Film School Radio hosted by Mike Kaspar

Country Gold - Director Mickey Reece

Acclaimed indie filmmaker Mickey Reece (AGNES, CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER) presents a bizarre reimagining of musical icons, COUNTRY GOLD. George Jones (Ben Hall) invites an up and coming country music superstar out on the town in Nashville the night before George is to be cryogenically frozen in 1994. Featuring gut-busting gags and hilarious allusions to real-life events, this fantasy comedy becomes an emotionally stirring tribute to the legacies we leave behind. Reece stars as emerging Country music star Troyal Brux (Mickey Reece), who resembles ’90s-era Garth Brooks. One wild night in Nashville, Brux has a chance meeting with fellow legend George Jones, hours before Jones is to be cryogenically frozen. Director, producer and writer Mickey Reece joins us for a conversation on the inspiration for the film, how it dove-tails with his previous work, his decision to play the lead, Troyal Brux, and working again with the great Ben Hall.

To watch go to: fandor.com/details/Country-Gold

About the filmmaker – Mickey Reece is a writer/director from Oklahoma City, OK. He has directed over 25 feature films in just over a decade with each subsequent work pushing the boundaries of his own established form and unique brand of art-house cinema. Reece grew up in the small town of Newcastle, OK and began making amateur movies with an 8mm camcorder when he was a teenager. After amassing a remarkable amount of short films made with his friends and family over the course of five years, adult Reece became more interested in his other passion as a touring musician, putting the camera aside. Many years later Reece would get the bug again. He made his first feature length film Le Corndog Du Desespoir on a Canon XL1 mini DV camera and edited the footage on iMovie with a power Mac G5. In 2018 Reece’s stylized and surreal take on the horror genre Strike, Dear Mistress, and Cure His Heart became the first of Reece’s films to play at an international film festival.” The ‘Strike’ premiere caught the interest of LA based production company Divide/Conquer who would produce Reece’s next two projects, Climate of the Hunter (2019) and Agnes (2021), solidifying a spiritual trilogy of stylized horror inspired by the work of Ingmar Bergman. Climate of the Hunter was well received by festival-goers and critics and became the first Reece film to be elevated to the status of “limited theatrical release.” After the success of Climate of the Hunter, a collection of Reece’s earlier works including T-Rex (2014), Suedehead (2015), Mickey Reece’s Alien (2017), Strike, Dear Mistress, And Cure His Heart (2018) and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune (2019) were made available to the public by Alamo Drafthouse’s own streaming service Alamo On Demand in 2020. Belle Isle (2020), a short documentary chronicling Reece’s story and featuring never before seen clips of the amateur movies Reece grew up making is also included on the streaming service. In 2022, Reece premiered Country Gold, a fantastical country music comedy and spiritual sequel to Mickey Reece’s Alien (2017), at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival. 

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87% on RottenTomatoes

“There simply aren’t many films like Country Gold being made today, and while the tone may not work for some viewers, Reece has nevertheless created a madcap slice of independent cinema.” – Andrew Murray, The Upcoming

“For a film with almost no special effects, save a final scene too wild to spoil, Country Gold’s ability to deliver a message and maintain a hilarious tone throughout makes it one of the most satisfying movies of 2022.” – Spencer Perry, ComicBook.com

“…this night of sex and drugs and country-and-western encompasses the arrogance of success, the fleetingness of celebrity and the ravages of time itself. And like all the best country songs, it comes steeped in melancholy and regret.” – Anton Bitel, Projected Figures

“Country Gold has a wild, fascinating kick, a movie that has the sensitivity of a liquor-drenched ballad, but has the What if? of science fiction as its North star.” – Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com

“For all its formal playfulness, the film never loses its grip on the interior lives to its characters.” – Steven Nguyen Scaife, Slant Magazine

“The fame-corrupts-the-innocent plot is an elaborate send-up, as is just about everything in the film, which hovers somewhere between a surreal Christopher Guest mockumentary and Hal Hartley’s deadpan irony.” – Noah Berlatsky, Chicago Reader