Arthur et les Minimoys (Arthur and the Invisibles)
by Luc Besson (France, USA, 2006)
A ten-years-old Arthur tries to decipher an enigma which will allow him to recover a stolen treasure. He becames surprised and astonished when he finds a clue and he falls in a magic world lived by an african tribe. The Minimoys are miniature people who are all less than one inch tall and live in harmony with the environment. Arthur comes into contact with the Mininmoys’s world and he meets the Princess Selenia and his brother Betaméche. Together they go forth to find the treasure that will rescue Arthur’s grandmother.
The movie, directed by Luc Besson (Nikita, Léon, The Fifth Element), is an adaptation of the same novel written by the director himself and in France is a best seller just because is an original mix of live action and 3D animation. It’s a story about the never-ended power of immagination.
Princess
by Anders Morgenthaler (Germany, Denmark, 2006)
The movie is about an atrocious story realised with a very particular style which explores several paths of animation and live action. Princess plot is about an orphaned child, whose mother was a porno star, and who lives now at his uncle’s house. After the death of his sister, the uncle decides to avenge her memory and involves the little niece in dramatic situations. The extreme violence of his uncle will make his niece the killer of the several omicides she organised to find the grind of the porn industry. Princess is intended to a grown-up audience and the clear attack against the violence to children is never prosaic.
Barnyard
by Steve Oedekerk (USA, 2006)
A cow named Otis loves singing, dancing and making jokes to the humans. He is quite different from his father Ben, the respected patriarch of the farm, and the old but wise donkey Miles. Otis doesn’t matter to keep secret the “human” dowry of the animals. When he is suddenly placed in a position of responsability around the barnyard, the cow must find the courage and confidence to be a leader.
Barnyard is very amusing cartoon, a tribute to the american comic cinema. Completely realised by 3D animation it’s also ull of quotations from The Lion King.
Black Jack – The Two Doctors of Darkness (Black Jack: Futari no kuroi isha)
by Makoto Tezuka (Japan, 2005)
Black Jack-The Two Doctors of Darkness is based on a manga written by the legendary Osama Tezuka and directed by the son, Makoto Tezuka.
Black Jack is in prison, because he is a surgeon but operated without the license. His free ethic is not accepted by the society. He is ready to act in the interests of earning a lot of money. Black Jack thinks, above all, about life-and-death struggle and his body is the treal proof of this.
But he suddenly suffers a scourge and the doctor Kiriko (who became obdurete cause to the 2nd World War expierience) has the mission to practice the “mercy killing”. The comparison between the two is even more difficult when they are lead to a strange island, a sort of Jurassic Park where the gene mutations created a new kind of lethal virus.
Origin – Spirits of the Past (Gin-iro no kami no Agito)
by Keiichi Sugiyama (Japan, 2006)
The charming picture in the prologue of the Origin-Spirits of the Past of Keiichi Sugiyama represents an unbelievable crash of the moon caused by the force of a mutant prescribed form of life, which impinges our terrestrial planet with dragon-like roots. Since 300 years the Earth is in ruin caused by human actions which manipulate the order of nature by the exstensive genetic engineering. This obliged the humanity to practise the hibernation.
The apocalypse now brings to a division of the mankind: there is who believes that nature is an enemy and who tries to live in harmony with the environment. These diametrically opposite opinions about nature is the reason of the drammatic tension about a reality we think to control when this is not true.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Toki wo kakeru shôjo)
by Mamoru Hosoda (Japan, 2006)
The life of the ordinary seventeen- years- old school girl Makoto Konno is suddenly interrupted by the unexpected power she received: she has the unique ability to traverse space and time however she prefers. Makoto begins to use this power and to have a “travel through the time” to preserve the realationship she shares with her closest friends. But this inconsciousness game let make her understand the importance of the singular moments of life. The Girl Who Leapt Trought Time is the most famous animated lenght-feature film of the year in Japan. It’s also the most awarded and appreciated by critics and audience. It’s the winner of : 10th Media Arts Plaza Awards, Grand Prize and Best Director; 39th Sitges Festival Internazionale del Cinema-Animat Premi Gertie, Best Animated Film; 11th Animation Kobe, Best cinematographic work.
The Ugly Ducling and Me! (Den grimme ælling og mig)
by Michael Hegner e Karsten Kiilerich (France, Germany, Ireland, UK, Denmark, 2006)
The Ugly Duckling and Me! is a danish variation of Christian Anderson’s beloved classic and is completely realised in 3D animation. The fairy tale says the adventures of a dark and ugly duckling which lives in a world adversed to it.
The lenght-feature film, directed by Michael Hegner and Karsten Kiilerich and with the same name of the series, begins from the nestling’s birth. The first thing he meets is a rat and he thinks it’s his loving father. The rat will reveal himself as a not good director in search of fortune. It will try to play on the Ugly candour, which is rejected by the society and lack of affect.
Renaissance
by Christian Volckman (France, UK, Luxembourg, 2006)
In the futuristic 2054, the society is monitorated by the largest company Avalon, which insinsinuates itself into every aspect of contemporary life to sell its primary export: the youth and beauty elixir. When one of the best scienstist is captured, the company charge a famous policeman to find her. The death of the witnesses he met during his investigations lead him to more detailed questions about the intelligence agencies, the genetic research and organized crime.
The overall animated lenght-feature film Renaissance use natty black sand whites with the 3D animation tools.
