Trance Cinema Live - An Evening of Ritual and Ecstatic States - Fri. Mar. 1st - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Trance Cinema Live - An Evening of Ritual and Ecstatic States with live electronic accompaniment by Jakarta musician Iman Fattah. Oddball Films continues its series of ecstatic states and global rituals with a live cinesound presentation. Sherpa High Country (1977) documents the ecstatic three days of ritual in Nepal during the Mani Rimdu ceremonies celebrated each year by Buddhist Sherpas.  In Ma’Bugi: Trance of the Toraja (1970s), women dance ecstatically and men climb a ladder of knives in a trance ritual that functions to restore the balance of well-being to an afflicted village community.  Walbiri Fire Ceremony (1977) showcases a spectacular three-day Australian Aboriginal communal ritual of penance.  In A Balinese Gong Orchestra (1971), musicians showcase their mesmerizing rhythms.  In Trance and Ritual in Bali (1972), trance dances and ecstatic spirit possession are mixed with electronics by Iman Fattah and Tanka (1976) a fierce animated vision of ancient gods and demons in the Tibetan Book of the Dead pulsates and projects from still Tanka images.
Come early for a double screen, overlapping projection of the exotic curios Belles of the South Seas and Belles of Bali (1930s).

Date: Friday, March 1, at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating - RSVP $12.00 at the door to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com

Signifying Nothing: Cinema of the Absurd - Thur. Feb. 28 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest Curator Landon Bates bring you Signifying Nothing: Cinema of the Absurd, an exciting exploration of--you guessed it!--the absurdity inherent within the human condition.  For a sort of philosophical primer we'll begin our inscrutable screening with that ambassador of angst, that emissary of alienation, that duke of despair, that prophet of pointlessness: that’s right, it’s Albert Camus in Albert Camus: A Self Portrait (1971).  This film gives a glimpse of Camus's French-Algerian beginnings, an overview of his most important works, and features rare interview footage with the man himself; and, it will be appropriately succeeded by Sisyphus (1975), a mesmerizing animation of that symbolic struggle up the mountainside of life.  We'll then make a pit-stop in the mind of Eugene Ionesco, a worthy representative of the Theatre of the Absurd, with a dramatization of his play The New Tenant (1975), in which a simple-seeming man is revealed to be obsessed with his possessions, flooding his new apartment with a never-ending stream of furniture.  A piece of furniture also figures prominently in our next film--so much so that one might even call it the main character: this film is Roman Polanski's classic short, Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958), wherein two boys, with their beloved bureau in tow, wander the city streets wanting only to find a peaceful place in the din of the modern world.  Our concluding film features yet another existential outcast, namely Herman Melville's stubborn scrivener, in that fictive forbear of the absurdist genre: Bartleby (1969).  This soul-enlivening evening of fun-filled futility is not to be missed. 

 

Date: Thursday, February 28th, 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

“The divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of the absurd.”

- Albert Camus

More Oddball Oscar Obscurities - Thur. Feb 21 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents More Oddball Oscar Obscurities, an evening showcasing the finest animated and live action shorts ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.  With films from the 1940's through the 1970's, from tender coming of age portraits, to experimental animation to Pepe Le Pew, with a dash of dazzling Awards-show moments, this is one night the winner will be you!  Films include (and the Oscar went to...) The Golden Fish (1959) a charming film about a boy, his fish, his bird and a sneaky cat; Skater Dater (1965), the quintessential award-winning young love/sidewalk surfing film, (with a boss soundtrack by Davie Allen and the Arrows);  Leisure (1976), Bruce Petty’s Oscar-winning animated history of time spent at play; Chuck Jones unleashes his Lothario-skunk, Pepe Le Pew, in For Scent-imental Reasons (1949); Mel Brooks heckles experimental animation in the hilarious cartoon The Critic (1963); a scintillating insect excerpt from the pseudo-documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971); Saul Bass' imaginative treatise on imagination,  Why Man Creates (1968); Isaac Hayes performs the Theme From Shaft in an eye-popping, over-the-top display of glitz from the 44^th Academy Awards show in 1972; plus one of the great awards-show moments as Jayne Mansfield knocks Mickey Rooney speechless at the 1958 Golden Globes.

Date: Thursday, February 21st, 2013 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP toprogramming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Snack Time! - Fri. Feb. 22nd- 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Christine Kwon present SNACK TIME!, with a live performance by Korean American musician Donghoon Han and indie stalwart Caleb Pate from Seventeen Evergreen. SNACK TIME! is the free-flowing combination of film, music, dance and, of course, ultimate snacks. Inspired by 50s-70s camp and absurdist media, SNACK TIME! showcases vintage commercials of our favorite childhood junk foods, alien encounters in rare B-movies, and psychedelic LSD-infused segments of the Be@tles Magical My$tery Tour (1967)— all the colors of the rainbow! Other highlights include 1970s Breakfast Commercials, Vintage Cigarette Commercials, and the animated anti-smoking cartoon The Huffless Puffless Dragon (1964). We'll have beer, and a snack time intermission, finishing off with a dance party for everyone!


