Episode 166 - The Podcaster & The Provocateur (ft. Alex Cox)

Jack is joined for this episode by special guest, filmmaker Alex Cox. Alex was director of such films as Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell and Walker in the 1980s, Highway Patrolman, Death and the Compass and Three Businessmen in the 1990s, and has made films such as Revengers Tragedy, Repo Chick, Searchers 2.0 and Tombstone Rashomon since the turn of the century. He's the author of numerous books, including Alex Cox's Introduction to Film, his memoir X Films, and The President & The Provocateur: The Parallel Lives of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald. He's also a screenwriter, actor, and documentarian, and in the late 1980s presented Moviedrome, the BBC's late-night "cult film" series. Speaking on the phone from his home in the US, Alex talked to Jack about making anti-imperialist, anti-war cinema (particularly his masterpiece Walker), attempting to do so in Hollywood, working with everyone from Joe Strummer to Dennis Hopper to Hunter S. Thompson, films that influenced him (such as Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid), the films he *hasn't* made, and - naturally - theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. If you're interested in Alex's work, his vimeo account @ vimeo.com/alcox is an invaluable resource, containing full films (his documentary Scene Missing and dramatic feature Bill The Galactic Hero) alongside numerous shorts on a myriad subjects including Kennedy, Philip K Dick, Repo Man, and an unproduced kind of spiritual sequel to Walker. Alex also blogs at https://alexcoxfilms.wordpress.com.