Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

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Anhedionisiac
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#26 Post by Anhedionisiac » Sun Apr 30, 2017 9:42 pm

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned one of the most interesting details about this high-profile production: the fact that the script is attributed to Rebecca Blunt, a complete unknown without any sort of credits or internet presence whatsoever. Word around the campfire is that it's a pseudonym for Jules Asner (Soderbergh's wife and former E! News Live anchor).

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domino harvey
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#27 Post by domino harvey » Sun Apr 30, 2017 9:46 pm

That would be awesome, I wondered whatever happened to her (didn't she write a fairly popular airport novel a few years ago?)-- I kind of figured no one was eager to bring her up with Soderbergh in the wake of his extramarital dalliances a few years ago

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Anhedionisiac
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#28 Post by Anhedionisiac » Sun Apr 30, 2017 10:27 pm

Indeed, she published a reasonably popular YA novel called Whacked back in 2008. Oddly enough, despite her being a former gossip news anchor - and a very charming one at that - she's always struck me as being kind of shy. Taking that into account and the fact that those extramarital dalliances you mention would almost certainly come up during the press coverage, I guess it makes sense she'd rather use a pseudonym.

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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#29 Post by oh yeah » Wed May 03, 2017 2:37 am

domino harvey wrote:
oh yeah wrote:Interesting title. At this rate, Soderbergh's next film will be titled Dapper Danny.

(Yes, I'm here all week, folks).
Will you be explaining why that's funny at some point during your residency?
Sshhh... just let it die a quiet death. Ah, the wonders of drunk shitposting...

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antnield
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#30 Post by antnield » Sun May 28, 2017 5:51 pm


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domino harvey
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#31 Post by domino harvey » Sun May 28, 2017 7:00 pm

Starring Daniel Craig as Richard Widmark in Saint Joan

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#32 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Jun 29, 2017 7:37 pm



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domino harvey
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#34 Post by domino harvey » Fri Jul 07, 2017 2:49 pm

Soderbergh addresses Blunt speculation
I met Rebecca Blunt a long time ago through my wife. Apparently she pitched this idea to Channing when all of us were bowling four years ago (I don't recall any of that). She gave me the script to read in the fall of 2014 and asked if I would help find a director for it. After two weeks, I told her that, like Dick Cheney, I had called off the search and chosen myself. Then I gave it to Chan...

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mfunk9786
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#35 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:40 pm

Reviews are now trickling in. David Erlich at IndieWire liked it, described it as "more hangout than heist movie" and "solid. safe. southern." on Twitter, and Guy Lodge said he had a "hot, hoppy blast" with it and it features "All Soderbergh's "small" strengths, perfectly lined up."

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#36 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jul 27, 2017 11:55 am

domino harvey wrote:Soderbergh addresses Blunt speculation
I met Rebecca Blunt a long time ago through my wife. Apparently she pitched this idea to Channing when all of us were bowling four years ago (I don't recall any of that). She gave me the script to read in the fall of 2014 and asked if I would help find a director for it. After two weeks, I told her that, like Dick Cheney, I had called off the search and chosen myself. Then I gave it to Chan...
THR says Blunt isn't real.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#37 Post by Roger Ryan » Thu Jul 27, 2017 12:03 pm

"I met Rebecca Blunt a long time ago through my wife."

The coy phrasing seems to indicate that Soderbergh's wife is, indeed, "Rebecca Blunt".


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swo17
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#39 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 27, 2017 3:55 pm

Steven Soderbergh wrote:Well, that's going to be news to Rebecca Blunt.
Awesome.

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domino harvey
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#40 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 27, 2017 4:22 pm

I had no idea Soderbergh had planned to make a Skunk Boy-scripted flick starring Del Toro

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domino harvey
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#41 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:13 pm

Image

Note the word choice

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#42 Post by The Narrator Returns » Mon Jul 31, 2017 10:59 pm

This New York Times piece goes through Soderbergh's new distribution method for the film (it's basically going point-by-point with his "State of Cinema" address and fixing each of his problems), and ends with this gem.
Steven Soderbergh wrote:In response to questions about the screenplay’s author, Mr. Soderbergh said in an email, “Clarify? Me? Why would I do that? I can tell you that Rebecca Blunt is enjoying all this immensely.”

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#43 Post by The Narrator Returns » Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:17 pm

I just got out of this and it's a blast. I'm still mulling it over a little, and a second viewing will probably be coming soon, but I will say that I dug how strange its rhythms are, especially in comparison to the cooler, tighter Ocean's Eleven (it reminded me more of Twelve's go-for-broke approach, and it takes one plot point directly from Thirteen). It's also maybe one of the most compassionate movies Soderbergh's ever made, and one of his most restrained stylistically (anyone expecting over-the-top Soderbergh color grading will be pretty disappointed by this).

