Repo Man (October 1st at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[REPO MAN screens October 1st at 9:30pm and midnight at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

When the 2010 futuristic thriller REPO MEN came out, with Jude Law among medical mercenaries who repossess transplanted organs when the new owners fail to pay them off, I liked the premise (bet the Cleveland Clinic will go that route, in the end) but hated the title. It would only eclipse the 1984 cult classic REPO MAN, the debut from emigre British director Alex Cox, beloved of a generation of moviegoers as the ultimate in "punk" cinema, yet with the novelty of not taking place in a rock-club background, like you'd expect. Fortunately, I do believe REPO MEN sank like a stone, while REPO MAN is still there to be appreciated in all its nihilistic glory, quotable dialogue and restless energy. Not so much screwball comedy as screw-it-all comedy.

Repo Chick (now on home video)

[REPO CHICK is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

For a few months there in the 1980s, British director Alex Cox was "hot," as Paris Hilton might say. He had back-to-back hits with SID AND NANCY and REPO MAN, two movies that captured the "punk" aesthete probably better than most - and, to REPO MAN's credit, that scrambled satire about SoCal car-repossession specialists didn't even have a music-club backdrop to put across its brand of f***-everything nihilism.

After dropping off the radar for a while, the unashamedly leftist Cox had been teasing the fanboys with talk of a REPO MAN sequel, as market-driven and studio sellout as that concept might seem. What, would the repo men meet Freddy, Jason, or Chucky? Would the soundtrack be hip-hop? Mike Nesmith produced the first one; maybe the aged Monkees could cameo?