Revolutionary Queer Cinema - Fri. April 5th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Revolutionary Queer Cinema, a program of vintage 16mm films that revolutionized the LGBT movement and cinema itself.  Films include the powerful documentary Pink Triangles (1981), a fascinating look at the roots of homophobia, and the oppression of "the other" throughout history; Scorpio Rising (1964), Kenneth Anger's experimental masterpiece of homoeroticism, bikers and rock n' roll; Un Chant D'Amour(1950) Jean Genet's lyrical portrait of homoeroticism between two prisoners; Behind Every Good Man (1966), an understated portrait of an African American drag queen in Los Angeles;  Plus! Legendary drag queen Charles Pierce belts out a few tunes, Vintage Queer Home Movies, Trailers, and more!  

Date: Friday, April 5th, 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

Urban Blight - Stress and the City- Thu. April 4th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Urban Blight: Stress and the City, a program of vintage cartoons, short films, documentaries and propaganda about the rise of the American city and the environmental, social, and political ramifications thereafter. The animated Boomsville (1960s) chronicles the pillaging of native lands to build a metropolis.  Eli Wallach stars as a New York City postman who's so fed up with the impersonal bureaucratic city, he hatches a devilish revenge plot in The Dehumanizing City... and Hymie Schultz (1967). Pollution (1969) features a hilariously disturbing montage set to Tom Lehrer's tragicomedic ditty.  The mini-doc Altered Environments (1971) pits the city against the 'burbs and asks you where'd you rather live.  The classic propaganda-scare film Our Cities Must Fight (1951) urges people to stay in the cities during wartime; after all, the nuclear contamination will dissipate after a day or two.  In John and Faith Hubley's animation Urbanissimo (1966), the city grows a pair of legs and goes on a rampage of destruction.  Designers Ray and Charles Eames chart the rise of the city coinciding with the rise of photography in the beautifully crafted Image of the City (1973).  Jim Hens@n's Time Piece (1965) stars Hens@n himself, as a man literally sickened by the hectic pace of the urban rat-race.  And because we all need a glimmer of hope in this bustling, chaotic, polluted impersonal town, the World Health Organization brings us Little Man-Big City (1968), a charming cartoon from Budapest with some interesting ideas on fixing society's ills. 

Date: Thursday, April 4th, 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

Antique Animal Antics! - Fri. Mar. 29 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Antique Animal Antics!, a program of vintage films full of adorable, hilarious and anthropomorphic animals.  Decades before youtube, CGI, and the Buddies franchise, these furry film stars were doing tricks, solving crimes, talking, singing and drinking too much! The evening's beastly brigade includes the knee-slapping anti-drug scare film The Cat Who Drank and Used Too Much (1987).  Monkey spy, monkey do with Lancelot Link Secret Chimp (1971), the crime-fighting slapstick simian.  Jerry Fairbanks brings us singing bears in Your Pet Problem (1944) and a conga line of dogs in Tails of the Border (1944), both part of the Speaking of Animals series. Bird Circus (1950s) is a technicolor fantasy of vibrant showbirds that walk tight-ropes, ride bicycles and more.  Dogs play soccer in an action-packed segment from Animal Athletes (1930s) and you can learn to Teach your Dog Tricks (1951), so you too can have a wonder-mutt. The lush Canadian animation Mr. Frog Went a Courtin' (1964) features a whole pond of well-dressed animals and raises a debate about interspecies marriage. Blackie the Wonder Horse Swims the Golden Gate (1938) stars our own local equine hero. And, (a horse) of course, what talking animal show would be complete without an excerpt from one of the wackiest TV-crossovers in history, Mae West Meets Mr. Ed (1964)? Plus, vintage dog food commercials, circus animals, "The Talking Tiffany Chimps", animal crackers to munch on and so much more!

Date: Friday, March 29th, 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

Visions of Verses: Poetry in the Dark - Thur. Mar. 28 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest Curator Landon Bates bring you Visions of Verses: Poetry in the Dark, a screening intended to initiate National Poetry Month the Oddball way, with a batch of films, both brainy and bizarre, celebrating the baddest of bards, those conjurers of the subconscious whose wizardry with words stirs up a little something in the darker reaches of the psyche or soul.  The films in this program alternate between those about poets (and their often-turbulent processes) and those adapted from particular pieces.  We’ll begin in the very veins where verses first course--that is, in the Blood of a Poet (1932), Jean Cocteau’s inimitable cinematic meditation on the muse.  In particular we’ll look at the second episode—“Do Walls Have Ears?”--wherein the titular artist spies through strange keyholes at the behest of a statue in his studio (played by photographer Lee Miller), discovering hallucinatory images that linger in the mind’s eye.  The next film gratifies eye and ear alike, as Richard Burton’s sonorous voice does full justice to the rhythms of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s spectral Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1977), brought to dreamy visual life by director John Ryan with a lucid style of stop-motion animation using layered paper cutouts.  In a Dark Time (1964), a contemplative portrait of the mid-20^th Century poet Theodore Roethke--whose influence is felt in poets like Sylvia Plath and W.S. Merwin (and whose face recently appeared on a postage stamp)--not only showcases Roethke’s personal views on poetic craft, but also features the man himself performing (he sort of dances while he reads) a number of his most interesting pieces.  Lastly, we’ll see (or rather experience) a section of Mary Ellen Bute’s little-seen vertiginous interpretation of James Joyce’s impenetrable opus, Finnegan’s Wake (1966).  So, set aside your book for a couple of hours, crawl out of your bohemian hovel, and feast your eyes and ears at Oddball.

