Travels, Trips, and Journeys: A Night of Vintage Voyages - Fri. May 1st - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Christina Yglesias invite you escape your present time, place, and dimension with Travels, Trips, and Journeys: A Night of Vintage Voyages. We'll venture to an underwater circus full of vintage vixens, experience the opulence of the golden age of American air travel, see what a modern art museum looks like through the eyes of belligerent claymation drunk, root for a tiny wiener dog on the run, go on a musical midcentury greyhound trip, heed the dangers of an LSD trip gone wrong, and more! Venture to the era where stewardesses, not suitcases, were weighed before flights in Pan Am’s World (1966). This promotional film will take you from Thailand, to Paris, to Australia, and beyond, giving you a taste for the top of the line jets, intercontinental hotels, and general fanciness of the world of 1960’s air travel. For a trip of a different sort, there is LSD: Insight or Insanity (1967), full of rebellious teenagers, psychedelic wonders, and shocking psychedelia. Otto, the adventurous little wiener dog protagonist of A Dogonne Story (1940s) will be sure to win your heart. He runs away from the German countryside (rather than put up with the indignity of a being given a bath) to the big bustling city where danger, sausages, and dogcatchers await. Ride a greyhound bus through the American technicolor heartland in the kitschy short America for Me (1952). See the amazing claymation of Closed Mondays (1974) and take a tour of an after-hours modern art museum where art comes alive in the perceptions of the drunk protagonist. Things will get even weirder with Submarine Circus (1945), which features an underwater hot dog stand, a dude wrestling a alligator, and some sexy synchronized faux-mermaids. Early comers will get to view a wonderful collection of dated, unintentionally funny, sometimes offensive, and often strange Airline Commercials.

Date: Friday, May 1st, 2015 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 87: Sex and Youth in the Atomic Age - Thur. Apr. 30 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 87: Sex and Youth in the Atomic Age, a once monthly evening of newly discovered and avant-garde rarities from the stacks of the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 87th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This program features a rare black and white peek at the repressed and uptight 1950s-from A-Bomb scare films to social guidance films featuring unintentionally hilarious morality lessons on topics such as dating, family life, courtesy, citizenship, and sex education. We start off with the classic burlesque of Lili St Cyr’s Bubble Bath Dance (1950s), a risqué set piece for a repressive time, followed by the frightening and alternately hilarious Atomic Alert (1951), an atomic scare film about what to do when an atomic bomb hits (don’t worry-it’s survivable!); Are You Popular? (1947) one of the best examples of post-World War II moral hygiene films, featuring examples of "good" and "bad" girls, proper and improper dating etiquette and courtesy to parents; Shy Guy (1951), featuring young Dick York (“Bewitched”) who follows his dad’s suggestion to help others and make himself a popular guy; Dating Do’s and Don’ts (1949) long recognized as one of the campiest educational films ever made and a fun how-do guide following clueless Woody’s quest to ask fun girl Ann out on a date; The Innocent Party (1959) a sex hygiene guilt tripper where we learn about a dirty girl with a secret-VD, the gift that keeps on giving; The Trouble With Women (1959) featuring a shop supervisor’s apparent “problem” with women in his workplace. Plus, a look inside the steamy pseudo-smut of the repressed 50s featuring Bikini Girls (1950s), three titillating tales featuring bikini-clad women doing things that expose themselves like applying suntan lotion, trying on clothes and “getting comfortable” in the hot sun; a sexy and sexist look at the lighter side of eroticism. And pre-show cigarette commercials!

Date: Thursday, April 30th, 2015 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

Totally Strange 80's - Sex, Drugs and Roller Skates - Fri. Apr. 24 - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you Totally Strange 80's - Sex, Drugs and Roller Skates. This bizarre and over-the-top evening features the oddest shorts of the 1980s, a decade known for its over-indulgence, bright colors, big hair and roller skates...roller skates! Kids get creepy with grandma and her walkie-talkie-controlled robot when their picture book points out their body parts in Bellybuttons Are Navels (1985). Get the first turkey perspective of your Thanksgiving feast in the bizarre and macabre animation I Was A Thanksgiving Turkey (1986). Will "California Raisins" Vinton turns clay into pre-hysteria in the much loved claymation marvel Dinosaur! (1987).  Go down the face-melting rabbit hole with a teenage junky in the cartoon nightmare Wasted: A True Story (1983). One lonely bug must make it across the hell of an extremely 80's Venice Beach to make it to a romantic shoreline rendezvous in Why'd the Beetle Cross the Road? (1984). And, of course, we'll all learn to Roller Skate Safely (1981) with our matching neon spandex. Plus, Bill Plympton's surreal fantasy Your Face (1987), our final unscreened Lego Sports Short: Ice Hockey (1986),  everybody's favorite wasted feline The Cat Who Drank and Used Too Much (1987), a whole decade's worth of great trailers, commercials and more snippets and surprises, with everything screened on 16mm.  So, tease your bangs, grab your skates and roll on down to Oddball!

