Let’s face it, last year was a shitshow on every level. But perhaps its biggest failing wasn’t the resurgence of meathead fascism, but the lack of Steven Soderbergh content. This was literally the first year since 1994(!!!) when Soderbergh had nothing to show anyone, and his absence was greatly felt, especially with all the news of the two projects of his that would come out the next year. And by the end of the year and a month into the new year, even that news went away, leaving a cone of silence surrounding Logan Lucky and especially Mosaic. The former is still without a distributor, and the latter hasn’t been acknowledged by HBO since the press release on it nearly one and a half years ago, not even at their presentation for the TCAs. And yet, despite this, I’ve still managed to compile a whole news post’s worth of, uh, news items about these two films. Because of course I have.

Let’s start with the big scoop that concerns, which I only very recently (i.e. yesterday) discovered. As gifted as he is with images, Soderbergh is just as good with music. His last two commissioned scores, after all, were Cliff Martinez’s pulsating electronic scores for both seasons of The Knick and Thomas Newman’s wonderfully moody, underrated score for Side Effects. But Soderbergh won’t be working with either of these men for his next two films. Instead, he’ll be working on both with his one other music maven; David Holmes.

Holmes began working with Soderbergh after Martinez was rejected for the composer of Out of Sight, Holmes turning in a wonderfully funky score that perfectly complemented the film around it. From there, Holmes kind of became Soderbergh’s go-to composer for his “fun” movies, scoring all three Ocean’s movies (and turning in one of my favorite scores of all time for Twelve) and Haywire. Given that Logan Lucky is being hyped as Soderbergh’s return to heisting, Holmes’ involvement in the scoring may come as no surprise. However, his involvement with Mosaic is more surprising, if only because we know absolutely nothing about its tone or plot. This could be a sign that it will have a lighter tone, or it could be that Holmes will be working in a moodier mode than normal, or it could be an Informant!-esque none of the above situation.

And that’s not the only thing of interest in the article where I discovered this scoop. The other is that Holmes refers to Mosaic as a “six part TV film”. Now, the exact nature of Mosaic‘s structure has been shrouded in mystery since the first wrongful reports of it being a “choose-your-own-adventure”-type deal, with the only illumination coming from goddamn Buzz from Home Alone, who said the following:

It is a format and a technology that we’ve never seen before. It’s an interactive, fully-immersed film experience, in the sense that the audience will be able to see a story told from beginning to end but they can choose how they want to see it and which character to follow.

It’ll be on HBO Now. Through the website they’ll be able to follow whoever they choose to see and the story changes drastically between whose perspective you wish to see it through. It’s going to be incredible.

That would seem to sum it up, but Holmes’ statement adds an interesting wrinkle to the mix, maybe describing how many perspectives the viewer can choose between or maybe saying that it will be presented on HBO Now in six parts or maybe something else entirely. I dunno (Christ, Holmes, maybe speak out a little more, you’re givin’ me nothing here). But what I do know is that Mosaic has one hell of a cast full of ringers and character actors, including Loudon Wainwright III, The Knick‘s Jeremy Bobb, Maya Kazan, and Jennifer Ferrin, Beau Bridges, Tangerine and Generation Kill‘s James Ransome, Bridey (daughter of Chris) Elliott, Veronica Osorio (Carlotta Valdez in Hail, Caesar!), Jacob Vargas, and Paul Reubens, plus Garrett Hedlund and Sharon Stone in the lead. Whenever it premieres, it’s gonna be great, and I hope it goddamn premieres soon because I need the distraction right about now.

And now onto the other Soderbergh project. I last covered Logan Lucky in October, when it became clear that Katie Holmes would be in the film and Katherine Heigl wouldn’t (although the real story I uncovered then was Macon Blair being in it as well). Since then, I uncovered a plot synopsis posted by the one pure soul in the soon-to-be demolished IMDb forums. I present the relevant portions of it below.

The Logans are a hardscrabble family from the hills of West Virginia, and their clan has been famous for its bad luck for purt (pure dirt) near 90 years now. But the conniving JIMMY LOGAN (Channing Tatum) decides its [sic] time to turn the family’s luck around, and with a little help from his friends the Redneck Robbers, he plans and executes a Hillbilly Heist of $14 million from the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Daniel Criag’s [sic] character is called Joe Bang. He is probably the leader of the Redneck Robbers. He has two brothers Fish and Sam, who are played by Jack Quaid (Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid’s son) and Brian Gleeson.

First of all, I now know what the greatest character name since CSI: Cyber and Detective Elijah Mundo went off the air is, and it’s Fish Bang. Second, I give this movie zero stars for trying to make “purt” happen. Third, I guess I should’ve expected that Mr. “I made a movie because I watched an MMA match once” apparently spent his retirement watching child pageant reality shows. Fourth, are we sure that “Fish Bang” isn’t something that Elmo Oxygen screams out during orgasm? And fifth, and most importantly, FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG FISH BANG

So, that’s it for even pseudo-news on the Soderbergh front. By posting this, I’m probably provoking some god to make sure that a whole bunch of actual news comes out about these two movies very soon, but I will be there for whatever comes out. Until then, keep banging those fish.