Genius Party (2007)
7 Impacts by 7 Directors
Genre : Animation, Science Fiction
Runtime : 1H 42M
Director : Atsuko Fukushima, Yoji Fukuyama, Hideki Futamura, Shouji Kawamori, Shinji Kimura, Shinichiro Watanabe, Masaaki Yuasa
Synopsis
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.
It ain't easy bein' green -- especially if you're a likable (albeit smelly) ogre named Shrek. On a mission to retrieve a gorgeous princess from the clutches of a fire-breathing dragon, Shrek teams up with an unlikely compatriot -- a wisecracking donkey.
A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.
When Sam Baldwin's wife dies, he is left to bring up his eight-year-old son Jonah alone, and decides to move to Seattle to make a new start. On Christmas Eve, Jonah rings a radio phone-in with his Christmas wish to find a new wife for his dad. Meanwhile in Baltimore, journalist Annie Reed, who is having doubts about her own relationship, is listening in.
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.
High School grad and all American gal, Anna, finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
An inspector who just suffered a family tragedy is looking for a missing older man. Man's family is of no help, or are they hiding something? He is helped by a ghost of an actress who died 30 years ago, or is he slowly going insane?
Three short stories by shock-meister Stephen King are linked by a stray cat that roams from one tale to the next in this creepy triptych that begins as Dick (James Woods) tries to quit smoking by any means necessary. Next, we meet Johnny, an adulterous man who's forced by his lover's husband onto a building's hazardous ledge. Finally, Amanda is threatened by an evil gnome who throws suspicion on the family cat.
Oscar is a small fish whose big aspirations often get him into trouble. Meanwhile, Lenny is a great white shark with a surprising secret that no sea creature would guess: He's a vegetarian. When a lie turns Oscar into an improbable hero and Lenny becomes an outcast, the two form an unlikely friendship.
The twelve-year-old Emil and his father are haunted by bad luck. To take a break from a series of family disasters, Emil is allowed to spend a few days with a friend of the family, the female priest Hummel in Berlin. In the train he runs across the slick Max Grundeis who anaesthetizes Emil and steals his savings of 1500 DM. When he finally arrives in Berlin, Emil and a gang of street kids, led by the cheeky girl Pony Hütchen, try to find the gangster, who haunts the posh Hotel Adlon as a hotel thief. Meanwhile, to prevent anyone from finding out about Emil's mishap, Gypsi, a member of the gang of kids, passes himself off as Emil, thus wreaking havoc on the home of the priest.
Kati and Steffi have been best friends since they were six. Now they're both 17 and enjoying the ups and downs of becoming adults together. While Kati's parents are religious and conservative, but argue constantly, Steffi comes from what appears to be a harmonious and liberal family. But the girls discover how quickly their attractive world can fall apart when, at a hip nightclub, they happen to see Steffi's father in the arms of another woman. Steffi is shocked, her trust in her small perfect world shaken to the core. She can only think of one thing: revenge.
After a comet disrupts the rain cycle of Earth, the planet has become a desolate, barren desert by the year 2033. With resources scarce, Kesslee — head of the powerful and evil Water & Power Corporation, the de facto government — has taken control of the water supply. Unwilling to cower under Kesslee's tyrannical rule, a pair of outlaws known as Tank Girl and Jet Girl rise up, joining the mysterious rebel Rippers to destroy the corrupt system.
After losing her job, making out with her soon-to-be former boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson faces spending the holiday with her unhinged family.
A cross country trip to Hollywood is cut short by an unreliable engine & an unpleasant encounter with law enforcement. With the power of drag, three self proclaimed career-girls bring a bit of much needed beauty to rural middle America!
Shut Up and Sing is a documentary about the country band from Texas called the Dixie Chicks and how one tiny comment against President Bush dropped their number one hit off the charts and caused fans to hate them, destroy their CD’s, and protest at their concerts. A film about freedom of speech gone out of control and the three girls lives that were forever changed by a small anti-Bush comment
As the heir and current marketing director for one of the nation's biggest gun manufacturers, Liberty Wallace is indifferent to the atrocities made possible through her business and her CEO husband, Victor. On her way to see her actor lover, Liberty ends up chained to a food cart full of explosives -- all at the insistence of "Joe", a sniper whose young daughter was a victim of gun violence, and who now has Liberty in his sights.
Melodrama about the life of a mentally handicapped young man and his devoted sister after their famous novelist father and housewife mother go to Australia on a business trip.
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
In Hong Kong of 1962, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow, a journalist, move into neighbouring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their respective spouses creates an intimate bond between them.
Recruited by a clandestine police organization, "K" must stop a plot by student radicals to create anarchy in Japan. Armed with a hi-tech steel yo-yo, and a new name (Asamiya Saki), she must infiltrate an elite high school to find the terrorists but finds an even more sinister plan is about to unfold.
Akira Saito, a Japanese businessman lives in Tokyo with his Japanese-American wife Aiko and their children, Takeshi and Tomoya. When the family has a chance to move to the United States so that Aiko can teach the children about their American heritage, they pack up and head for Houston, Texas and run a restaurant. This is where the trouble begins....
In post apocalyptic LA being rampaged by zombie like cannibals humans that have some kind of genetic infection local man renchard is forced to live a daily struggle as he trys to locate radio signals and find a cure.
Otto Waalkes plays a magician who strayed into the present from the 11th century and who absolutely wants to return to his time.
A female aerobic instructor is possessed by the soul of a fallen ninja when coming to his aid. The spirit seeks revenge on those who killed him and uses the instructor's body to carry out his mission. The only way the spirit will leave her body is with the help of another ninja.
Since 2009, the filmmaker has spent 12 years documenting the ever-changing times of three townships along the coast of Tainan County, namely Beimen, Jiangjun and Qigu. Through the lenses, human activities are seen closely connected with the surrounding nature, while maintaining its own charm. The film subtly captures a singular way of life and a sense of time suspended in the past, present and future.
“Lio-ma-gou” is the only fresh water in Green Island, In the 1950s, in a political prison concentration camp, held nearly 100 female political prisoners. With the film, let us follow the pursuit and inquiries of the young generation, and approach the two “former female political prisoner.”
On Green Island in the 1950s, the female thought prisoners chose to fight for freedom, but were more forcefully suppressed by the authority. They held on to their beliefs and hoping for true freedom to come.
When Wabisuke's father-in-law unexpectedly dies, the family goes through a series of random events and occurrences as the funeral unfolds over three days in their home.
Five stories, five maestros, five styles and one common denominator: maximum creativity. Studio 4°C, the coolest label on the planet, invites us for the second time to an exclusive reunion of a talents with a group film, full of freedom and ingenuity, that goes from Mahiro Maeda's classic anime, to Kazuto Nakazawa's intricate urban sketches, Shinya Ohira's bedlam of color and Tatsuyuki Tanaka's animated cyberpunk. And as if that wasn't enough, Koji Morimoto, the studio big boss, is charge of putting the icing on the cake with fantafabulous piece of abstract poetry that would make a VJ die of ecstasy. The party of the year.
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
A young girl is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather. Retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her escape from the mental facility.
Dave Lizewski is an unnoticed high school student and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so.
