10 films Fasi Zaka wants you to watch

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1. Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets (2000)

Director: Nabil Ayouch



I remember just how gut wrenching it was to watch this film for the first time. It’s about four homeless children in Morocco; when one of them dies, his friends decide to give him a proper burial. Watch this film and I can guarantee you won’t be able to see child beggars on the street in the same light, ever again. Despite the pathos in the children’s lives, the film shows moments of hard earned levity and tenderness. It is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated films of all time.

2. Ex Machina (2015)

Director: Alex Garland

This film, like the wonderful Gattaca, is science fiction without the elaborate special effects; it’s a film of ideas. It takes the centrality of much of science fiction and turns it on its head (The Turing test), where emotional manipulation is a constant against the characters in the film, and the viewers as well. It also has a brilliant segue scene, much like the dance in Pulp Fiction that is just as iconic and worth watching.

3. Nebraska (2013)

Director: Alexander Payne



I watched this one-day when I was bored, and am glad I didn’t press stop 10 minutes into the film. An elderly blue-collar man losing his mental faculties and his son taking a road trip doesn’t sound exciting at all. But somehow, it is. And it’s extraordinarily funny. Shot in black and white, the film has a dearth of sympathetic characters and therein lies its beauty -- of families that still love one another despite having much to hate, of quixotic quests to give one another meaningless demonstrations of love.

4. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

This is an incredibly funny film. It takes archetypes of personality and forces them to live in close proximity, in this case in a Volkswagen bus. All the adults in the films are portraits of failure; the sole adolescent is on the precipice of failure and the only child in the family is oblivious to the concept of failure. Seen the music video of Blind Lemon’s No Rain? Now imagine if a film was made about little girl in it. This is that film.

5. This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Director: Rob Reiner



I love heavy metal. I mourn its death. In this formulaic genre of music with the big hair, faux-angry lyrics and comedic posturing, I and many millions of others had deluded ourselves into believing it had real meaning as unique art when it was formula driven. This mockumentary is amazing, incredibly funny in how it tears down the genre with humour, much before grunge would do it for real. The Stonehenge scene still kills me whenever I see it. By the way, the drummer in This is Spinal Tap played the voice of Mr Burns and many others in The Simpsons.

6. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Director: Rupert Wyatt

I loved the original Charlton Heston film. I owned it on VHS and must have seen it over 30 times. I eagerly awaited the Tim Burton reimagining and discovered the vacuous and repetitive imagination of Burton as a result (put in one Helena Bonham Carter, two pinches of gothic imagery, darken the film three tones…). But this film, what a film. It has added so much meaning to the original in a truly creative and heartfelt manner.

7. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Director: Terry Gilliam



I never liked Brad Pitt until I saw this film. It takes the essence of the time travel paradox to such extremes that it made my head hurt trying to figure out the logic of it, and I’m not sure if I got it right. But this is brilliantly paced, and Bruce Willis breathing in fresh air still makes up for all the dumb films he has recently done.

8. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Director: Wes Anderson

Alongside Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel, this remains one of my favourite Wes Anderson films. So much talent in one film; each character etches leaves an imprint on your memory. And in all the absurdity there is so much misery whose observation is the key to the extraordinary humour in this film. I often think the key to understanding just how brilliant Bill Murray is by watching his face in his brief appearances in this film. And like all Anderson films, his framing of shots just adds to the surreal nature of the worlds he creates.

9. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Director: Sidney Lumet



Dog Day Afternoon is ordinary people choosing to do bad things because of extraordinary circumstances; Ordinary people choosing to do extraordinary things with no real competence; Al Pacino choosing to probe the depths of his extraordinary talent. What a wonderful film! A behind-the-scenes of a bad guy, robbing a bank, who is anything but…

10. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Director: James Cameron

This is the most perfect science fiction/action film ever made. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born to play a robot. I can watch this anytime, any number of times. The 2009 Star Trek comes close but no cigar. It will take a lot to make a better film than this.

The writer is a columnist and radio show host. He tweets @fasi_zaka

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2016.

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