Repo Note

Made my Mom watch Alex Cox's Repo Man tonight, because it was airing on TV (and she has cable). Not really her cup of tea, though she got a few chuckles out of it, and I think she was amused by my anticipating lines from the film that were seared into my head during repeated viewings when I was a teenager (such as "a repo man spends his time getting into tense situations," or such - which, by the way, is a line likeably quoted by a young Phil Seymour Hoffman in the film Twister, which I always thought had a pleasing subtext about the passions that can arise from belonging to a subculture). I assume there are few jokes in the film that have escaped me - from the references to Kiss Me Deadly to the fact that all the repo men - Oly, Lite, Miller, Bud - have beer-related names, I think I've got it covered, having likely watched Repo Man more thoroughly, and possibly more often, than any other film.

In truth, there really was no reason to make Ma sit through it, since I can revisit it any night I want- I have the DVD. My reasons were selfish: I wanted to look at it on TV because, years ago, I saw a "preview" clip for a TV screening of it that included an image of Bud and Otto taking a sledgehammer to something, a scene not included in the finished film and to my recollection not on the DVD extras. Sometimes - as with the Smithee version of Dune or the extended cut of Aliens - TV airings of movies include material not in the theatrical release, with the aim of lengthening the broadcast and thus inserting more commercials; at least that's how it used to be. Maybe there was a long version of Repo Man sent out to TV land, then, from which this mysterious preview, glimpsed some twenty years ago and forever left to linger in my memory, borrowed an image? .

Utterly silly of me: the Encore Avenue screening (commercial free) was the same as the DVD, while, I see now, the scene in question - and several I had never seen before - are all viewable on Youtube. Of course.

By the way, do y'all know that Alex Cox is currently working on a film called Repo Chick? It hasn't been so easy to follow his recent films, but I greatly enjoyed Three Businessmen (which I was fortunate to find for $1.99 at a Loonie store on Commercial Drive). ...and you've all seen Straight To Hell, right?