Date: Friday, February 22, 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

Strange Sinema 61: One Sexy Valentine - Thur. Feb. 14 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 61: One Sexy Valentine, oddities from the Oddball Archives featuring new finds, buried junk, weird smut and miscellaneous moving image mayhem. In a sexy (and sexual!) toast to Valentine's Day, we’ve discovered some eye-popping and scintillating shorts. From the screwball sexual psychedelia of Ego (1970) by famed Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto to Octopussy, a double screen undersea sexcapade this program is sure to stimulate your senses.  Films include the legendary sex and drug-laced short Minnie the Moocher (1932), starring Betty Boop and Cab Calloway; Red Hot Red Riding Hood (1943) the rare animated short featuring a stripping red riding hood, a nymphomaniac granny and a big bad wolf; Burlesque Screen Tests and Dancers (1950s), featuring Bunny Spencer’s screen test, a rooftop mambo and a masked Afro-Cuban dancer with a bowl of fire on her head; The Groping Hand (1968), a homoerotic slice of life in San Francisco’s North Beach in the swingin’ sixties; VD Attack Plan, (1973), a hilarious Di$ney produced “war against VD” film narrated by Keenan Wynn; a double screen projection of  the Danish produced Physiological Responses of the Sexually Stimulated Male and Female in the Laboratory (1970s); Baby Puss (1943), a cross-dressing Tom and Jerry Cartoon; ratpacker Peter Lawford’s Western Union Candygram (1972) commercial; the infamous vegetable-laced animated porn short Sandy Sunrise in the Babysitter (1971) with music by the Beach Boys(!) and Octopussy, another double screen undersea sexcapade! Plus! Trashy erotic trailers like Kinkorama, House of Kinky Pleasures and juicy erotic out takes from the 1983 film adult feature Obsession!

Date: Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or programming

@oddballfilm.com Adults only-no kids!

Stop-Motion Explosion II - Even More Explosive! - Fri. Feb. 15 - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you Stop-Motion Explosion II- Even More Explosive!, a program of mind-blowing stop-motion animation from every decade from the 1920s to the 1970’s. In a world saturated with CGI, Oddball Films opens the vaults to celebrate when historical, fantastical and anthropomorphic creatures were hand-sculpted and manipulated into “life.” Stop-motion provided the first opportunities to speculate on how the long extinct dinosaurs would look like in action, as seen in an excerpt from The Lost World (1925).   Pioneering puppet animator and Fantasy film legend, George Pal brings you the littlest big band with an incredible art-deco bandstand and beautiful hand-carved wooden puppets in the charming and eye-popping Cavalcade of Music (1934).   The first wire-framed puppets on film are featured in the endearing and triumphant tale Ferda the Ant (1941). Blast off with original 1957 Gumby Shorts, where our little green buddy gets launched into space and nearly eaten by pastries.   Polish director Tadeusz Wilcosz brings us an interesting and powerful allegory of totalitarianism in Bags (1967). Grant Munro's Toys (1966) brings to life your GI Joes, but as it turns out, that's not a good thing. Will Vinton, the creator of the California Raisins gives a lesson on the creation and endless possibilities of Claymation (1978) then applies his craft with an animated art gallery in the brilliant short Closed Mondays (1974). With more stop-motion madness for the early birds, it’s a night millions of minute movements in the making! 

Date: Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco (map)

Admission: $10.00 - Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Bad Movie Night - Ninja III: The Domination - Sun. Feb. 10 - 8PM

Every Sunday night since March 2005, Bad Movie Night has invited patrons of The Dark Room to heckle the best in bad movies, and occasionally as the worst in good movies.  (A few of the most mediocre of mediocre movies have crept in there, too.)  But on Sunday, February 10, Bad Movie Night walks around to the corner to team up with Oddball Films as they present the best of the worst of the best movies of the 1980s ninja cycle: Ninja III: The Domination (1984)!  It's the movie that finally answers all your questions from Enter the Ninja and Return of the Ninja, with the possible exception of “Why is the sequel to Enter the Ninja and Return of the Ninja called Ninja III: The Domination?”  But there is dominating and ninja-ing in the movie, so you gotta give it that.  And jazzercise.  So, so much jazzercise. Starring Lucinda Dickey (Breakin' & Breakin II: Electric Boogaloo) and featuring a 10 minute ninja-golf massacre, a creepy use of V8 juice and a serious hair-sweater, this film hits the 1-2 punch of being both mind-boggling AND brain-boiling! Your riffmasters will be Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis, and Alexia Staniotes, and is Bad Movie Night custom, the audience is encouraged to join and yell the screen.  Don’t worry, the movie can handle it.  Before the feature, arrive early for a pre-show comprised of trailers of all your ninja favorites including Full Metal Ninja (1989), Ninja in the Killing Field (1984), The Ninja Squad(1986), Ninja Dragon (1986), Ninja Terminator (1985), and many, many more plus 16mm Oddball favorites make it in the ninjazzercize mix!

