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At least three Houston-area restaurants make an appearance in the trailer for the new film from hot-shot indie director Sean Baker.
The movie, called Red Rocket, was filmed in Texas City and Galveston between October and November of 2020. It stars former MTV VJ Simon Rex as a washed-up porn star who returns to his hometown in a bid to restart his life.
Part of that bid includes trying to find a new job, and the trailer shows Rex’s character, Mikey, struggling to explain his employment history while interviewing for a handful of positions in dusty restaurant back offices and brightly-lit kitchens, including Wrice BBQ in Texas City. It also shows him meeting a new love interest, named Strawberry, who works at the quaint doughnut shop known simply as Donut Hole, a small local chain.
In between sweeping shots of the Southeast Texas coastal prairie and the many refineries in the Texas City area, the trailer also shows Mikey and Strawberry spending an evening on the Tilman Fertitta-owned Pleasure Pier in Galveston.
The film, which is described as a character study, is a follow-up to Baker’s critically-acclaimed 2017 movie The Florida Project, which starred Willem Dafoe. Red Rocket was nominated for a Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and already has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is set to debut in American theaters on December 3.
