What the F(ilm)?! 10 - The Cine-insanity is Back... with a Vengeance! - Fri. Jan. 30 - 8PM

Oddball Films present What the F(ilm)?! 10: The Cine-insanity is Back... with a Vengeance! , an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. This time around, we've got lady wrestlers, superhero dating services, Brando spoofs, sneaky squeaky squirrels, forest orchestras and much much more!  Zip along with Captain Mom (1972) as he woos the domineering super-heroine of his dreams in a wacky short from pixilation duo Len Janson and Chuck Menville.  Take a crazy trip to SF's own Chinatown in the local Coppola spoof, Porklips Now (1980).  Fall in love with Squeak the Squirrel (1957), a little ground squirrel in search of a nut and willing to perform any number of tricks for those sweet nutty treats. Chuck Braverman sends us through Television Land (1971) in a manic, madcap montage in his own signature kinestatic style.  For the ladies, learn how to catch a man by shutting your mouth in a laughably un-feminist excerpt of Why Not Be Beautiful? (1969).  Watch as Mildred Burke and Mae Weston duke it out in the center ring in Lipstick and Dynamite (1949).  Take a musical break with the cheeky all-girl big band soundie Feed the Kitty (1942) and head to a musical forest with a man in a tuxedo that can conduct the elements in the inexplicable Etude (1971). Back by baffled demand, the animated space opera using super-imposed human mouths for dialogue, it's Space Angel (1963). Plus an excerpt of Ways to Ruin Your Child's Life and more surprise insanity!



Date: Friday, January 30th, 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

Relics and Remnants: The Cinema of What’s Left - Thur. Jan. 29 - 8 PM


Oddball Films and guest curator John Schmidt present Relics and Remnants: The Cinema of What’s Left, an evening exploration of ruin, decay, and loss. The program begins with Bay Area filmmaker and journalist Jon Else’s You Don’t Die Here (1972), an impressionistic documentary portrait of a small, eccentric community eking out an existence in the unforgiving light of California’s Death Valley. Across the world, Eugene Boyko records a real-life Wages of Fear in his 1968 short Juggernaut (1969), which follows a group of engineers as they attempt to transport a 70-ton nuclear reactor core across the Indian continent. Glimpses of the traditional life its pilgrimage quite literally displaces, serve as evocative counterpoint: roads were fortified and buildings destroyed to let the titular juggernaut (ever-so-slowly) pass. If in these two films the present impinges itself on—and comes into direct contact with—remnants of the past, in the Academy Award winning Mexican documentary Sentinels of Silence (1971) what remains is mere palimpsest; ghostly traces of cultures long erased. Beautiful aerial photography of Mesoamerican ruins and voiceover musing by Orson Welles leave the viewer to wonder at the accomplishments and precipitous fall of pre-Columbian Mayan civilization. We allow a brief animation interlude for Croatian master Nedeljko Dragic’s free jazz destruction symphony Tup Tup (1973) before concluding the night with a print of (the recently deceased) Alain Resnais’ masterful Night and Fog (1955), never before seen at Oddball. Horrifying and necessary, the film combines archival material with meditative footage shot at Auschwitz and Majdanek ten years after the end of World War II. In the process, Resnais reveals the yawning gap between what’s left and what was, challenging the commonplace assumption that we can ever really understand the magnitude of history and its many traumas.
 
Date: Thursday, January 29th, 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 84: Holographic - Fri. Jan. 23 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 84, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 84th (and 7-year anniversary!) program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 84: Holographic is an anthology of carefully crafted experimental films emphasizing dimensionality, spirituality, high technology and art of the 60s. We begin with Holography: Memories in Light (1985), a fascinating look at the invention, development, and use of holography in industry and art; from holographic space ships to a holographic Andy Warhol. We continue with the mesmerizing documentary Kinetic Art in Paris (1971), a viscerally challenging kaleidoscopic homage to light sound and motion featuring some of the world's foremost kinetic artists, and Art of the Sixties (1967), featuring the monumental soft sculptures of Claes Oldenburg, machine artist Len Lye, Les Levine's interactive environments, action painter-provocateur Jackson Pollock and more.  Once again, we are screening a selection of Whitney films, featuring motion graphics pioneer John Whitney Sr., brother James and son Michael's work, all profoundly audacious and inspiring in their fluidity, motion and spiritual subtext. John Whitney's Arabesque (1975) is a legendary masterpiece of shimmering, oscillating waves set to the music of Persian composer Maroocheher Sadeghi. Michael Whitney's Binary Bit Patterns (1969) is a hypnotic psych-folk audiovisual experience that suggests a secret symbiosis between the digital and the organic as various Eastern graphic permutations appear, dissolve and undergo metamorphoses on the screen. Lapis (1965), made by a spiritualized James Whitney (one of only 7 films he created) and one of the most accessible experimental films ever made; Lapis was created with handmade cels evoking a single mandala moving within itself; its particles surge around each other in constant metamorphosis. Finally, we offer up 3 Rarely Seen Experimental Films.  These wondrous top-secret surprises incorporate aspects of yoga, INFINITY and Indian mysticism, exploring the relationship between LIGHT, scientific theories as well as CHAKRA-based spirituality.  These moving images reflect the actual visual and auditory phenomena the filmmaker experienced in heightened states of meditative concentration.  Many of the films share certain images which the filmmaker regarded as "hieroglyphic-ideographic" visual units that express complex ideation not easily stated in verbal terms.



