directerr
Eyes Wide Shut/1999/American
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) The film has a strange pace, it’s like every moment and every dialogue is like looking at a dripping faucet, every drop is coming out with same lifeless pace. But that’s a huge plus point to the narrative. The film becomes hypnotic and dreamy More like a drugged up hallucination.
2) The film took 400 days of continuous shooting! Director’s vision-
“People call me a highly stylized director, which I am, but I can’t forget the purpose of style in “Eyes wide shut”, style is a lens that gives my viewers a point of access to the material, and if my material is not perfect, I can not offer it to my viewers, it’s about the viewers and not the director, something that new film makers should keep in mind.”
– Stanley Kubrick
Mississippi Masala/1991/Indian-African
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Mira Nair
Setting: Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) So many layers! A collection of stories, each running along its own thread while impacting others at the same time.
2) It’s not much like any other movie; it’s trying to find its way, tentatively, and Nair introduces a great, new-to-movies subject.
Lars and the Real Girl/2017/American
FiC Rating: 3.5/5
Dir: Craig Gillespie
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) Lars begins to introduce Bianca, a sex doll as his girlfriend to the townspeople, and they decide to play along, just because they care!
2) This is no comedy, it’s a solid drama, especially for those who can relate to Lars. A great movie to watch, just don’t forget that those laughter tears will make you a bit sad too!
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri/2017/ British
FiC Rating: 3.5/5
Dir: Martin McDonagh
Setting: Urban/Outskirts
Why FiC recommends?
1) Although the falls short of being a masterpiece by some small loopholes in the writing, the movie provides a lot of things and stands up to the expectations.
2) There was genuinely no predicting what the characters were going to do and how they would react to certain events. This unpredictability doesn’t just apply to situations, but possibly more notable in character arcs.
Nabat/2014/Azerbaijani
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Elchin Musaoglu
Setting: Remote Place
Why FiC recommends?
1) A minimalist tale of an elderly woman who finds herself the last remaining resident in a village evacuated during the Nagorno-Karabakh war of two decades ago! Truly a fine piece of work with simple story and beautiful narrative that is sad and tragic
2) A war film in which war is never seen, only heard through distant thudding of canons. As soon as they die down, nature resumes its role, birds chirping, trees rustling, wolves howling in the distance.
Anjali/1990/Tamil
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Mani Ratnam
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) This film is of its own kind. Watch it for the maestro Mr. Mani Ratnam and acting performances, especially Baby Shamili who played the titular role when she was just 2! Spell bound!!
2) Every aspect of this film was perfect, acting, script, story line (minus a few unashamedly populist and occasional cringe-worthy cheesy sequence). A pleasure to watch.
Raghu Romeo/2003/Hindi
FiC Rating: 3.5/5
Dir: Rajat Kapoor
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) Smart, sensible and funny. Not logical!! But it’s not always about logic. This is Vijay Raaz’s best performance ever seen. He makes Raghu feel like a person more than a character.
2) Although this is only a light hearted satirical cinema without any heavy duty message, this is the kind of film at end of which you come out as more empathetic and loving human being.
P.S. This is the first movie to be made with money of common man. The director Rajat Kapur had asked for finance from people like us through internet. He got fabulous response and therefore the film could be made.
My Dinner with Andre/ 1981/American
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Louis Malle
Setting: Dining Table!
Why FiC recommends?
1) A film of two friends talking, just simply talking, for 110 minutes!
2) First, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for a film about a long conversation. Next thing, I found myself getting more and more interested in the conversation. Before I knew it, I was the part of the conversation and nodding in affirmation!
Devdas/2002/Hindi
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Setting: Urban/Suburban/Vintage
Why FiC recommends?
1) The film was misjudged as a commercial gimmick. But on the contrary, the emotion and passion of the story is felt just as strongly in every frame of Devdas. You can clearly see the blood and sweat they invested in every department, this is a work of art and heart!
2) Bhansali knew exactly what to do with the film, the shot execution, the sound quality, the cinematography and the direction, the entire film has an overwhelming hugeness to it that’s hard to resist.
The Conversation/1974/American
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) If you like the film especially when they explain everything and leave nothing up to your own intuition, this movie is one of the best movies you will ever see.
2) The film is made by one of the best directors in history when he was at the peak of his career, what are the odds?
Elizabeth Ekadashi/2014/Marathi
FiC Rating: 3.5/5
Dir: Paresh Mokashi
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) A heartwarming film about children just being children, with all their cares and carefree abandon. And adults just being adults, with all their idiosyncrasies, quirks and secret anguish.
2) The high-point are the sterling performances and in the end, it is the kids who walk away with all the laurels
Creep/2014/American
FiC Rating: 3.5/5
Dir: Patrick Brice
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) Right from the first scene to the end, “Creep” primes viewers to suspect that nothing is what it seems. We keep guessing something and then something else happens, followed by some other, far more unexpected things.
2) The film does not play by the rules of the game they chose to play.
Groundhog Day/1993/American
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Harold Ramis
Setting: Town
Why FiC recommends?
1) If a person could live forever, if a person was immortal, how would they change over time? Well… watch Groundhog Day!
2) Uncommonly sweet, the perfect blend of comedy and romance, charming and intelligent humor, great lines like “I am ‘a’ God, not ‘the God’, this film is an underrated masterpiece.
A Serious Man/2009/American
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Joel and Ethan Coen
Setting: Urban/Vintage
Why FiC recommends?
1) In the way that Coen brothers can see the humor behind the tragic face of commonality, they have delivered another darkly comic, absurd and well-acted film which deals with the huge themes of alienation and nihilism.
2) You don’t see comedy mixed with such deep and heavy themes in every film, do you?
Once/2007/Irish
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: John Carney
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) This is one of those rare films that only comes along once in a blue moon; no melodrama, no extra ordinary camera work, nothing too special yet a powerful ‘slice of life’ movie!
2) A sweet movie that is simple yet somehow captivating to watch, a classic example of filmmaking!
P.S. The rating is 4 stars for the movie and 1 star for the music.
Slacker/1990/American
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Richard Linklater
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) When you don’t have budget, professional actors and script (literally!), but you have an extraordinary mind, you end up making Slacker!
2) The director himself defines slackers as ‘spending their whole lives in their own heads, paralyzed by the problem of making any difference’. That seems as good a definition as any.
3) The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”
Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen /1990/Hindi
FiC Rating: 4.5/5
Dir: Amol Palekar
Setting: Remote Place
Why FiC recommends?
1) Outstandingly beautiful and charmingly poignant tale of a conman that stays with you and keeps giving you a good feeling!
2) A poetic blend of Dreams and Reality, the film is real and surreal at the same time! The story unfolds with much poetry and a dreamlike quality that is magical.
Requiem for a Dream/2000/American
FiC Rating: 5/5
Dir: Darren Aronofsky
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) Cruel reality of drugs, but wait! What’s your definition of drugs?
Dark, disgusting, hideous and too intense! A beautiful train wreck you can’t look away from.
2) This movie can potentially scar you for life!
Naal/2018/Marathi
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti
Setting: Rural
Why FiC recommends?
1) Metaphoric, pure, subtle, caters both art house and commercial cinema fans.
2) The film very subtly squeezes in a quiet message even as it portrays the world purely from the gawky-eyed point of view of a child.
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK / 2006 / Korean
FiC Rating: 4/5
Dir: Park Chan Wook
Setting: Urban
Why FiC recommends?
1) When a director is crazy enough to decide to make a film about a mentally ill young couple, a girl who believes herself to be a cyborg and a guy who frequently wears handmade rabbit masks, and manages to create a pure cinematic exuberance, the film becomes highly recommendable!
2) Extremely cute and bluntly dark at the same time!