We Can't Wait! #15: Arabian Nights

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's Amir...

Who & What: This is Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes’s first feature film since 2012’s Tabu. It is based on the Middle Eastern folklore collection, "One Thousand and One Nights". The original text has a framing device involving the Persian princess Shahrzad, narrating the 1,001 tales to her husband, King Shahryar. Modernised to take place in today’s Portugal, hit by the economic crisis, Gomes’s film will see the princess narrating fictionalized versions of factual stories about the financial pains of the Portuguese. We’ve seen some pictures, heard a lot of promising words from Gomes about his approach and the structure, and know the film clocks at a whopping 6 hours and 37 minutes.

Why We’re Excited About It: Gomes. Gomes. Gomes. He is one of the most exciting directors working today and has made consistently intriguing films since his first short, Entretanto. He built a fan base with 2008’s Our Beloved Month of August on the festival circuit and found more traction four years later with his sensational romantic masterpiece, Tabu. Since then, he has made another short film, the wild, experimental political comedy, Redemption. For Arabian Nights, he’s reunited with the strikingly handsome Carlota Cotta and is working with Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s regular cinematographer. I’m personally further excited by the prospect of an adaptation of Middle Eastern folklore, since that hasn’t happened in decades – and no, Prince of Persia doesn’t count.

Carlota Cotta (and Ana Moreira) in "Tabu" an earlier collaboration with GomesWhat If It All Goes Wrong? Looking back at Gomes’s earlier work, assures that there's little to worry about in this regard. The biggest concern is the running time. The film is broken into three sections: The Restless, The Desolate and The Enchanted, which could mean they will be released separately. Then again, if they are released as one package… 6 hours and 37 minutes? We love you Miguel but you’ll be testing our patience.

When: The Portuguese release date is set for October. Gomes premiered Tabu in Berlin, but that ship has already sailed. Cannes is the likeliest destination at the moment, which, combined with the domestic release date, gives a glimmer of hope that it'll play at TIFF in the fall.

We Can't Wait ~ The 2015 Mini-Series

It's that time again. As one film year wraps up we get all antsy with excitement for the next. Team Experience voted on their most anticipated films of 2015 and the 15-strong daily movie countdown starts tomorrow morning. It goes without saying that there are far more enticing propositions than just 15. With the definition of 'arthouse cinema' expanding over the last 20 years to include just about every film starring a woman (Truth: something like Still Alice would have been considered mainstream in the 1980s), and just about any drama, even those with true stars, without genre affiliation and the companion visual fx budget it's safe to say that Team Experience leans heavily in that direction, taste wise.  

But, lo and behold, some of 2015's upcoming would-be blockbusters actually look enticing. After this rough winter, let us gorge on popcorn all summer long. Here's five would be blockbusters on the other side of Age of Ultron (just discussed) that might be great popcorn entertainments ... or hopelessly mediocre but we won't know until we get there. Keep your hopes up!

EVEREST (Sept 18th)
SOUTHPAW (July 31st)
Pick a Gyllenhaal, either Gyllenhaal. Post Nightcrawler we have to pray that he's on a legend making hot streak. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur's name might not immediately make dibs on 'quality' given what he's made previously since going Hollywood but it's always possible that Everest, his mountain climbing adventure with a really terrific and terrifically manly all star cast (Jake, plus Borlin, Hawkes, Worthington, and Jason Clarke who we recently spoke with) will be thrilling. Especially in IMAX.

As for Southpaw... Though the cinema has been overrun by boxing pictures since, what, 1931?, if Antoine Fuqua can regain his Training Day mojo and Gyllenhaal's character is as dramatic as he sounds (alcholol, drugs, career immolation, child custody trouble) it'll be well worth checking out. 

MAGIC MIKE XXL (July 1st)
Now only 116 days away ! 

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (December 18th)
"Keeping hopeful" is a true hurdle with this one but let's include it anyway out of curious as to whether the TFE readership is excited to see it? (Let us know in the comments). The Star Wars franchise was horrifically marred by the last three films and J.J. Abrams, despite his skill with a camera, doesn't tend to make films with anything like emotional or pop culture staying power. His Star Trek pictures and Mission Impossible one-off made truckloads of money but, quick, name something about any of that that stayed with you and you think of regularly! They were just piggybacking on accumulated decades of glory. Just about his only film that might well have shown us any real "magic" as a storyteller was Super 8... and even that one was largely hit and miss and a self conscious Spielberg knockoff. So, not hopeful but curious. And then we'll get to see what Lupita Nyong'o has been up to apart from red carpets. Let's hope she's in it for more than 1 or 2 minutes. 

JURASSIC WORLD (June 12th)
Why we didn't ever discuss the trailer I do not know. Chris Pratt as a raptor trainer? Sure, why not. In!