Date: Sunday, February 10th, 2013 pre-show at 7:30PM, film at 8PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00, RSVP to 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com

Pop! Goes the Classroom - School Films from the Golden Age of Groovy - Fri. Feb. 8th-8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present another edition of Pop! Goes the Classroom: School Films from the Golden Age of Groovy. A wide range of 1960’s sensibilities trickled down to educational films, with wild and beautiful results.  Facts and dates gave way to concepts, color and action. Narration-free documentary shorts, such as Night People’s Day (1971) provided more than just information about hidden workplaces, they gave students room to just see. Cans (1970) could have stood on its own as a craft how-to, but also salutes humble tin’s ubiquity and disposability. Wonders in Your Own Backyard (1977) has a casual approach to the science of bugs. A groovy re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz is a tale of empowerment in Magic Sneakers (1969) from the Let’s Pretend series. Learning to read tone poem Rain (1970) will make you pine for a downpour. The groove wasn’t always smooth, but the disconnect between the visuals of Basic Body Movement (1969) and the laughable authority of the voiceover just adds charm. Infinite Design (1975) makes the universe into a giant toy by using celestial orbits as parts of a cosmic Spyrograph set. Wheels, Wheels, Wheels (1970)  is a thrills and spills look at this very basic form. And there’s MORE! As usual, home-baked POP-centric gingerbread will be among the complimentary treats from the curator’s kitchen!

Give Me Those Shoes!

Date: Friday, February 8th, 2013 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00, RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com

Oral Exam - You Can't Handle the Tooth - Thur. Feb. 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Oral Exam - You Can't Handle the Tooth, a program of vintage films dedicated to those pearly whites.  From silent slapstick to psychedelic instructional shorts to swingin' chimps, you never knew how funny a mouth could be!  Sink your teeth into the hilarious Charlie Chaplin classic Laughing Gas (1914), when the tramp takes a stab at being a dentist.  Get ready for one swingin' party with The Munchers (1973), a groovy oral hygiene rock opera featuring a mouthy bandstand of claymation teeth.  Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (1971) gets into the oral action, when he discovers a dental spy in To Tell the Tooth.  Toothache of the Clown (1971) is one bad acid-trip to the dentist when children pull yarn and candy of a clown's rotten molars. Caesar Romero (The Joker from the 1960's Batman) will scare you into flossing in the strange and spooky The Haunted Mouth (1974).  No dental show could be complete without W.C. Fields in The Dentist (1932) and the tastiest treat of the night, double-projection of vintage oral pornography overlaid with shark footage for one mouthy mash-up.  With more than a mouthful of vintage toothpaste commercials, sweets to chew on and a toothy giveaway to boot!

Date: Thursday February 7th, 2013 at 8:00PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 RSVP (Limited seating) to programming@oddballfilm.com or 415.558.8117.

Oddball - The Musical - Fri. Feb. 1st - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Oddball - The Musical, an evening of our favorite musical numbers from the 1930's through the 1980's culled from our massive archive of 16mm films.  With a mixture of classic Hollywood, educational primers and nostalgic camp favorites, it's a night of song and dance of epic proportions.  Schoolhouse Rock brings us the much sampled favorite 3 Is The Magic Number (1973).  Football Superstar and needlepoint enthusiast Rosie Grier sings "It's Alright to Cry" from the quintessential hippy-parenting guide Free To Be...You and Me (1974)  Busby Berkeley choreographs a dizzying display of hundreds of clones in a dazzling excerpt from Dames (1933) with other classic Hollywood musical numbers from the over-the-top Tiki-fantasy Isle of Tabu (1945), Fred and Ginger dance into your heart in Top Hat (1935) and Alice Faye sings "Oh You Nasty Man" from George White's Scandals (1934).  The Hollywood musical spirit infects a locker room of young girls as they perform "The Itty Bitty Titty Committee" from the epic musicalamity Junior High School (1978).  Children sing-whine throughout their bad day in I'm Mad at Me (1974) while a set of other children sing wistfully for a chop of meat in the creepy, campy Eating, Feel Good Movie (1974).  Tom Lehrer sings about pollution in The Run-Around (1969).  And so much more!

Date: Friday, February 1st, 2013 at 8:00PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 RSVP (Limited seating) to programming@oddballfilm.com or 415.558.8117.