Merely because the first quarter of the interview is somehow taken up by remarks about Rammstein does not make 366’s chat about Every Heavy Thing less informative. Indeed, few things are heavier than the “gay disco metal” of that rock group.
But Mickey Reece has a new movie out, and we get there eventually.
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Montréal 2025
No, I am not with the German wedding party, but it was kind of you to think so.
7/23: Every Heavy Thing
Mickey Reece drops a Brian De Palma-worthy sex-and-tech thriller on his hapless protagonist, Joe, an ad-man for a local newspaper. Stylish neon saturation, flickering screens, dangerous conversations, and an ever-rising body count steadily drip drip drip, pooling at Joe’s feet like so much stylish 1980s chic. Except Joe wants nothing at all to do with this nonsense surrounding him, and attempts valiantly to shrug off the machinations in order to lead his own, normal, hum-drum movie life. Reece once more plays around with genre (previous dissimilar genre outings include biopic and soap opera), and the fun he’s having with this project plays out in the final product. Joe’s determined passivity is relatable, and by the end you’ll agree with his friends: this reluctant hero is, for sure, “almost cool.”
The House With Laughing Windows
City dweller Stefano arrives in a remote Italian village to restore a painting in the local church. Hired by a fellow who is as diminutive as he is well-dressed, art guy checks in to the local hotel, only to be kicked out later and obliged to spend his nights at a semi-ruined old mansion. Quietly odd characters abound, hot chicks bed the outsider, and the cult of the artist whose work Stefano is restoring becomes more than a little menacing. But all told, I wish director Pupi Avati had gone full throttle. There’s danger: I want more; there’s violence: I want more; there’s atmosphere: I want more. As it stands, this movie will primarily appeal to dyed-in-the-wool giallo fans. Me, well, I am somewhat ashamed to admit there were stretches when the lull of the film score and the darkness of the theater almost tipped me into sleep.
Things That Go Bump in the East (Shorts Anthology)
“Magai-Gami” – dir. by Norihiro Niwatsukino
This must be a dry-run for a feature; but then again, sometimes that stretches things too thinly. Regardless, Norihiro’s little horror here is a creepy joy. Two young women visit a prohibited forest to encounter the titular entities for the purposes of Internet fame. A demon of hundreds of hands stares down one of Continue reading 2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART TWO
As it was, it barely happened; on most timelines, it probably didn’t. But there he was: his flight delayed, Mickey Reece leaned against the bar edge, ready to discuss Country Gold, and more. Listen with pleasure as a knowledgeable auteur and a country music-ignorant reviewer chat about Reece’s latest film. Though 366 somehow failed to ask about a restaurant, we learned exactly how Mickey’s boyhood steaks were prepared: well done—not unlike his films.
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DIRECTED BY: Mickey Reece
FEATURING: Mickey Reece, Ben Hall
PLOT: Troyle Brooks , a country music superstar on the rise, shares a disillusioning evening with his fellow musician and personal hero, George Jones.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Having kept an eye on Mickey Reece’s previous odd outings, I was very pleased to have finally struck gold: weird gold. Noir-style camerawork, animated intrusions, and the regular unspooling of side-character meanderings make Country Gold an oddball. Call it “bio-picaresque”, if you will.
COMMENTS: Bourbon and balladeering filled my Spring and Summer back in 2012: a time long ago, a decade now, semi-buried in memory and haze. During my brief spell as the front man for a Country Rock band, with my rough-cut baritone and larger-than-life self, it fell to me to translate heartache, brushes with the law, and failure a-plenty into melodramatic foot-stompers. Despite this brush with the genre, I know little-to-nothing about it. That did not stop me from thoroughly reveling in Mickey Reece’s latest feature, Country Gold, which tells the story of a young star’s collision with a faded legend, and the lessons learned over the course of a betimes bizarre blowout.
Reece is making a particular kind of period piece with this film. Much of the movie’s surface hearkens straight to musical biopic, with impromptu encounters between Troyle (Mickey Reece, oozing hay-seed charisma and genuine naivety) and the world around him. Troyle loves country music, loves being a vessel for others’ heartache, and loves George Jones (Reece mainstay Ben Hall)—or at least the concept of George Jones. Country Gold is at its heart a “coming of age” story about Troyle learning awkward facts about the price of fame and the hazards of aging gracelessly.
As straightforward and wholesome as the story proper may be (reflecting, rather nicely, its protagonist), Reece coats his pure-beef narrative with a crunchy-fried layer of uncanny off-kilter. Black and white is perhaps an obvious choice for a period piece, but not-so-much for one set in 1994. Indeed, the whole film is shot more like film noir than biopic, with sharp blacks pooling around soft whites, an aura hearkening back toward the previous mid-century. Strange interludes splash, such as the films-within-the-film whenever Jones regales a (dubious) anecdote.
Despite the black and white harshness around him, and the increasingly abusive behavior of his dinner buddies, Troyle never fails to put his best foot forward, or to have a kind word or quick apology when things go awry. Even during the singularly odd visitation from a black cross-dresser in the men’s room—wherein a mascara hand-off triggers a New Wave hallucination—Troyle never loses his Swell Guy Cool. Jones’ fiery and tear-filled speech at the night’s end, when it’s just the two country music stars alone after a boozy night on the town, lays bare the horrible price Troyle may have to pay.
Troyle observes the seedy eccentricity around him, taking in the quips, the kicks, and the abuse—the animated sequence condemning Troyle’s “steak, well-done” restaurant order is a mean-spirited hoot—while somehow keeping jaundice from creeping into his wide eyes. And don’t you worry, friend: misgivings about our homespun hero are allayed, more or less, by the closing number, performed in utero by Troyle’s unborn baby boy.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
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DIRECTED BY: Mickey Reece
FEATURING: Molly C. Quinn, Jake Horowitz, Ben Hall, Hayley McFarland, Sean Gunn
PLOT: A demon possesses a sister at a conservative Carmelite nunnery, causing a crisis of faith for one of the nuns.
COMMENTS: Perhaps it would be better to go into Agnes knowing nothing about it beforehand; I won’t give major spoilers, but if you’d prefer to be surprised, stop reading now. OK, for the rest of you, all I will really say is: be prepared for a drastic tonal shift around the middle of the film. Agnes‘ most important characters will not be those you initially assume, and some questions may go unanswered. What appears to be a rambunctious exorcism spoof evolves into something far more thoughtful. Agnes gets crazier and crazier, then gets less and less crazy, until it ends on a note of pure emotional earnestness. Although it flows from a single incident, the film is split into two parts; this procedure will frustrate some. But I found looking at the connections between the two halves, and thinking of reasons why the material might be handled with such stylistic polarity, to be a fascinating exercise.
With that said, I think it’s safer to describe the film’s “fun” first half, and leave the viewer to experience the more serious back nine on their own—except to advise you to stick with it all the way to the final scene. The first thing to note is that, although it plays its humor pretty close to the vest, Agnes is never really a scary demonic possession movie; it’s a comic take on the genre. The Church here is so riddled with clichés—hints of pedophilia, scheming monsignors concerned with public relations, an institution embarrassed by its own exorcism rites, a crusty old priest undergoing a crisis of faith contrasted with a pious young initiate, a sexually repressed nunnery—-that Agnes could almost function as a satire of movies about Catholicism. Then there are the plentiful campy bits sprinkled throughout: too-thick horror music cues at inappropriate times. An action-movie style montage of determined priests and nuns marching to exorcism. A nun named Sister Honey (!) It all seems to be heading into Ken Russell territory with a renegade cowboy priest who comes complete with a chain-smoking groupie in a beehive hairdo and too much bronzer. And then… well, I leave it for you to discover the rest for yourself.
Agnes is so unique, I can’t really decide if it’s firmly within the weird genre, or not. The film’s hemispheres are aimed at different audiences: the first half at a savvy genre crowd, the second at the arthouse set. It will probably appeal most to those with a religious mindset. I don’t mean people of any particular faith—I believe atheists can get as much out of it as devout Christians—but people who are concerned with and interested in the questions that religion seeks to address, questions about meaning and suffering. Seen in that light, the movie’s movement from ironic caricature to clear-headed sincerity feels like a legitimate spiritual journey. Agnes is justified by faith.
Giles Edwards adds: Agnes makes a promise to go full Ken Russell on the viewer, as Greg remarks. Of particular note is the rogue exorcist, one of those mystifying characters that I hope is based on a real-life person, but is more likely a bold combination of the Dude from The Big Lebowski and Bobby Peru from Wild at Heart. The sleek cinematographical maneuverings of the first act could have built into something wonderfully nuthouse, but the thrill of exploitation gets cut off at the bite of the face and an almost mystical exhalation of smoke. The second act—very nearly its own second movie—is slowly paced, and dwells on kitchen-table dramatic musings of identity, financial solvency, and relationship power dynamics. The bombast of the foundation kept me on the edge of a chuckle throughout, with its repressed mother superior, sketchy-swain mentor priest, and the excommunicated demon specialist; the melodrama built on that foundation wasn’t nearly as entertaining in my view, but it was much more respectable as a cinematic outing. It’s as if the director had designed a bondage fun-house basement and felt oddly compelled to hide it from the world with a factory line split-level ranch above ground level.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: