Girls! Girls! Girls! - Fri. Feb. 28 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Girls! Girls! Girls!, a program of vintage short films all about (you guessed it) girls!  From young girls to young ladies, from mean girls to tough girls, with newsreel oddities, mini-docs, mental hygiene primers, cartoons, trailers and musical numbers, we're highlighting the strangest, funniest and campiest girls of the collection.  Marvel at the dedication and synchronicity of The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (1950s). Fashion meets the farm when a young lady leaves her home to be in a mobile modeling show in Rolling in Style (1954).  Two little girls love to touch ladies' furs and end up in a grand adventure in the fetish primer The Fur Coat Club (1973).  Little Lulu hallucinates a bar full of celebrity babies in the bizarre cartoon The Babysitter (1947). The Goldilocks fairy tale gets a sexy twist in one segment from the nudie cutie series Bikini Girls (1949). In the mental hygiene classic The Snob (1958), girls can be so mean, but who's meaner, the snob or the girls who call her a snob? Di$ney brings us the inner thoughts inside little girls' heads, in the Les Clark animated socialization primer What Should I Do? The New Girl (1970). And in an exciting twist, the audience will get to choose between three menstruation films: Girl Stuff (1980), Naturally, A Girl (1973), or It's Wonderful Being a Girl (1966).  Plus Vintage Trailers, Commercials, little B@by Jane singing "I've Written a Letter to Daddy", three Junior High School girls sing our favorite song of the pubescent blues "The Itty Bitty Titty Committee" and even more girlie surprises! Come early for a good seat and the beautifully dreamy National Film Board of Canada coming-of-age tale The End of Summer (1963). 

Date: Friday, February 28th, 2014 at 8:00 pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/02/girls-girls-girls-fri-feb-28-8pm.html

Brooklyn: Cradle of Culture - Thur. Feb 27 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present Brooklyn: Cradle of Culture.    No, it’s not too strong a claim to make for a town that gave both Mel Brooks and George Gershwin to the world. This treasure trove of rare cinematic delights from the 1920's-1980s features all of Brooklyn's homegrown heros.  Carl Reiner and Brooks talk New York World’s Fair in The Two-Thousand Year Old Man (1964). She’s a big deal in Malibu now, but Barbra Streisand’s former neighbors recall a different girl in the colorful documentary I Remember Barbra (1981). Woody Allen is among the celebs unraveling mysteries in How Do They Make Hot Dog Buns? (1971). Mae West tames lions, men and looks fabulous doing it in I’m No Angel (1933). Though he’s not from Brooklyn, Leonard Bernstein helps us class up the program with some music from locals Aaron Copland and George Gershwin in Sounds of an Orchestra (1966). Carole King sets the magical words and images of fellow King’s County-born Maurice Sendak to music in Chicken Soup with Rice (1975). Clara Bow and Barbara Stanwyck both show us what made them stars in snippets from 1927’s It and The Lady Eve (1941.) A favorite Brooklynite heads to the Big Easy with a lot to say in the comic travelogue Brooklyn Goes to New Orleans (1953). Plus the trailer for The Warriors, and so much more! So come and be part of the fun, already!  And as always, complimentary (and thematically appropriate) home-baked treats from the Kurator's Kitchen!

Date: Thursday, February 27, 2014 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00, RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or RSVP@oddballfilm.com
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/02/brooklyn-cradle-of-culture-thur-feb-27.html

Voulez-Vous Danser Avec Moi? - Mon. Feb. 24 - 7:30 PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Charles Redon present Voulez-Vous Danser Avec Moi? an evening of exquisite vintage dance films hosted by Mathilde Froustey, principal dancer at the San Francisco Ballet. As the educational film Body Language (1974) reminds us, movements and gestures are our first means to communicate beyond words. On a collective level, dance is also a mirror for societies: in his film called Step Style (1980) Alan Lomax built a stunning ethnological study on how the different kinds of foot movements in traditional dances result from their socio-economical surrounding. In Western Countries, dance evolved into ballet, one of the most demanding forms of art that requires the most skillful and dedicated performers. The short excerpt from a Spotlight on Australian Ballet (1948) illustrates with a lot of humor the damages that can happen when absent-minded ballerinas must go back to factories to make a living between two seasons! More seriously, the dark and beautiful footage shot in 1942 from the documentary When the Fire Dances Between the Two Poles: Mary Wigman (1991) highlights the complexity of gestures and patterns in ballet choreography by focusing on three essential elements in this pioneer’s work: hands, turns and percussive music. In Ballet with Edward Villella (1970), the former NY City Ballet’s principal dancer explains the importance of a modern piece by George Balanchine and evokes the central part played by dancers in the oral transmission of ballet. However, one of the best examples of this transmission may be found out of the professional studios! In the academy-award winning documentary He Makes me Feel Like Dancing (1983) Jacques d’Amboise, another famous NYCB principal dancer, was filmed for a whole year, while working on organizing a huge performance with kids from several public schools; the passion for dance he managed to arise in those kids is properly exhilarating! The screening will end with an excerpt from Seraphic Dialogue (1969) a mesmerizing piece by Martha Graham, one of the most important American choreographers, who worked on the tale of the French Christian martyr Joan of Arc. 

