"We Can't Wait" Pt 2: Most Anticipated of 2017

Before the Oscar nominations tomorrow help put on a cap on 2016, we here at Team Experience are looking to the year ahead. We took a vote on our 17 most breathlessly anticipated movies of 2017 and here are the results. Part one, posted yesterday, included Beauty and the Beast, Coco, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties among others.

Part two after the jump. Our nine most anticipated films of the year...

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"We Can't Wait" Pt 1: Most Anticipated of 2017

Before the Oscar nominations on Tuesday help put on a cap on 2016, we here at Team Experience are looking to the year ahead. Yes, fresh off of our Team Experience Awards, our most anticipated films of 2017 with this installment of We Can't Wait!

In this list you'll find upcoming films from favorite auteurs and favorite actress, and some promising films giving us both in the same package. Forgive us if your favorite superhero doesn't make the cut - our superheroes are the actressy sort, though we will be keeping an eye on Wonder Woman. Some films that almost made the list: Pulitzer-winning adaptation Marjorie Prime, the starry remake Murder on The Orient Express, and a Short Term 12 reunion for Destin Cretton and Brie Larson with The Glass Castle.

After the jump our 17 most anticipated films of 2017...

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We Can't Wait 2015. The Complete Series

In the We Can't Wait series, just wrapped, we looked at our team's most anxiously awaited movies for the 2015 film year that's just begun. ("It's March!" you cry. It's okay. You're new. Our calendar goes Oscar to Oscar.) For the curious, the team decided and yours truly (Nathaniel) looked at the list -- essentially a top 20 at that point -- and voted only on the finalists... which amounted to a couple of "executive saves" I suppose you could say. Here's to hoping that all 15+ of these movies provoking Pavlovian drooling in our corner of the cinephile blogosphere satisfy.

Now that the list is fully up, I wonder how much of the next Oscar battles for Best Actress & Supporting Actress we've inadvertently prophesied what with Blanchett, Streep, Moore, Page, Cotillard, Winslet, Swinton, Rampling in juicy leading roles and Mara, Paulson, Chastain, Wasikowska, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judy Davis and Dakota Johnson all featured (we assume) prominently in these 15 features, too. (yes, first our Oscar predictions arrive in April)

What movies DIDN'T we cover for the summer and following prestige season that you're most excited about? And which movies on our list did we properly whet your appetite for? 

Lady MacBeth (Marion Cotillard) and her would be king (Michael Fassbender)

We Can't Wait
#1 Carol in which Blanchett ♥ Mara and her husband does not ♥ that
#2 Ricki & The Flash in which Streep rocks out / returns home
#3 Macbeth in which Fassbender seeks the crown whilst Cotillard tries to remove that damn spot and though we've had enough Shakespeare they're both too irresistible to deny
#4 Mad Max: Fury Road in which all post-apocalyptic hell breaks loose
#5 The Lobster ...who knows but electic cast and Dogtooth director intrigue
#6 Crimson Peak in which del Toro goes Gothic with scrumptious cast
#7 45 Years in which Andrew Haigh (Weekend) directs Rampling ♥ Courtenay
#8 Bridge of Spies Spielberg + Hanks  ÷ The Coen Bros
#9 Taxi in which Jafar Panahi continues to make movies despite the ban
#10 Freeheld in which Moore ♥ Page and they reenact a true LGBT rights story
#11 A Bigger Splash gets the I Am Love team back together for erotic drama
#12 The Dressmaker in which Kate Winslet seeks revenge... with fashion!
#13 The Hateful Eight  in which it's Tarantino so... our best guess (we don't read bootleg scripts) is sausage party mayhem + elaborately poetic shit-talking. One thing that's an absolute certainty: not enough actresses. Contrary to Hollywood's entire western genre, women made up half of the population back then, too.
#14 Knight of Cups in which we view Hollywood sellouts through a Malick prism?
#15 Arabian Nights  in which Miguel Gomes (Tabu) makes a 6½ hour political fable

Related Sidebars & Prologues

You didn't see that coming?"

Animated Films 
Tomorrowland
Jake Gyllenhaal & Franchise Returns
Avengers: Age of Ultron 
Magic Mike XXL

We Can't Wait #1: Carol

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated. Here's Matthew Eng with our #1 choice, which incidentally also topped this list last year when we used wishful thinking to pretend it would be done early...

Who & What: Living genius Todd Haynes directs playwright and Mrs. Harris scribe Phyllis Nagy’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s gently subversive lesbian novella (originally published under the much grittier-named The Price of Salt) about a sensitive shopgirl (Rooney Mara) who falls in love with the lonely society dame of the title (Cate Blanchett) in lush 1950s New York. 

Why We’re Excited About it: The cinematic “comeback” of Haynes, returning to the big screen a full eight years after I’m Not There (despite a six-hour pit stop at HBO for Kate Winslet’s Mildred Pierce), is obviously incentive enough. But he’s also compiled a cast so charismatic, it basically makes you salivate: Mara and Blanchett, of course, but how about Ace Team Player and Perpetual Dreamboat Kyle Chandler as Blanchett’s snooping husband?

Lots more and several photos after the jump...

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We Can't Wait #2: Ricki and the Flash

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated. Margaret with our runner-up...

Rick Springfield & Meryl Streep. Will they make lovely music together?

Who & What: Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme teams up with Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody for a dramedy starring Oscar-winning(-and-winning-and-winning) actress Meryl Streep. The story is about a woman who left her family behind to realize her dreams of rock'n'roll stardom, and returns years later to try and make things right with them. The script has been described as funny and touching, and the supporting cast includes Kevin Kline (Sophie's Choice reunion!) and her daughter Mamie Gummer (Heartburn reunion!). If you listen really close, you can hear the sound of the HFPA penciling this onto their 2016 ballots for the Best Musical or Comedy Golden Globe. 

Why we're excited about it: First of all, who among us can say they don't want to see Meryl "Greatest Living Actress™" Streep all tatted up, strutting around in leather pants and combat boots while shredding on an electric guitar? And given the creative talents involved, the potential for this is sky-high. Both Jonathan Demme and Diablo Cody may have some misses in their filmography, but Demme is on an upswing following actressy gem Rachel Getting Married and if there's a chance that Diablo Cody has written a lead character half as excellent as Mavis Gary in 2011's Young Adult I will be camping out in front of my local multiplex from right this second until opening night. Plus 'musician neglects family, becomes rock star' is a kind of story that's almost always told about men, and has been at least a dozen times in the past decade. Points for freshness!

What if it all goes wrong?: The last time Meryl worked with Jonathan Demme, it was on The Manchurian Candidate, one of her worst performances to date. There's also the omnipresent danger of Meryl fatigue. 

 

When: August 7, in that dependable spot where Streep vehicles have had so much counter-programming box office success.

Previously...

#3 Macbeth #4 Mad Max: Fury Road #5 The Lobster #6 Crimson Peak #7 45 Years #8 Bridge of Spies #9 Taxi #10 Freeheld #11 A Bigger Splash #12 The Dressmaker #13 The Hateful Eight #14 Knight of Cups #15 Arabian Nights Sidebar 3 Animated Films Sidebar 2 Tomorrowland Sidebar 1 Avengers: Age of Ultron Intro Pick a Blockbuster