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.
Wealthy slacker college student Mark, his new girlfriend Sarah, and their friends are invited to a special showing at a mysterious wax museum which displays 18 of the most evil men of all time. After his ex-girlfriend and another friend disappear, Mark becomes suspicious.
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.
Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for her attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.
Four prisoners discover a handwritten book of black magic in their cell, and decide to use it to escape.
A high school student is haunted by thoughts of "The Matrix" and a person named "Neo".
In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.
Aerobics instructor Christie Ryder becomes possessed by the spirit of an evil ninja when she comes to his aid after he was shot down.
A Little man goes to jail, and is everyones punching bag, until with the help of a bug he takes down the biggest meanest guy in prison.
Marijuana is the most controversial drug of the 20th Century. Smoked by generations to little discernible ill effect, it continues to be reviled by many governments on Earth. In this Genie Award-winning documentary veteran Canadian director Ron Mann and narrator Woody Harrelson mix humour and historical footage together to recount how the United States has demonized a relatively harmless drug.
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.
A tough Russian policeman is forced to partner up with a cocky Chicago police detective when he is sent to Chicago to apprehend a Georgian drug lord who killed his partner and fled the country.
'Toon star Roger is worried that his wife Jessica is playing pattycake with someone else, so the studio hires detective Eddie Valiant to snoop on her. But the stakes are quickly raised when Marvin Acme is found dead and Roger is the prime suspect.
Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. Soo-hyeon, a top-secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself.
Mr Banks is looking for a nanny for his two mischievous children and comes across Mary Poppins, an angelic nanny. She not only brings a change in their lives but also spreads happiness.
Encouraged by her managers, rising pop star Mima takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, when suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered.
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the world's fate at stake and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan must consider that nothing can matter more than his mission—not even the lives of those he cares about most.
A brilliant toy company roboticist uses artificial intelligence to develop M3GAN, a life-like doll programmed to emotionally bond with her newly orphaned niece. But when the doll's programming works too well, she becomes overprotective of her new friend with terrifying results.
For best friends Becky and Hunter, life is all about conquering fears and pushing limits. But after they climb 2,000 feet to the top of a remote, abandoned radio tower, they find themselves stranded with no way down. Now Becky and Hunter’s expert climbing skills will be put to the ultimate test as they desperately fight to survive the elements, a lack of supplies, and vertigo-inducing heights
Hapless family man Paul Matthews finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. But when his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom.
Two years have passed since the final battle with Sephiroth. Though Midgar, city of mako, city of prosperity, has been reduced to ruins, its people slowly but steadily walk the road to reconstruction. However, a mysterious illness called Geostigma torments them. With no cure in sight, it brings death to the afflicted, one after another, robbing the people of their fledgling hope.
Akari finds herself nervous coaching a new undine as a Prima, until she awakens to find that it is just a dream. To soothe her worries, Alicia recalls stories of her beginnings as a Prima, as well as the memories she made.
The movie centers on Rantaro's teacher Hansuke Doi losing a battle against Sonnamon and Zatto Konnamon becoming a teacher at Ninjutsu Academy.
A girl moves from the city and goes to school in the country due to some circumstances in her father's job. Her new schoolmates keep her at a distance. There is a boy she'd like to get to know better, but she worries about how he might treat her and doesn't try to get closer. She begins to hate life in the countryside and longs to return to the city, but she ends up meeting a real god of wind.
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.
After a global war, the seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth.
Ashitaka, a prince of the disappearing Emishi people, is cursed by a demonized boar god and must journey to the west to find a cure. Along the way, he encounters San, a young human woman fighting to protect the forest, and Lady Eboshi, who is trying to destroy it. Ashitaka must find a way to bring balance to this conflict.
In Japan, the vampire-hunter Saya, who is a powerful original, is sent by her liaison with the government, David, posed as a teenage student to the Yokota High School on the eve of Halloween to hunt down vampires. Saya asks David to give a new katana to her. Soon she saves the school nurse Makiho Amano from two vampires disguised of classmates and Makiho witnesses her fight against the powerful demon.
When her shift uncovers the death of a fellow miner under mysterious circumstances, a hard-working miner of a planet mining colony is forced to choose between escape or defying management orders and fight for the safety of her family.
During the night shift in a colony greenhouse, a botanist does her best to contain suspicious soil samples that have alarmed her sensitive lab dog.
This short story is a prequel to our favorite friendship unit, Apple. Follow her in her adventure from the other side of the Wasteland, right before her memorable encounter with the Kid!
Len Lye scraped together enough funding and borrowed equipment to produce a two-minute short featuring his self-made monkey, singing and dancing to 'Peanut Vendor', a 1931 jazz hit for Red Nichols. The two foot high monkey had bolted, moveable joints and some 50 interchangeable mouths to convey the singing. To get the movements right, Lye filmed his new wife, Jane, a prize-winning rumba dancer.
A short four-minute concept film unveiled in surprise at Studio SHAFT's 40th anniversary event in winter 2015, Madogatari. The first animated Puella Magi Madoka Magica work since Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, it features the return of the full Madoka Magica cast and staff.
An anthology of 26 fan entries submitted for inclusion in ABCs of Death 2, each offering various takes on the letter "M".
Fujiko Mine, the devastating femme fatale whose only loyalty is to her desire, befriends a young boy whose late father hid away a fortune. A killer is on the boy's trail and it's up to Fujiko to stop him: but where do her interests really lie?
Touch not the Outsiders, lest ye become an Outsider. But when two creatures belonging to opposite kinds - a lost little girl from the Inside and a demonic beast-looking Outsider - initiate an impossible coexistence on the same side of the forest, their bond seems to transcend their incompatible natures and the unnamed curse that has divided the world.
Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.