Date: Friday, April 24th, 2015 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

Ad Nauseam - Vintage Commercial Extravaganza - Thur. Apr. 23 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Ad Nauseam - Vintage Commercial Extravaganza an evening of rare commercials and Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) from the “golden age” of television culled from the massive collection in the Oddball Films archive. Spanning the late 1950’s to the early 1980’s, these weird, wild, wacky, funny, frightening and fabulous 30 second slices of vintage TV were designed to entice, dupe or otherwise coerce the American Consumer in the most entertaining fashion. From toy commercials for the original Slinky to Buster Keaton plugging Ford Vans, plus clothes, cigarettes, long forgotten beauty products and so many celebrities shilling for beer (including Louis Armstrong), you'll get hundreds of 30 second glimpses into not only the products that shaped yesteryear but the ad men and mad men that made us pull out our wallets. Also included, The 30 Second Dream (1977), an award-winning mini-doc on the power of commercial advertising; The Car of Your Dreams (1984) a quick-cutting montage of tons of car commercials, expertly edited for one maximum thrill ride and It's Not Commercial (1950s) a bizarro reel of fake commercials.  Be a sell-out! Play spot the budding star or celebrity has-been! See the things you forgot you really needed!

Date: Thursday, April 23rd, 2015 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

Cinema Soiree - The Remarkable Collection of Smokehouse Films in LA - Fri. Apr. 17 - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes filmmaker and archivist John Cannizzaro to our Cinema Soiree, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. John Cannizzaro is a filmmaker whose works rotate between stop-motion animation and experimental films - often with an ethnographic element to them. As an archivist, his large collection of 16mm film prints center mainly around those very topics; ethnography, experimental works and stop motion animation. Cannizzaro will be visiting from Los Angeles and bringing you an eclectic batch of rare and unusual 16mm gems from the archives of Smokehouse Films and discussing his process of compiling and curating his focused archive of rare and remarkable 16mm films and about the importance of saving and presenting these works to the public.  His dose of cinematic, sideshow oddities includes early works of ever-increasing violence by animation masters Jan Svankmajer - Rakvickarna (Czech 1966) – where two puppets become involved in an escalating war over a fine guinea pig: and Norman McLaren’s Neighbors (Canada 1962) - about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.   More heated animation with Miroslav Stepanek’s Shooting Gallery (Czech 1969) - an attack on totalitarianism; Dan McLaughlin’s Claude (USA 1963) – about a little boy who, while busy working on some kind of electronic box, is constantly berated by his parents; and Csaba Varga’s Augusta Makes Herself Beautiful (Hungary 1983) – where the violence is turned on herself as the title character tries everything in order to make herself look beautiful.  The strange world of Ethnographic film is explored in Asch and Chagnon’s Children's Magical Death (USA 1974) - imitating their fathers, young boys pretend to be shamans; and in Hermann Schlenker’s Men's Dances (Germany 1971) – where Afghan men act out a drama through dance.  Quirky narrative shorts include Alexander Hammid’s Gentleman In Room 6 (USA 1952) – an early first person narrative; and Ante Zaninovic’s Weekend (Yugoslavia 1972) – an interesting solution to dealing with the elderly.  The avant garde rears its beautiful head with Pat O’Neill’s mind blowing Sidewinder's Delta (USA 1976) - a kind of indirect Western; a meditation on the myth of wilderness.  Plus a few other surprises!

Date: Friday, April 17th, 2015 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

The Kids are Not Alright - Thur. Apr. 16 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Kids are Not Alright, a night of 16mm rarities and oddities about troubled, twisted and tormented youth from the 1930s through the 1980s, featuring naughty little girls, juvenile delinquents, creepy ventriloquists, murderous moppets, and even Shirley Temple as a toddler prostitute.  Find out all about mid-century juvenile delinquency in Teenagers on Trial (1955). A sneaky little girl steals her ballet costume and her "horrible little beast" of a brother destroys it in Amelia and the Angel (1957), an early short from one of Britain's most audacious directors, Ken Russell (Tommy, Altered States). Little Shirley Dinsdale and her pal Judy Splinters chat it up in the creepy ventriloquist "Popular Person Oddity" Double-Talk Girl (1942). Claymation kids warn us about peer pressure and gang mentality in Jojo's Blues (1982).  A tiny Shirley Temple tarts it up and tries to cheat an honest man in the "Baby Burlesk" Polly Tix in Washington (1933).  Comic-turned-cartoon star Little Lulu hits her head and goes on one surreal trip to the Stork Club in The Babysitter (1947).  One little darling turns into a murderous monster in a chilling excerpt of cult horror classic The Bad Seed (1956). Plus, mental hygiene howler Don't Get Angry (1953), an early work by Gus Van Sant, Little Johnny and his Dog (1972, on generous loan from the archives of Smokehouse Films)  and more surprises!


