Lack of Taste Film Club: Hannah Long / Logan Lucky (2017)

The freelance writer talks about how to make highbrow art more accessible, the defunct publication The Weekly Standard and why Logan Lucky is a great representation of Appalachian America.

Welcome to the Lack of Taste Film Club, where we will talk to non-cinephiles about the movies that they love. You will find a different flavor to Film Club entries going forward. Instead of going straight to discussing the movie being chosen, we want to get to know the guest more. A general Q&A will come first, movie comes second.

In this edition, we talk to Hannah Long, a freelance writer and editor at a publishing company, whose work has been published in The Dispatch and more notably, The Weekly Standard, which has since been defunct, before taking a dive at Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky.

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LoT: Tell me a bit more about yourself and how you got to where you are?

HL: I grew up in southwest Virginia and always wanted to be a novelist. Once I got into my teens, though, I started to suspect that a quicker way to actually make a career was non-fiction, so I began blogging. That led to social media networking which led to freelance journalism opportunities. As I worked my way through college I was writing on the side for places like The Weekly Standard (where I eventually interned) and American Consequences. After I graduated I ended up connected with my current job as an assistant editor at Broadside Books through the alumni network of the conservative internship program that sponsored me at the Standard. So I moved in the dead of winter from a town of 1700 in southwest Virginia to the heart of New York City, where I knew exactly one person. 

LoT: I first came across your work at The Weekly Standard, which has a great arts & culture section. The only conservative magazine that would compete with that is The Spectator's, which still has a higher quality. Since it's pretty rare to find cultural writing on the Right, what does it take to make for great cultural writing from that perspective, in contrast to that you read in mainstream publications?

HL: I'm not sure what you mean by this?

LoT: What I mean is why don't we see a lot of people from a conservative standpoint writing about arts and culture and how should demand for more interesting writing come about?

HL: Oh, I get it. I think part of it is that we - my generation, I mean - have only ever been taught in school to analyze art from a liberal point of view. Simultaneously, the conservative movement has tended to emphasize STEM over the arts. It all combines to erode any sort of conservative artistic tradition. How should we demand better? Honestly, I don't know. At least, I don't know how to do it at scale. The real thing to fight against is mass media, which incentivizes everyone to want the lowest common denominator sort of fan service. For myself, I try my best to encourage people to enjoy the things that I enjoy and find edifying. As a critic, I really aspire to make "inaccessible" art more appealing. I love introducing people to classic films which are entertaining and great art too--I often choose screwball comedies as they're a great gateway drug to better art. And the more good stuff the watch the higher your expectations become. Anyway, that's my plan.

LoT: I like hearing that you're trying to make "inaccessible" art more appealing. So to you, what qualifies as "inaccessible" art. Do you bring into account availability and experimentation? 

HL: Yes, though I mostly meant highbrow art as opposed to lowbrow entertainment. Right now, it's never been easier to access good stuff. While, say, Netflix doesn't stream excellent classic films, HBO Max and Amazon Prime do.

LoT: I have an ecunumerical approach to conservatism and writing, so The Weekly Standard had a lot of brilliant writers and quirky material. Most people still remember it as an anti-Trump entity that has lost out and since then, some (if not most) of their writers proceeded to other publications and doubled down on their anti-Trump views that it turned off a lot of its former readers. I felt like the magazine had restrained itself on that issue, with some contributors having expressed sympathy to his voters. Would you agree?

HL: The demise of the Standard was complicated and I have no real inside view about why what happened happened. Having followed it fairly closely, I don't think it was about Trump--or at least, not entirely. My guess is no better than anyone else's. What I can say is that the views of the staff were far more diverse than people remember. There were pro-Trump people there. Some have landed at Trumpier outlets now. 

LoT: You wrote a review on Dune at The Dispatch where you emphasized the concept of beauty that's rarely demonstrated in a mainstream blockbuster. With movies like this, and given the circumstances that it was released, how optimistic does its success make you about the future of movies? 

HL: If Dune were more of a runaway financial success I'd be happier. As it is, it's creeping to a good place, with international money really helping pump it up. I think the movie landscape remains pretty much the same, with studios still throwing everything at blockbusters.  But as Titus Techera wrote recently--it's very interesting that Hollywood is willing to give money to Denis Villeneuve to make really big projects that are only sometimes successful.

