Nancy."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Directed by Terry Gilliam
influenced by Repo Man (1984), Sid and Nancy (1986)
His Walker (1988) and Highway Patrolman (1992) were critically acclaimed in Europe, but failed miserably in the U.S. Cox was originally set to direct both Ian McKellen's Richard III (1995) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) with Johnny Depp, but both projects fell through and were completed by others.
It started with the preemptive "creative differences" as original punk writer-director Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy, Repo Man) got booted at Johnny Depp's behest.
Cult director Alex Cox ( Repo Man , Sid and Nancy ) still retains his writing credit on the film, even though none of his script made it to this film.
It started with the preemptive "creative differences" as original punk writer-director Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy, Repo Man) got booted at Johnny Depp's behest.
The movie's original director was Alex Cox , whose brilliant " Sid and Nancy " showed insight into the world of addiction.
Cult director Alex Cox ( Repo Man , Sid and Nancy ) still retains his writing credit on the film, even though none of his script made it to this film.
Like that movie, or Sid and Nancy (or Pulp Fiction), it offers transgressive kicks served up without apology or judgment ? the spectacle of unregenerate thrill junkies high on self-destructive bravado.
It's not easy reasoning with someone like Leila or, for that matter, with anything that happens in the film, which at times seems like a cross between ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' and ''Used Cars.''