We Can't Wait #7: Snowpiercer

[In the We Can't Wait series we're looking at our top 14 most exciting film prospects for 2014. Previously: Nymphomaniac, Boyhood, Big Eyes, The Last 5 Years, Gone Girl , Can a Song Save Your Life and Veronica Mars plus movies that just missed the cut. Here's Anne Marie on a 2013 offering that was delayed. -Editor]

Snowpiercer
Joon-ho Bong's much-discussed scifi masterpiece (?). A train powered by a perpetual-motion machine cuts through a snowy post-apocalyptic earth. Onboard, a caste system has developed. All is thrown into chaos when the lowest classes revolt and fight their way, car by car, to the front.

Talent
Joon-ho Bong brings together a versatile cast including Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Allison Pill John Hurt, and Octavia Spencer.

Why We Can't Wait
Joon-ho Bong (The Host, Mother) has been rightfully called one of the greatest directors in Korean cinema, an area filled to brimming with great directors. Even if you don't know Joon-ho Bong's work well, the idea of a post-apocalyptic train heist movie starring Tilda Swinton should be reason enough to get any self-respecting sci-fi fan excited. Still not convinced? The film has done over $50 million internationally and has been officially selected as the best Korean film of 2013. Snowpiercer has been hailed as a new Metropolis, using its extraordinary world to tell an intelligent story of class struggle and humanity.

But We Do Have To Wait
Unfortunately for Americans, Harvey Weinstein thinks we're too unintelligent for this movie. Since Weinstein picked up the film's US distribution rights last year, he has been garnering lots of bad publicity for his decision to cut 20 minutes out of the US release. His reasoning? He doesn't think it would play well in middle America. Instead of 20 minutes of exposition, he's added voice-overs to cover the lost information. (Anybody else getting Blade Runner deja vu?) Joon-ho Bong has publically stated he's against it, but Weinstein has yet to relent. No official US release date has been announced, but folks may want to skip it anyway and wait for the uncut film to be released on Bluray and digital download, whenever that may be.

We Can't Wait #9: Boyhood

[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Tim Brayton on Boyhood.]

Boyhood
Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-production epic follows one child from age 7 to 18, as he and his parents grow up in front of our eyes. There’s no readily apparent plot details beyond that --  unless you're reading spoilers from Sundance reviews -- but I’m hoping for robot vampires.

Talent
Director-producer-conceiver Linklater is joined by his ever-ready partner in long-form narrative, Ethan Hawke, as well as Patricia Arquette. Ellar Coltrane, in the longest-gestating breakthrough performance of all time, stars as the boy himself.

Why We Can’t Wait
The excellence of the every-nine-years entries in the Before… series have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Linklater has a unique gift for telling stories about the way that people’s lives, outlooks, and even personalities mature and evolve as the years go by. And if anything, the hook behind his newly-completed project is even more exciting: watching a child experience all the confusions and difficulties of adolescence in something like real time, the actor living through the same process of maturation as his character. To do justice to that kind of deeply human-scaled content would take a uniquely great director of actors and children, and luckily, in Linklater we have one of the best: his 2003 School of Rock features some of the very finest child acting in recent memory.

Richard LInklater and the cast of Boyhood at Sundance

And if there was any doubt that the one-of-a-kind project was worth paying attention to, the absurdly glowing reviews out of Sundance would seal it. The "dissenting" views from the general chorus of raptures tend to be along the lines of "this unbelievably ambitious and sprawling and exciting project has some rough patches in the plot and a few scenes that don’t land". It would be worthy getting excited for what sounds like the most singular, game-changing film of the year based on the buzz alone, but for those of us who’ve been patiently following along with the film’s production since Before Sunrise was a standalone, the great reviews are merely the capstone to a generation’s worth of anticipation.

But We Do Have To Wait
Well, not everybody – Nathaniel caught it at Sundance. The rest of us will have to wait until confirmed distributor IFC picks a release date; May worked well for Linklater and Hawke’s Before Midnight last year, and rumors are that the same timeframe is likely for this one.

Previously: #10 Big Eyes | #11 The Last 5 Years | #12 Gone Girl | #13 Can a Song Save Your Life |  #14 Veronica Mars | Introduction

We Can't Wait #10: Big Eyes

[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Julien Kojfer on "Big Eyes"]

Big Eyes
A drama centered on 50’s painter Margaret Keane, whose husband claimed credit for her works after she achieved phenomenal success.

Talent
Tim Burton is directing a starry cast including Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Jason Schwartzman, Krysten Ritter, Terence Stamp and Danny Husto. 

Why We Can't Wait
Sure, the perpetually disheveled auteur famously lost his mojo at the turn of the century, when his unique style suddenly froze into a soulless brand of manufactured gothic whimsy, and his name sadly became synonymous with lazy adaptations, predictably misshapen aesthetics, and the obligatory casting of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in cadaverous makeup and improbable wigs.

Which is precisely why no one who’s ever loved Burton could fail to be excited by Big Eyes, because it doesn’t sound like anything he’s made since the 90’s. An adult drama free of fantasy elements with a female protagonist, starring actors resolutely out of his comfort zone - one a five-time Oscar nominee who’s at the very peak of her career, the other a two-time Oscar winner badly in need of stretching his (considerable?) talents. With no Depp or Bonham Carter, to boot? Count me in. And if you’re still worried that this might turn out to be Tim Burton’s Lovely Bones, consider this: the original script is the work of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who wrote such idiosyncratic biopics as The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon, and what many of us consider to be Tim Burton’s greatest film: Ed Wood.

But We Do Have To Wait
A marital drama set in the 1950’s art world, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz? Sounds like classic Oscar material to me, so that means we’ll probably have to wait till the end of the year.

Previously: #11 The Last 5 Years | #12 Gone Girl | #13 Can a Song Save Your Life |  #14 Veronica Mars | Introduction

We Can't Wait #12: Gone Girl

[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Deborah Lipp on Gone Girl.]

Gone Girl

Loosely based on Gillian Flynn's best selling noverl of the same name, the film tells the story of a woman who mysteriously disappears on the day of her wedding anniversary.
 

Talent
Directed by a modern master of American thrillers, David Fincher, and starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, and Patrick Fugit.

Why We Can't Wait

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We Can't Wait #13: "Can A Song Save Your Life?"

[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Andrew Kendall on Can A Song Save Your Life?]

Can A Song Save Your Life?
Gretta is a would-be singer-songwriter whose boyfriend ends their long term relationship leaving her to find hopes of fame and success with down-on-his-luck record producer Dan.

Talent
John Carney is the man at helm and he's worked on the music alongside his Once collaborator, Glenn Hansard. The starry cast includes Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Cee-Lo Green, Mos Def, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Catherine Keener and James Corden.

Why We Can't Wait

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