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domino harvey
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#44 Post by domino harvey » Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:49 pm

With a $7 million wide opening, this distribution experiment will probably be short-lived

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knives
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#45 Post by knives » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:00 pm

Though it should be noted that the problem is probably with the distributer rather than the method considering how Bleeker Street has never had this type of opening before.

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jorencain
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#46 Post by jorencain » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:12 pm

I enjoyed this quite a bit, particularly that the heist plan is never told to the audience in advance. We are piecing it together from one scene to the next, which is probably the best approach for a plan this intricate and impossible to pull off. It's not as funny as the trailer suggests, but there are plenty of other positive things going on, including most of the performances and the relationships between members of the Logan family.

Seth McFarlane, though, is a problem. He feels like a character from another movie, and he could have been completely eliminated from the film without causing any damage to the story. I haven't seen anything else that he has acted in, but I believe the general consensus has been: not good. Here, it's the script, the costume, and the accent that add up to a performance that just didn't work for me.

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Shrew
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#47 Post by Shrew » Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:57 pm

I'll reiterate that this is pretty great but surprisingly... relaxed. It's the fun of the Oceans films with slacker pacing. But those slower moments are filled with grace notes that add color to the the characters and environment. If this and The Knick are signs of Soderbergh's future paths, then the future looks less bleak than the current US government suggests.

And it hopefully will have killed a certain tired old joke about Game of Thrones in style.

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#48 Post by The Narrator Returns » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:09 pm

Soderbergh on the opening weekend in Little White Lies.
It’s been interesting. As I’ve been trying to describe to people, you can’t use the studio metric to judge how the film performed because it just doesn’t apply at all. We were in profit as soon as the movie opened. We have a couple of weeks of playability left to see what the final result is gonna be, where there aren’t really any big releases that are going up against it. I’m curious, given the strength of the reviews and the exit polls, to see what’s going to happen and whether or not word-of-mouth will push us downfield a little further. What we haven’t been able to determine, and it’s the biggest question mark, is why what we thought would be the core audience for this movie – the rural, southern audience – didn’t show up. In fact, West Virginia was near to the bottom of all the states for our box office. I can’t figure out why that is. We targeted this audience very directly and repeatedly, and they did not show up. We can’t figure out why. I don’t know if there’s just a deep suspicion of what they perceive to be a Hollywood movie trying to portray their lifestyle. It’s very strange.

Here’s the thing: our campaign was not focussed on big city audiences. We went after the audience that isn’t courted so much, that’s sort of in the middle of the country. We really ignored New York and LA, we just decided that’s not our audience, in our minds. And yet, over the weekend, 25 out of the top 30 grossing screens were in New York and LA, because those crowds are review-driven and they read the reviews and they went. It’s all part of this larger experiment, we’ll see how the next couple of weeks play out. Like I said, there was no version of this in which we lose, ever, it was just a matter of how big can we win? We’ll see what happens. I’ve got something else in the holster that I’m gonna put through this same model, and we’ll see what happens on that one.

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Ribs
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#49 Post by Ribs » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:21 pm

I think the first Ocean's film is one of the best films of the century, and went to see this the very first showing I was able to last week, but even speaking as one of the converted who was going to see this no matter how it turned out I think the decision by Soderbergh to give himself final cut on all the marketing materials rather than usual testing and stuff (even with a nontraditional audience) probably did a lot to dissuade interest. (I do wonder if Soderbergh cut the trailer for Ocean's 12, though, as it does seem to resemble this film's quite a bit). The film's pitch of being a different take on Ocean's 11 doesn't quite work when its star power can't even come close to matching that of the four leads of that franchise, one that since the 60s was built entirely on star power for its success. I'm sure the trades will take some big Monday morning lesson about what conventional distribution does for a film when Ocean's 8 far outgrosses this one, despite it having magnitudes more in the way of mass-market appeal and name stars (plus cameos from everyone under the sun).

This is also one of the best of the year, incidentally, though I don't have much to say about it. It's laugh-out-loud hilarious, and does an interesting spin on the rules of the aforementioned films by not really following their structure, the third act here territory only explored by the Ocean's films for a few minutes at the beginning of 12.

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swo17
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Re: Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

#50 Post by swo17 » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:41 pm

Southerners notoriously hate it when authors write under pseudonyms.

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