Date: Monday, February 24th, 2014 at 7:30pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/02/voulez-vous-danser-avec-moi-mon-feb-24.html

Universal Rhythms: The Pulse of Time - Fri. Feb. 21 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Louis Steven present Universal Rhythms: The Pulse of Time, a cinematic exploration where mechanized time is an additive practicality but ultimately just one of the rhythms along which we experience life. Through scientific and cultural research Of Time, Work and Leisure (1962) paints an amusingly dystopian picture of the pressures and speed on modern man; meanwhile What Time is Your Body?(1973) shows a series of unsettling experiments where willing participants are isolated away from any external means of telling time while their daily cycles are continuously monitored; and through wonderful animation and soothing narration Universal Rhythms (1979) reveals the beauty in the physical rhythms surrounding us but are too small, large, or slow and fast for our perception.  Local filmmaker Bauer Byron's The Icarus Wish (1972 uses multi-screen images to glance upon a child's innocent wish, fear and fantasies. Frank Mouris's Frank Film (1973) and Maya Deren's The Ritual of Transfigured Time (1946) use playful and unsettling techniques to distort the rhythm of the clock and so reveal the stable rhythm of seconds, hours, and years as illusory. In Skaterdater(1965) we find a unique and intoxicating 60s SoCal wave-after-wave rhythm where the summer seems eternally flowing with youthful joy of skating, goofing around and falling in love. Come and lose yourself in the “vibrant rhythm of all matters. Where our physical world is in constant motion and everything is energy and rhythm, everything music and dance.” 

Date: Friday, February 21st, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/02/universal-rhythms-pulse-of-time-fri-feb.html

Experiments in Animation - Thur. Feb. 20 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Experiments in Animation, a dazzling, psychedelic and innovative night of groundbreaking animation from around the world.  Not your average cartoon show, this varied program features direct animation, optical printing, pixilation, early computer graphics, and absurd and surreal cell animation from innovative masters like Norman McLaren, Jan Lenica, Vince Collins, John Whitney, John Hubley, Peter Foldes, Tex Avery and more. Shorts include Rhinoceros (1965), Jan Lenica's cut-out adaptation of Ionesco's absurdist masterpiece; 200 (1975) Vince Collins' psychedelic bicentennial celebration; Arabesque (1975) John Whitney's early computer-generated poem of mathematical artistry. Robert Swarthe's Oscar-nominated Kick Me (1975)- painted directly onto the film - cleverly takes its meta-post-modernism to new dimensions; Canadian animator Norman McLaren experimented with animation in as many ways as his brilliant mind could conceive of, including direct cinema as with his hand-painted marvel Fiddle-De-Dee (1947), and even animating actors in his grim pixilation parable Neighbors (1958).  The hypnotic Tanka (1976) utilizes optical printing to bring the intricate and ominous images of the Tibetan Book of the Dead to life.  Peter Foldes' Hunger (La Faim, 1973) another early computer animated masterpiece and metamorphic nightmare brings new meaning to eating the rich.  Bruno Bozzetto's brilliant Ego (1970) animates the surreal Freudian dreamworld of the average Joe, full of naked women and fascism.  Oscar winning animator Eliot Noyes Jr. experiments with animating sand in the dreamy Sandman (1970).  Tex Avery and Daffy Duck hit the editing deck and create an avant-garde collage film in Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938).  John and Faith Hubley's Adventures of an * (1956) broke all the rules and gave way to a new, more abstract style in studio animation. Plus more animated surprises in store, you'll never think about cartoons the same way again! 

Date: Thursday, February 20th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web:http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/02/experiments-in-animation-thur-feb-20-8pm.html

Learn Your Lesson...On Dating - A Romantic Shockucation - Fri. Feb. 14 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...On Dating - A Romantic Shockucation, the twelfth in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, spend your Valentine's night learning all about the trials and tribulations of dating in yesteryear that still hold true (if not hilarious) today.  Dating Do's and Don'ts (1949) will teach you how to pick the right girl for your teen carnival and how to have the squeaky-clean time of your teenaged life. And girls can learn how now to be sluts, but still treat a boy to a real nice time in Are You Popular? (1947) The SNL sketch Doubletalk (1975) lets you in on what everyone is really thinking when a boy has to meet his date's parents. The Mormons want you to know that nice guys can finish first if they take karate and build self-confidence in The Phone Call (1977).  Everybody needs a date to the dance, and they're going to sing about it in an excerpt from the pubescent musicalamity Junior High School (1978). Comedian Dayton Allen chimes in with witty quips about your dating life in a segment from The Dayton Allen Show (1960). Dates can turn ugly, so watch out for A Night Out (1981) with Tom, he may be deaf but he should still understand "no".  Plus, the opening credits to Sweet Sixteen and Pregnant (c. 1980) with Sally Kellerman, a scandalous excerpt of the classic VD shock film The Innocent Party (1959) and the awkward mixed signals of great sexpectations in The Date (1977) for the early birds, it's a great Valentine's Day to Learn Your Lesson!

Date: Friday, February 14th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Strange Sinema 73: You Got WHAT? - Thurs. Feb. 13 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ collection of over 50,000 film prints. Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has complied his 73th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This special Valentine's installment: Strange Sinema 73: You Got WHAT?, examines the subject of sexually transmitted diseases. This genre-bending program highlights the hilarity, the graphic medical exams and the kitschy cultural implications of these guilt-infused diseases. The films feature animation, educational, military training, mental hygiene films all targeted teens, military men, couples to educate, inform and oftentimes scare the hell out of people! Join us for an evening of hilarity, groans and squeals as we explore the wonderful world of VD-and more. Films include The Innocent Party (1959) the classic guilt-tripped noir-like shocker about a “dirty” girl and her hidden secret- VD! with a super-cool beatnik jazz soundscore; You Got WHAT?, (1970), this hippiesque VD film is  punctuated by bell bottoms, tarot cards and kooky improv vignettes; VD Attack Plan (1973) an animated D*sney film features a syphilitic army sergeant directing his VD troops into battle against stupid humans. Other highlights include: One a Minute (1944) which promotes condoms so US Navy sailor-saps can cover their “sucker-bets” on shore as they  “take a chance” with the VD-infected hostesses at the Kit Kat Club; Herpes: The New Sexual Epidemic (1981),  join three people on their painful, and itchy journeys with the simplex; Birds, Bees and Storks (1965), A father (voiced by Peter Sellers) sets out to explain the facts of life to his son, but becomes increasingly embarrassed to the point where his explanations are so vague as to be incomprehensible. Plus! Thank You Mask Man (1968), the legendary animated short by the infamous comedian and satirist Lenny Bruce is a vivid send up on race, class and sexuality. Watch as Tonto and the Lone Ranger let it all hang out. Like crazy man. Also! Sex commercials and PSAs like VD For Everyone!

Date: Thursday, February 13th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

What the F (ilm)?! 2: A Second Helping of Cine-insanity - Fri. Feb 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present What the F(ilm)?! 2: A Second Helping of Cine-insanity an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. From hallucinating clowns to drunk cats, Fellini spoofs to hair-lice primers and even more singing bear cine-insanity, this is one night of rare and hilarious head-scratchers you won't want to miss.  The madness includes Oddball favorite The Cat Who Drank (and Used) Too Much (1987), featuring the misadventures of Pat the drunk cat; the hallucinatory dental hygiene brain-boiler Toothache of the Clown (1971); I'm Mad at Me (1974), a mini-musical of children's anger and frustration; Two (1971), a hilarious Fellini spoof from funny-woman Renee Taylor (The Nanny);  Your Pet Problem (1944), a Speaking of Animals short with a menagerie of talking animals; How To Crack the Establishment But Not Lose Your Identity (1960s), a plastics council-sponsored recruitment film for the counter-culture youth of the 60s; Lice are not Nice (1985), an itchy-kitschy classroom primer with songs and cartoons to alert you to the tiny scalp-invaders; and the stop-motion egg-tiquette primer Courtesy: A Good Eggsample (1976) starring the ever-courteous Eggbert. It's a night of cine-insanity too weird to pass up! 

Date: Friday, February 7th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/

Visions of Dystopia - Thur. Feb. 6th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Visions of Dystopia, an evening of mind-bending short films that transport us into alternate realities; be it the bleak future, or a dark and dangerous fantasy realm.  Based on a Ray Bradbury story and directed by the legendary Saul and Elaine Bass, Quest (1984) is one boy's jaw-dropping journey to save an entire race before he outlives his 8 day lifespan.  West Coast experimental filmmaker Donald Fox’s exhilaratingly beautiful optical poem Omega (1970) deals with the end of mankind on earth through mind-bending visuals.  Chris Marker's enduring sci-fi experiment La Jetee (1962) utilizes still images to portray a post-apocalyptic world of time-travel, torture and lost love.  Polish director Jan Habarta's dystopian masterpiece No. 00173 (1967) will blow your mind with it's eery depiction of a grim, Kraftwerkian factory, momentarily brightened by a colorful butterfly. Trends (1967) is a light, animated interpretation of the possible ridiculous trends of the future by Oscar-nominated Hungarian animator Marcell Jankovics. Plus, a surprise bleak futurist film from a juggernaut of science fiction, Post-Apocalyptic Trailers and early birds will be treated to three alternate versions of The Future (1980) and (spoiler alert!) they're all bad.  This imagined future's so dark, you better leave your shades at home.

Date: Thursday, February 6th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117 
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com