Date: Thursday, April 16th, 2015 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

Learn Your Lesson...Oral Exam - Chew on the Shockucation! - Fri. Apr. 10th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...Oral Exam: Chew on the Shockucation, the 25th in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, we're going to the dentist with a tasty mouthful of insane dental hygiene shorts.  While you may think dental hygiene might be a dry subject; the puppets, clowns, claymation teeth, cartoon hippies, monkeys and psychedelic rabbits in this show should prove otherwise! Get ready for one swingin' party with The Munchers (1973), a groovy oral hygiene rock opera featuring a mouthy bandstand of claymation teeth.  Oddball favorite, 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. A human-sized mouth puppet learns the ins and outs of dental hygiene when Big Mouth Goes to the Dentist (1979).  Woody Allen, in a mini-episode of Hot Dog answers the age old question How Do They Make Toothpaste? (1970) Caesar Romero (The Joker from the 1960's Batman) will scare you into flossing in the strange and spooky The Haunted Mouth (1974). Two cartoon stoners encounter a creepy psychedelic bunny-girl in an early edition of Tooth Truth with Harv and Marv (1976), Plus! Preventative Dentistry in B Sharp (1975), It's Dental Flossophy Ch@rlie Brown (1979), the entirely unsexy intro to a couple's film on better fellatio from The Center for Marital & Sexual Studies #17: Oral Pleasuring (don't worry, nothing graphic), Vintage Toothpaste Commercials,  dental door prizes and more!  

Date: Friday, April 10th, 2015 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

Mysteries of the Unexplained - Thur. Apr. 9th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Mysteries of the Unexplained, a program of 16mm films exploring those mysteries of the universe that have haunted and fascinated us for centuries including Stonehenge, telekinesis, The Loch Ness Monster, Easter Island and (of course) extraterrestrial life; some silly, some serious and all on 16mm film from the archive.  Rod Serling narrates the haunting and ponderous In Search of Ancient Astronauts (1973), a documentary that seeks to examine the link between aliens and the ancient world; giving responsibility to the star children for everything from the Mayan calendar to the Pyramids in Egypt. Discover the secrets of a teenage psychic and his incredible telekinetic powers with "The Poltergeist Boy" in Matthew Manning: Study of a Psychic (1974). Travel to Easter Island (1969) and ponder the methods and meanings behind those giant heads in one laughably inept travelogue, and explore the enigmatic monument that still has more secrets to reveal in Stonehenge: Mystery in the Plain (1982).  Di$ney wants you to explore the lore of the elusive monster that has eluded its own verification for decades, Nessy, so they decided to animate her in Man, Monsters, and Mysteries (1973), a fun and fascinating look at the human need to create their own mythologies. Plus, come early for NASA-sponsored extra-terrestrial film Who's Out There (1975), narrated by Orson Welles and featuring a young Carl Sagan.

Date: Thursday, April 9th, 2015 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00, limited seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or RSVP@oddballfilm.com

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

What the F(ilm)?! 11: Mimes, Monkeys, Mr. Bill and More! - Fri. Apr. 3rd - 8PM

Oddball Films presents What the F(ilm)?! 11: Mimes, Monkeys, Mr. Bill and More! an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection.  This compendium of 16mm madness is too strange to be believed and too baffling to be forgotten.  This time around, we've got mimes and stilt-walkers protesting nuclear war, chorus lines of CPUs and ladies in cardboard boxes, woodchucks in hula skirts, a 1970s musical spectacular with Isaac Hayes, the misadventures of Mr. Bill, animation from a 12 year-old and so much more! The artistic hippies of Vermont bring us a regional theater performance featuring giant papier-mache masks, mime children, stilt-walkers and more weirdness in the atomically odd Button Button: A Dream of Nuclear War (1982).  The grandiose narrator thinks you aren't treating your morning cup of joe with enough respect in the overly-dramatic This is Coffee (1961).  Oh No! Mr. Bill (1970s) is back at the hospital, will Mr. Hands ever let the poor play-dough boy live his life? When a little boy wants to know more about his Apple 2E, he dreams up a magic world of silver hair and dancing CPU units in Learning About Computers (1984).  Then, to continue with the theme of ladies in boxes, we have the head-scratching sexist Soundie Male Order (1940s), featuring a bevy of mail-order brides that can't seem to dance their way out of their cardboard packaging. This time, we're giving you twice the animal-insanity with the Kodachrome tale of a rescued woodchuck who is forced to wear doll clothes for her dinner in Chucky Lou: Story of a Woodchuck (1948) and monkeys doing all kinds of crazy things like fixing cars and running film cameras in Monkies is the Cwaziest People! (1939). Isaac Hayes and dozens of gold-clad dancers take the stage at the Academy Awards to bring you a spectacular version of the theme from Shaft (1972).  When a 12 year-old animates a beloved fairy tale, you end up with grandma living at 23 Skidoo, a basket of Jekyll and Hyde pills, and a bomb in an apple in Little Red Riding Hoodlum (1962).  With more surprises in store! 

Date: Friday, April 3rd, 2015 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00, limited seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or RSVP@oddballfilm.com

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com