Alex Cox on Kickstarter

I’m beginning to wonder if my new way of watching films is going to be via Kickstarter. I’ve now backed two films in the last two weeks. The first was the wildly successful Veronica Mars movie. That was always going to achieve its $2m goal, and indeed it hit its target within 24 hours. At time of writing, it’s getting close to double what it was looking for.
The other film, is perhaps more interesting, and the one that’s perhaps going to take a bit more work to achieve its goal.
Alex Cox is best known to people of my generation as the presenter of the much missed Moviedrome from a time when terrestrial television showed interesting films (Although I have many more film channels available to me today, I’m not sure the range is what it used to be). I regularly had blank VHS tapes on hand when it was being broadcast.
He’s also a director of such films as Repo Man, Walker and Sid and Nancy.
These days he’s to be found teaching at the University of Colorado, but for a while he’s been trying to make Harry Harrison’s Bill, The Galactic Hero. And now he’s going to do it, very cheaply, in black and white and on 35mm – a stock that’s going to disappear very soon.
What you need to know about Bill, The Galactic Hero is that it was written in direct response to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. Let’s just say that Harrison and Heinlein agreed to disagree.
Harrison died last year – and although I’ve read many of his Stainless Steel Rats books (indeed a reread a few last year following his death) – I’ve not yet read Bill, The Galactic Hero. I did buy the ebook last week though.
That hasn’t stopped me instantly backing Cox’s new film. He’s at about 20% of his target after two days. 28 days to raise $80,000 doesn’t seem impossible does it? In the meantime, here’s his new(ish) blog.


Posted

in

Tags: