Strange Sinema 65: Strange Stunts - Thur. June 20 - 8PM
Oddball Films presents Strange
Sinema 65: Oddities From the Archives, an evening of newly discovered and
choice rarities from the stacks of Oddball Films’ 50,000 reel film archive. This
installment of the strangest show in San Francisco - Strange Sinema 65: Strange Stunts
features a horde of adrenaline junkies, High Wire Daredevils, Dust Eating
Drivers, Human Boomerangs, and Strait-Jacket Escapes. The hair-raising feats include High
Wire (1984), an early profile of high wire artist Philippe Petit
(subject of the 2008 film Man On Wire)
teetering between a skyscraper and the NYC Cathedral of St. John Divine, with
sound score by Philip Glass; Dust Eaters (1955), rocking rebels
in the stock car racing subculture of the early 50s; Houdini Never Died (1978),
a doc featuring Harry Houdini’s strait-jacket escape over Niagara Falls
achieved by magician and psychic debunker James Randi; Stunt Crazy (1930s), an assortment of fantastically foolhardy
leaps, dives, and the like; excerpts from Niagara Falls (1985), an
award-winning doc shot by Ken Burns serves as a background for the magnificent
marvels of American stuntsmanship; and Rendezvous (1976), director Claude
LeLouche’s one take high speed dash through the streets of Paris. All this and
more with selected live electronic accompaniment by Indonesian musician Iman Fattah. |
| Philippe Petit on High |
Date: Thursday, June 20th, 2013 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117
or programming@oddballfilm.com
A Brighter Yesterday: Science and Technology of the ‘20s and ‘30s - Fri. June 21 - 8PM
Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present A Brighter Yesterday: Science and Technology of the ‘20s and ‘30s. Using gorgeous educational and mesmerizing promotional films, plus cartoons and sci-fi; we look at the many faces progress between the wars, whether purely scientific or not. Sun Healing (1930s), a jaw-dropping forerunner of the infomercial, pitches an ominous health device that's "safe" to use on your own children. Take a good look at opium with Dream Flowers (1930s) featuring beautiful, meditative microphotography of a cross-section of an opium poppy. Associated Oil promises to Deliver the Goods! (1939) at the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair. Science goes horribly wrong in both the stunning horror classic The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the Ub Iwerks Willie Whopper cartoon Reducing Creme (1934). The gruesome Battle of the Centuries pits ants against termites in a miniature war with maximum action. Basic physical principles are the focus of Invisible Forces (1920s), and the visuals of capillary action in sugarcubes will tantalize and mesmerize. Tree innards are explored in the sugary and contemplative Maple Sugar and Syrup (1920s). Dadaist Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray play with perception in the surreal experimental classic Anémic Cinéma (1926), a visual cacophony of hypnotic puns. You can be assured of purity in both your mass bottled milk with Science in the Creamery (1920s) and your makeup in the kitschy and marvelous Accent on Beauty (1930s). Plus, the curator will apply baking sciences to supply delicious home-baked pies and treats!
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Radiantly Healthy
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Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00, RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com
Learn Your Lesson...About Sex - Shockucational Contraceptives - Fri. June 14 - 8PM
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Learn Your Lesson...About Sex - Shockucational Contraceptives, the fourth in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic shockucational films and TV specials of the collection. This time, it's all about sex and its potentially devastating aftermath. Teens talk about virginity, sex, and other taboo subjects in Romance, Sex and Marriage: All the Guys ever Want is S.E.X. (1976). Peter Sellers lends his voice to an animated father struggling to educate his child in the Birds, Bees and Storks (1965). Di$ney brings us a very different kind of cartoon, the disturbingly knee-slapping VD: Attack Plan (1972) featuring a syphilitic army sergeant directing his VD troops into battle against stupid humans. The Canadians bring us a melodramatic account of Teenage Pregnancy (1971). You better watch out for Herpes: The New Sexual Epidemic (1981) and all the problems that come with it. One girl's got a dirty little secret in the hilarious Innocent Party (1959). And since not all lessons about sex are bad, we'll also be learning How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (1937) with Mrs. John Barrymore. Plus! an excerpt from the twisted doctor’s training film Sex and The Professional, the entirely unsexy intro to a couple's film on better fellatio from The Center for Marital & Sexual Studies #17: Oral Pleasuring, the graphic vintage Army VD training film Sex Hygiene (1941) for the early birds, and even more surprises!
