One Piece!

You'd never guess that an experiment in minimalism like this could be so entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny.

Shinobu Yaguchi and his associate Takuji Suzuki have assembled a feast of short films united by a single theme: they're all one with no camera movement, in one take from a super-8 video cam. (These were chosen from a pool of films, which were being filmed even after the release of One Piece!) When this played at the San Francisco Film Festival, many claimed it was the best film of the bunch; it was certainly the most daring. "Cat's Meow" remains my favorite: Somehow, the consciousness of his pet cat finds its way into the body of his girlfriend, but the cat can't quite stop being a cat in the meantime.

The sketches are often comic, but sometimes scary and just plain weird. One Piece! is largely critic-proof, and nothing like it has been done before, or as well.

I thought the concept for this film (14 short films all shot on video with a single camera angle) was interesting but might not result in anything very exciting. Although there were a couple of clunkers, most of these shorts had me laughing. Most of them have to do with being embarrassed in some fashion. The last one was not only funny, but a very sweet and touching story about marriage proposal that has a great punch line. This film will make you want to get a camcorder and make you're own short films!