ALEX COX: THE RETURN OF WALKER
British filmmaker Alex Cox made his name with Sid and Nancy and cult-fave Repo Man. However, his epic story of greed, Latin American politics and U.S. chicanery, Walker (1987)—set in Nicaragua in the mid-1800s—should have been his pinnacle. With a soundtrack by Joe Strummer, bravura performances by Ed Harris and Peter Boyle, and timeless theme of American interventionism, Walker seemed ‘can’t-miss’. Uh, not so fast. Released in the middle of the Iran-Contra Hearings to mostly negative reviews, the studio turned its back on the film and took a major loss. Criterion has now come to the...