Date: Friday, June 14th, 2013 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Watch What You Eat - Thur. June 13 - 8PM
Oddball Films presents Watch What You Eat, a program of witty and thought-provoking short films that will make you rethink your next meal. The program features the Oddball Premiere of a new short documentary The Trouble with Bread (2013) chronicling filmmaker Maggie Biedelman's quest to uncover the truth behind the new epidemic of gluten intolerance. The filmmaker will be here, in person to answer your burning bread questions. Then, our neighbors to the North try to uncover a mystery, the Mystery in the Kitchen (1958) with the housewife's guide to proper family nutrition and poison control in the family meal. Comedian Marshall Efron hits us with a double dose of food truths as he mixes up a pie out of chemicals in Chemical Feast (1973) and gives us the lowdown on your breakfast "foods" in The Sugar Cereal Imitation Orange Breakfast (1973). Creepy little boys and girls sing about the foods they'd like to eat in The Eating, Feel Good Movie (1974). Visit a commune farm and a local market to learn about Surviving the Chemical Feast (1975). Plus, the cartoon Junk Food Man (1977) that combines drawn animation with photographic collage to teach nutrition with the snack-pusher "The Creep." With vintage commercials and more surprises to sink your teeth into!
Date: Thursday, June 13th, 2013 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com
Sid Davis: Nightmare Maker - Thurs. June 6th - 8PM
Oddball Films presents Sid Davis: Nightmare Maker, an evening celebrating the career of the master of the educational shock film. Sid Davis films were famously funded by an initial $1000 donation by John Wayne. He went on to produce numerous classics of the educational scare film genre, priding himself by making each one for $1000- a miniscule amount even in its day. From drugs, to speeding, to child-molesters to impaling little girls with scissors, this program touches on all of Davis' favorite topics. We begin where he did, with The Dangerous Stranger (1950), about the threat of child molesters. Davis sold the film to police and schools, reaping $250,000 which he used to fund the rest of the treasures of the evening. How to Protect your Bike (1973) may teach you more about stealing than protecting anything. Freak out on acid with the knee-slapping LSD: Trip or Trap? (1967) and mellow out with marijuana with the "weedheads" and "dope fiends" in Keep Off the Grass (1970). Sammy's got a need for speed that might turn deadly if he's not careful in What Made Sammy Speed (1957). Davis' own daughter gets stabbed with scissors in the parade of household accidents that is Live and Learn (1951). Plus more hilarious shockers in store!
Date: Thursday, June 6th, 2013 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com
Submerged Cinema - Fri. June 7th - 8PM
Oddball Films and guest curator Landon Bates bring you Submerged Cinema, a screening teeming
with celluloid cephalopods and European seamen. Among other wet wonders,
we'll spy the likes of shimmering starfish and gnashing sharks, in films that
range from nature docs to sci-fi shockers. Peering through our 16mm
porthole, we'll begin our descent into the murky depths with that nephew of
Neptune, that red-capped Renaissance man of the sea: Jacques Cousteau. In
Sharks,
an episode from The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (1970),
the captain and his Calypso crew provoke that ferocious fish--and all for the
sake of science. Biology is on the brain again, when an unsuspecting team
of researchers find themselves in the lair of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954); in this excerpt from the Jack
Arnold classic, the eponymous monster stalks a scientist’s wife from below,
Jaws-like. Smaller and less hostile creatures abound in the microscopic
slides of photographer-biologist Roman Vishniac, in The Big Little World
of Roman Vishniac (1980's), whose wondrously amorphous images come to
resemble avant garde cinema; which will lead us to L'etoile de Mer (1928), Man Ray's somber surrealist
film, starring a starfish and shot through textured glass to produce a
delirious underwater look. Before concluding with one last Cousteau--Night
of the Squid (1970)--we'll get a dose of Diver Dan, a puppet-laden
live action children's show from the early 1960's. In "Secrets of
the Throne," our scuba man Dan finds himself in hot water, bubbling in the
prison cell of an evil king. So, pinch
your nose, hold onto your trunks, and start your summer off with a splash at
Oddball! 
Date:
Friday, June 7, 2013 at 8:00pm
Venue:
Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission:
$10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Man and the Machine - The Future of Technology from the Past - Fri. May 31 - 8PM
Oddball Films presents Man and the Machine - The Future of Technology from the Past, a program of vintage films about computers, robots and other omnipresent technological marvels. In Microworld (1976) an overly dramatic William Shatner explores the oddly psychedelic world of microprocessors. Ray Bradbury's The Veldt (1970s) features a nuclear family in a computerized home that leads to deadly results. Isaac Asimov and Walter Cronkite investigate The Weird World of Robots (1968). Go behind the scenes of turning Yul Brenner into a killer cyborg in The Westworld Production Short (1973). Presaging the current internet matchmaking trend, Comput-Her Baby is a wacky art film spoofing the notion of computer-assisted love in 1967. IBM commissioned Ray and Charles Eames to create the short cartoon The Information Machine (1958) chronicling man's relation to data processing. With more surprises, trailers and commercials in store!
Date: Friday, May 31st, 2013 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
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