It’s been two days yet I still can’t stop thinking about Red Rocket. Fresh off its NYC premiere at the New York Film Festival, it feels very refreshing to watch the film on a big screen. The premise might be really simple: Mikey, a washed up porn star, returns from LA to his industrial hometown in Texas City. However, Red Rocket is so much more than meets the eye: behind the laughter and the groans, Red Rocket is a grim window to understanding how the neoliberal US empire affects its unassuming citizens in subtle ways.