Pot plays a major role because, like in most economically depressed areas, it provides an escape from the misery of broken dreams. She gives as good as she gets, and mostly that’s good for Mikey, as long as he keeps Lexi happy.īree Elrod, left, and Simon Rex plays lovers on the rocks in "Red Rocket." She’s played by Brenda Deiss, in the skin of an impoverished Southern mother, weather-beaten and slack, haphazardly draped over sharp bones and a sharper mouth. Within hours, they're dancing the horizontal boogie, just like back in the day when they did it for the cameras, and Mikey was regularly picking up AVNs, the porn industry’s version of the Oscar.Īnd the winners are: Boston film critics take 'Drive My Car' for a spinĪt first, Mikey actually seems happy being back home, earning his keep by doing chores for his rightfully suspicious mother-in-law, Lil. He even persuades his ex, Lexi (Bree Elrod), to let him move in, even though she has neither seen nor heard from him in years. He can talk his way into, and out of, almost any sort of conceivable jam. Set amid the 2016 presidential election, the duo approaches their film as a character study. He fits snugly into a story compiled by Baker and his regular writing partner, Chris Bergoch, which melodically meanders like the soft Texas drawl emanating from every local Mikey has the opportunism to meet. And because Rex really is an ex-porn star, it’s hard to tell what’s autobiographical and what’s not. Rakishly handsome despite nearing 50, Mikey, like Rex, possesses something approaching eternal youth behind the beguiling smile a fox affects when invited into the hen house. 'Don't Look Up': Ariana Grande concert scene filmed in WeymouthĬharming? An ex-porn star? Bet on it! With ex-MTV VJ Simon Rex filling Mikey’s bargain-basement shoes, charm seems much too mild a term for how this very bad boy worms his way into your heart, despite his consistently despicable behavior. Like us, they are no match for this charming hustler. He’s met with anger, but only temporarily. His first destination is the shabby, rundown home of his estranged wife and mother-in-law. With no place to go but up, he hightails it back to his hometown of Texas City, a mecca of gasoline production about to be set ablaze. And like most confidence men of white privilege, he does what he pleases despite being dead broke and fresh out of opportunities. He’s the lazy, scheming anti-hero our fractured nation deserves. She worked on her character’s physicality - “I tried to keep her very up, light on her toes” - and her voice, lifting the timbre to sound younger, and finding the accent by writing out crucial lines in the international phonetic alphabet.Simon Rex plays an aimless porn star who returns to his Texas hometown in the comedy "Red Rocket." “I listened to young, poppy music and started a diary as Strawberry,” Son says. But just as she was wondering if she’d misplaced her optimism, Baker called and soon she was transforming herself into the 17-year-old Strawberry, who flirts with Rex’s porn star Mikey Saber, both aware of and heedless of the consequences. And while she’d made two music videos, her acting career had not happened. “I became obsessed and watched all Sean’s films and interviews.”īut while she was “hopelessly hopeful,” Son didn’t hear from Baker for two years. “I thought, ‘This is it,’ and I lost my mind,” she says. Son, who had a background in music and dancing, had just arrived in Los Angeles to try to make it as an actor. “When I saw Suzi I said to Samantha, ‘If she’s not already a star she will be.’” “When I street cast, I’m looking for that aura, that energy where you say, ‘I can see that person on screen for two hours and I want to see that person on screen for two hours,’” Baker says. On the day of I told Sean I might throw up and he said, ‘Well, drink something green so it’s a pretty color.’”īaker and his wife, Samantha Quan, had first spotted Son at the ArcLight Hollywood movie theater more than two years earlier and approached her to see if she was interested in acting. Leading up to the day of the roller-coaster scene, however, Son grew so fearful that “I was sobbing because I knew it was coming on the schedule.
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