Stormy Night (Arashi no yoru ni)
by Giraburo Sugii (Japan, 2006)
A little goat and a wolf seek shelter in a abandoned house from a frigthnening storm. They can neither see nor smell each other, but there’s nothing to keep them from talking and becoming friends. Over the course of the night the strangers promise to meet each other again, using the password “Stormy Night”. Is it possible that a wolf and a goat prevail the biological differences and the mutual distrusts or the animal instinct will have the upper hand?
Directed by one of the great master of japanese animation, also author of classics as Astro Boy, this charming and touchingfairy tale is a lenght-feature film for an ageless public, about the value of friendship, which could born also between pledged enemies.
Silk (Guisi)
by Chao-pin Su (Taiwan, 2006)
A team of scientists capture the spiritual energy of a ghost child with an anti-gravity invention called the Menger Sponge. The child, isolated trought the widget, moves his lips to words no one understands.
According to understand the ghost and to know something about life after death, a special agent accepts the responsability who will be able to read on ghosts lips and she’ll reveal, in this way, the concerning mysteries about the existence of her own.
The best film at the Taiwan’s box-office for this year, Silk is an inedited mixture between ghost stories and science fiction. It received the award in the year 2006 at Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival for the best special effects.
Asterix e i Vichinghi (Asterix and the Vikings)
by Stefan Fjeldmark e Jesper Møller (France, Germany, 2006)
Asterix and Obelix meets an extremely rebel young, Goudurix, who is a twenty-years old guy with a very bad temper. He rises against his family training, he doens’t appreciate fightings but adores the ‘80 and ‘90 music. Unfortunately a viking tribe, managed by the magnificent Grossebaf, attack them in search of someone who could scare all of them to cause the appearance of the wings. Grossebaf, in fact, is convinced that fear has the great power to provoke this phenomenon.
Asterix and the Vikings is the 8th animated episode for cinema and is based on the story by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. The story is full of allusions to our everyday life.
Una película de huevos
by Rodolfo and Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste (Mexico, 2006)
Una pélicula de huevos, a mexican animated movie, tells the story of very fragile eggs which have to take out in a chaotic and full of corners world.
The adventures begin cause a chicken lays her lovely egg which, like a child, has arms, legs and eyes. But the farmer wants to take it and to sell it to the humans. A group of twelve eggs is buyed by a lady and the eggs, frigthened to be broken and to die, try to find a way of escape. They would come back to their loved chicken.
Atagoal: Cat’s Magical Forest (Atagoal wa neko mori)
by Mizuho Nishikubo (Japan, 2006)
One day the fickle and childish cat Hideyoshi breaks the peacefullness of Atagoal, a little town full of spree.
The wonder of the cat awakens the queen of the plants Pilea, who is in a marine prison, and he endangers the earth’s balance.The purpose of the charming Pilea is to control the world and give the peace causing the change of the living beaings into veggies. But the insatiable and the individualist Hideyoshi’ll try to resist to the queen’s will because: “ The happiness to be a flower could not to be compared to the happiness of eating, also because a flower couldn’t eat!”.
The new animated lenght-feature film, realized by the same creators of Appleseed, is completely produced with the aid of the graphic design.
McDull, the Alumni (Chun tian hua hua tong xue hui)
by Samson Chiu Leung Chun (Hong Kong, 2006)
McDull, the Alumni the third episode dedicated to the pink little pig McDull. It focuses on several tales about childhood and schools, realized by the use of the 2d animation technique.While the spectators to have an immagine of the grown-up world are lead to a real world picture.
In this way McDull and his fellows are dipped in a pastel coloured environment, while their “ adult cousins” are shooted forth a cruel world, full of everiday life commitments. While McDull at school talks about “what he would do when he’s adult”, in the real world the grown-up people live the frenzy caused by the job, the delirium of times and the chaos of the things to do which never end.
U
by S. Elissalde e G. Solotareff (France, 2006)
The little princess Mona lives a lonely existence in a crumbling castle, mistreated by a pair of bullying rats. Mona everyday wastes her time to cry a lot but suddenly a coltish unicorn appears and become his best friend. When Mona grows up she meets the hinabitants of the forest, the Wéwé, and she never suffers anymore.
The movie, which brokes another time the Disney’s fees, is for this reason a type specimen of the animated films for kids.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa (Gekijôban Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Shanballa wo yuku mono)
by Seiji Mizushima (Japan, 2005)
Gemany, 1923. Two years since Edward Elric has been dragged out his world and he’s taken to the ours where, without his alchemy powers, met the younger Alphonse Heiderich. Alphonse is trying to build the first jet motor for the third Reich. In the meantime, in the Shamballa’s 1917 world , Alphonse Elric delves into the secrets of alchemy in search of a way to meet again his brother.
The two brother will have to face a lot of adventures in the respective parallel worlds, but the research of a dimensional hole, trough which they could gather, hides the obcure Nazi plans whose intent wants to ruin the two worlds.
Charlotte’s Web
by Gary Winick (USA, 2006)
Fern is one of the few who considers the pig Wilbur the qualities of his uniqueness.
So when Wilbur moves to a new farm, he immediately makes the special spider Charlotte his friend.
Their deep relationship influences the other animals to behave as a part of a big family.
But when Wilbur knows that comes the time to end up on the dinner table, he hatches a plan with Charlotte which uses his web to convince the farmer that his friend is not a pig like the other ones and it’s not right to butcher him.