This hip, intelligent director makes films--with the exception of the incoherent and unwatchable "Straight to Hell" (1987)--that seem destined for instant cult status. Liverpudlian Alex Cox had originally intended to pursue a career in law when he caught the showbiz bug at Oxford. He went on to study film at Bristol University and UCLA before making an assured feature debut with the self-evidently postmodern thriller "Repo Man" (1984). Cox later expertly engineered a harrowing portrait of addiction with "Sid and Nancy" (1986), his portrait of punk rocker Sid Vicious and his doomed affair with