Date: Thursday, March 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

''Such is the role of poetry. It unveils…it lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.''

- Jean Cocteau

Creepy Cartoons - The Dark Side of Animation - Fri. Mar. 22 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Creepy Cartoons - The Dark Side of Animation, a program of strange, dark, and unsettling animation from around the world.  Cartoons are generally thought of as light entertainment for children, but the medium allows the viewer to explore dark and surreal worlds and subject matter at a two-dimensional distance.  The devilish delights of this program include a pencil-drawn version of a 19th century British folk song Widdecombe Fair (1948) about an ill-fated trip to the fair on an old grey mare for Tom Pierce and a dozen of his closest friends. Comic strip Krazy Kat comes back to the big screen to fight off ghosts and other haunts, while his puppy fights with a skeleton in the silly romp Krazy Kat in Krazy Spooks (1933).  Adorable bunny rabbits teach us a lesson about gun-violence and racial inequality in the justice system in The Punishment Fits the Crime (1972). Looney Tunes animator Paul Julian creates a dark and surreal vision of Maurice Ogden's poem The Hangman (1964). The Czechs bring us two pieces, the clever cutout animation The Sword (1967) and Bretislav Pojar's tale of global annihilation, Boom (1979).  Yellow Submarine animator Paul Driessen gives us a strange vision of the Inquisition in a spider's web in Cat's Cradle (1974).  And because we can't get enough of them, we will be bringing back two of our all-time favorite cartoons of the collection, Bruno Bozzetto's dark and sexy examination of the working man's Freudian subconscious, Ego (1970) and Betty Boop teaming up with Cab Calloway for one spooky night in Minnie the Moocher (1932).

Date: Friday, March 22nd, 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

Strange Sinema 62: Cinema Sequences + Nut House Nuggets - Thur. Mar 21 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 62: Cinema Sequences + Nut House Nuggets, oddities from the Oddball Archives featuring new finds, buried junk, weird smut and miscellaneous moving image mayhem. This program features an oddball assortment of amazing cinema sequences, including feature parts, excerpts, trailers and “nut house nuggets" -weird spoofs and kooky cinema oddities all culled from the rarities in the Oddball Archives. Sequences include Federico Fellini’s infamous Steam Bath Sequence (1963) from 8 ½ starring Marcello Mastroianni; Reel 2 of Radley Metzger’s stylish adult film Barbara Broadcast starring Annette Haven, Jamie Gillie and CJ Laing; silent cinema trailers featuring Lon Chaney Sr. as Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame (1925), and as a deformed phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House in Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Paul Leni’s expressionistic comedy horror film The Cat and the Canary (1927) inspired by Broadway stage plays and the cornerstone of Universal Pictures horror genre; excerpts, intros and vintage mouthwash, cigarette, and aspirin commercials from the legendary director’s television show Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962); nightmarish comedic scenes from Neil Simon’s A Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) featuring unemployed ad executive Mel Edison (Jack Lemon) and wife Edna (Anne Bancroft) living in the heat of a NYC garbage strike; a bizarre 1950s spoof compilation of TV and commercials: The Nut House!! (1950s) featuring Gaines Horse Food (made from dogs), a woman telling time by beating a baby carriage with a dead fish and other oddities; Paramount Studios introduces their wacky comedic team of Martin & Rossi (1966) complete with glamour girls and eye-popping Technicolor; the very weird Universal Studios featurette Fraud By Mail (1944) focuses on bizarre dangerous mail order fraud: nose shapers, spine straighteners, eye mallets, pendiculators and more;  Isaac Hayes performs the most over-the–top spectacular version of Shaft (1972) ever at the 44^th Annual Academy Awards and two early silent films by cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès La Comedie et Magique de Méliès (B+W,1903) provide some of the first examples of fade-outs, dissolves, double exposures and other camera tricks.

Plus! a naked Marlboro cigarette ad-the strangest ever!