LoT: I saw tweets bemoaning that recent movies from Wes Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Guillermo Del Toro aren't doing so well at the box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home, meanwhile has been smashing box office records, even during a pandemic when theatres have been struggling. I'm not surprised by this, given that all of the people I mentioned have their pros and cons in terms of artistry. Directors aren't usually the main attraction for box office hits, but when you see something from Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan, it still proves that it is possible that their names alone can bring bigger attention. And while I think that Denis Villeneuve will reach that point of selling a film by himself, after the release of Dune Part II, I think both the franchise and the director, much like Nolan and The Dark Knight trilogy, can get moviegoers back to the theatre. Any thoughts on that?

HL: Villeneuve hasn't proven to quite have the populist touch that Tarantino or Nolan has. Spielberg used to have that touch but seems to have gradually lost it over the years. I think Dune Part II depends heavily on whether people feel satisfied with it as a story. In a sense, Part I was a big promise--will Part II be able to fulfill it? Unclear.

And now on to Logan Lucky.

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LoT: Much like my last guest at Film Club, you gave me a long list of favorite movies, and Logan Lucky stood out among the rest as the most recent. So what made this your all-timer?

HL: Growing up in Appalachia, you tend to feel rather invisible in pop culture. So I'm always happy to see people "from around here" (a phrase I'm using broadly, since while the characters are West Virginian, the movie takes place in locations adjacent to but not in Appalachia) who aren't just unsophisticated morons. In this, quite the opposite, they outsmart the big city sophisticates. I suppose there's some wish fulfillment involved here. So many stories about Appalachia are about how miserable we are. We're more Dickens than Dostoevsky, thank you very much! A heist movie is by definition about fun and glamorous people, not the miserable suffering masses. It feels very ennobling for such a story to be set here.

LoT: Logan Lucky is a bit like an Ocean's Eleven for hicks. There's a line uttered by Hilary Swank's FBI Agent where she described it as Ocean's Seven Eleven. Is there more to it than the description would apply?

HL: Soderbergh called it a sort of "anti-glam Oceans 11." What I think is most special about this movie is its protagonist. There's a certain sort of redneck that has little book learning but a lot of horse sense. He's great at problem-solving, not flashy, just going to get it done. This is a movie that recognizes that that archetype shares a lot in common with a flash conman like Danny Ocean. So you could argue that it's a simple substitution, but I think that in its recognition of the smart blue-collar guy type - and in its authentic-feeling portrayal of him - it does something quite subtle and observant. Channing Tatum is also really good at playing that type. It's nuts that he played this so close to reviving Gene Kelly's ghost in the Coens' Hail, Caesar! Soderbergh also summed up the charm of their make-do heist: "Nobody has nice stuff. They have no money. They have no technology. It's all rubber band technology." It forces the screenwriters to be very inventive and makes for a better movie.

LoT: This is a Steven Soderbergh film, hence there are so many great performances in this film that I can't decide which was the best out of the crop. Although this has my favorite performance from Riley Keough and Daniel Craig proved that he has comedic chops. What's your favorite?

HL: Adam Driver's line delivery of "cauliflower" deserves notice, and Daniel Craig's horrifically bad country accent and overacting is great fun.

LoT: I love this scene featuring Channing Tatum's daughter singing Country Road. at a talent show. It's one of the many cultural signifiers in Logan Lucky, which all boils down to a satirical look at Trump county (Anne Helen Petersen wrote that it was more political than what it would imply). What does the film do with much of its iconography?

HL: I don't think the film is thinking of it as Trump country, for one thing. But Petersen is onto something when she notices the film is about weaponizing stereotypes. The characters use the outsiders' stereotypes of them as dumb hicks as a way to fly under the radar. Similarly, these people are more than simple political agents - this song is more patriotism than politics. Appalachia is its own place and our loyalty to it is bigger than political affiliation. Regional pride is a huge deal. Being proud of Appalachia is counter to both local pessimism and national disdain. It speaks to optimism and belief in the place that does feel revolutionary. So I suppose its politics are more local than national in their concerns.

LoT: Steven Soderbergh came out of retirement to direct this movie and has made more movies since then (for what it was, I really enjoyed No Sudden Move). When I first heard about it back in 2013, when he announced it, I predicted he would be back for a few years and I was correct. My question is it still possible for artists to finish their oeuvre and then lead a peaceful life?

HL: I don't think I'm old or wise enough to answer that question. You have odd masters like Terrence Malick who decide to vanish for twenty years, probably meditating in a desert or something. But as a writer who dabbles in fiction sometimes, I struggle to imagine just being able to shut off the desire to create. I suspect you have to channel that energy somewhere.