Date: Thursday, March 21 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

Learn Your Lesson...Scott Baio - Fri. Mar. 15 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Learn Your Lesson...Scott Baio, the first in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic shockucational films and TV specials of the collection.  Round one of Learn Your Lesson features a triple dose of Afterschool Specials starring 80's teen heartthrob Scott Baio (Happy Days, Charles in Charge).  Watch little Scotty grow from a teen playing a young boy on the streets, to a young man playing a stoned and hilarious teen, to a full-grown man playing a High School kid with a drinking problem. We begin with Luke Was There (1976), an NBC Special Treat and one of the first credits on young Baio's resume.  The 16 year-old plays a boy forced to a life on the streets after his mother is hospitalized, and he's reduced stealing food stamps from old ladies.  In Stoned (1980), an ABC Afterschool Special, the now 20 year-old Baio plays sophomore Jack Melon, who's tired of being an invisible nerd and finds some new friends, self-confidence and a great sense of humor when he starts smoking pot. Strangers with Candy fans will delight in an eerily familiar outdoor rap-session with Jack's hip teacher.  And finally, a 24 year-old Scott plays a senior with a bright future, but a bad habit of drinking and driving in the CBS Schoolbreak Special All The Kids Do It (1984, directed by Henry "The Fonz" Winkler).  Will Scott Baio ever learn his lesson?  Will You?

Date: Friday, March 15th, 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

Wanderlust - The Romance of Transportation - Thur. March 14 - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you Wanderlust - The Romance of Transportation, an evening of vintage 16mm films about our need to travel and the planes, trains and automobiles (and boats and motorcycles) that make it possible. From jet-setting promotional films to safety scare films to charming historical animation, this program is sure to move you! Get jet-setting with the sizzling trailer for the 1969 sleaze classic The Stewardesses and motoring with the original trailer for Easy Rider, and then get ready to see the world, Pan Am's World (1966) with this stylish and beautiful promotional gem. Peter Fonda and Evel Knievel teach us that motorcycle riding is Not So Easy (1973). Our neighbors to the North explore The Romance of Transportation in Canada (1952) in this whimsical Canadian mid-century animation with a dynamic jazz soundtrack.  The Scenemakers (1960) is one fashionable road-trip brought to you by Penney's and Monsanto with stylish highlights of America's most beautiful sights and outfits. Princess Cruises wants you to know how a cruise makes All The Difference in the World (1970's) and the grandiose narrator is willing to pound it into your head with the help of a staff and clientele in the shortest of short-shorts.  Take a miniature train ride with Charles and Ray Eames charming and visually astonishing short Toccata for Toy Trains (1957). And learn the history and visit the vintage haunts of our own iconic transportation in San Francisco's Ageless Cable Cars (1955).  Plus, vintage car commercials and so much more!  

Date: Thursday, March 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

Wake Up and Smell the Morning: The Ritual and Routine of Breakfast - Thur. Mar. 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present Wake Up and Smell the Morning: The Ritual and Routine of Breakfast featuring the most important reels of the day.  It's a smorgasbord of  films centered around the morning meal and its importance in our daily grind. Michael Caine happily shares screen time with freshly ground coffee and attempts seduction via expert kitchen technique in two deluxe excepts from Sidney J. Furie’s The IPCRESS File (1965). In All’s Fair (1938), the Cabin Kids let loose on a pancake contest with lots of music and hint of mayhem. A craving for warm buttery treats leads a girl on a fantastical countryside journey in a food sourcing fable, Waffles (1986). Harvesting sweet gold is a vanishing way of life in Maple Sugar and Syrup, a poetic Kodascope from the late 1920s. Rush Hour Service (1971) recasts the workday diner as a battleground requiring tactical planning. A Chocolate Sandwich? (1976) uses a beloved treat to explore the part bread plays in French life. And there’s MORE! Treats from the curator’s kitchen will include her notorious gingerbread.

Date: Friday, March 7th, 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

The Eames Legacy - Short Films by Charles and Ray Eames - Fri. Mar. 8 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Eames Legacy - Short Films by Charles and Ray Eames. Among the finest designers of the 20th Century, the husband and wife team are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, but the Eames’ were also brilliant and inventive filmmakers, able to illustrate the most abstract concepts with readily understood images. The legacy of this husband and wife team includes more than 100 films produced between 1950 and 1982 that reflect the rich scope of their interests. This program includes Powers of Ten (1968), their most famous film about orders of magnitude; Tops (1969), a brilliant childlike anthropological film capturing spinning tops from different cultures and eras;  IBM Mathematics Peep Show (1961) is a succinct and poignant presentation of 5 separate mathematical concepts; Toccata For Toy Trains (1957) a marvelous celebration of antique toys; A Communication Primer (1953); The Image of the City (1969), a lyrical treatise on the relationship between photography and the urban landscape ; and House: After Five Years of Living (1955), the beautiful contemplation on the home they built for themselves and lived in till the end of their lives.   Noted for their furniture designs -- the "Eames chair" in particular is considered one of the most significant and widely recognized furniture designs of the 20th century. The Charles Eames Lounge Chair set a standard for comfort and simplicity in modern design. The chair is so important in modern furniture design that it has become a part of the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. There is so much to say about the legacy of the Eames’s that an entire period has been named after them.

Date: Friday, March 8th, 2013 at 8PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10 - Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117