Date: Friday, January 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 with Karl Cohen on Forbidden Animation - Thur. Jan. 22 - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes Animation Historian, Author and Professor Karl Cohen for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. Forbidden Animation spans sixty years of animated works banned because of their sexual innuendo, political points-of-view and racial undertones. From pre-code cartoons and works banned by the Hays office (1934-1968) to those more contemporary works found too offensive within the industry itself; this collection, curated and presented by animation historian and the author of Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators, Karl Cohen is an enlightening trip down the road of censorship. From Betty Boop, Flip the Frog and Mi©key Mouse to works by Chuck Jones (Spies), Bob Clampett (Bacall to Arms) and Tex Avery (Little Tinker), to the more modern efforts of Vince Collins (Malice in Wonderland), Jeff Hale (Thank You Mask Man) and George Griffin (The Club), audiences will discover forbidden animation that moves from the risque to the risky.  Other shorts include Plane Crazy (1928), Sinking in the Bathtub (1930), Chess Nuts (1932), The Adventures of Super Screw (1965) and more!


Date: Thursday, January 22nd, 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

Learn your Lesson...about your Parents: Not your Mother's Shockucation - Fri. Jan. 16 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...about your Parents: Not your Mother's Shockucation, the 23rd 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 dealing with our parents; drunk parents, deaf parents, nagging parents, divorcing parents and all the special, touching, aggravating, and melodramatic moments that they instill.  Rosanna Arquette stars as a teen girl ashamed of her deaf parents in the ABC Afterschool Special Mom and Dad Can't Hear Me (1978).  Join host Alan Thicke as he helps you deal with your mom's alcoholism in When Your Parent Drinks Too Much (1987).  In the most insane find in months; watch out for that creepy clown puppet, because he might turn you invisible to answer the question Parents: Who Needs Them? (1973). Little Eric feels like a "part-time son" when his parents split up and leave him in the middle, in the For Kids' Sake Special written by a 13 year-old, Tender Places (1985). Teens talk to a camera about their problems Coping With Parents (1973) while the faceless voice of reason attempts to help smooth communication throughout the family. Marlo Thomas and Harry Belafonte remind us that Parents are People in a musical excerpt from Free To Be...You and Me (1974).  With snippets of outdoor role-playing rap-session Ivan and his Father (1970) and the uncomfortable Separation/Divorce: It Has Nothing to do with You (1974) for the early birds, it's going to be an extra-special night to learn your lesson.


Date: Friday, January 16th, 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

Broad Strokes: Pioneering Women in Animation - Thur. Jan. 15 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter presents Broad Strokes: Pioneering Women in Animation, celebrating the legacy of some of the innovative women to bring pictures to life.  This beautiful program features a variety of silhouette, stop-motion, sand, cut-out and cell-animation with work by Lotte Reiniger, Evelyn Lambart, Hermína Týrlová, Eva Szasz, Caroline Leaf, Faith Hubley, Mary Blair and more! While the animation world (and the film world in general) is overwhelmingly a man's game, these women defied the odds and brought us some of the most imaginative, lush and artistic films in animation history.  Lotte Reiniger completed the very first  animated feature in 1926, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, and her eastern-inspired silhouette puppetry is breathtaking in its delicate intricacy.  Tonight, we will be screening two of her delightful 1954 fairy tale shorts: Snow White and Rose Red and The Gallant Little Tailor. From the fertile grounds of the National Film Board of Canada, come two vibrant cut-out shorts from former technical director Evelyn Lambart, Fine Feathers (1968) and Mr. Frog Goes a Courtin' (1974); from the Oscar-nominated Caroline Leaf, the astounding sand animation based on Inuit legend, The Owl Who Married a Goose (1976); and from Eva Szasz, Cosmic Zoom (1968) the film that Ray and Charles Eames remade as Powers of Ten many years later. From the former Czechoslovakia, two charming stop-motion shorts from the first animator to use wire-framed puppets, Hermína Týrlová; Ferda the Ant (1941) and The Little Train (1959). From the unsung ladies at W@lt Di$ney studios, Blame it on the Samba (1948), featuring the brilliant technicolor visions of the incomparable colorist and designer Mary Blair and F@ntasia's Pastoral Symphony (1940), inspired by the concept art of story-lead Sylvia Moberly-Holland.  Plus, Oscar-winning Faith Hubley's first solo project; the poetic and historic Women of the World (1977), and an excerpt from Animal Farm (1954) co-directed by Britain's most successful animation producer Joy Batchelor (yes the Batchelor in Halas and Batchelor Studios). All shorts screened on 16mm film from the archive.


Date: Thursday, January 15th, 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

Antique Animal Antics! Fri. Jan. 9th - 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) 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.  Blackie the Wonder Horse Swims the Golden Gate (1938) stars our own local equine hero in all his glory.  Silent era wonder-mutt Teddy saves Gloria Swanson from a dastardly villain in Teddy at the Throttle (1917). Interspecies parenting doesn't get any cuter than Mother Cat and her Baby Skunks (1958), unless you want to count the baby bunny in a dollhouse in The Adventures of Bunny Rabbit (1973). And head on down to the river with Hammy the Hamster and a rat in a motorboat in Tales from the Riverbank (1960). With even more animal surprises in store!

Date: Friday, January 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

Celluloid Archaeology - The Rarest of the Rare - Thur. Jan. 8th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Celluloid Archaeology, a program of rare and imaginative shorts that we've excavated from the vast depths of our 16mm collection to be saved from obscurity.   From international animation to documentary, ethnomusicology to dance; these shorts run the gamut of styles, but all represent the power of film to expand the imagination and dazzle the eye. Most of the films are making their Oddball premiere and most are otherwise unavailable via home video or the internet, so it truly is a one of a kind night!  Travel with ethnomusicologist and filmmaker Bess Lomax-Hawes as she reveals the profound regional spirituals of the Georgia Sea Island Singers (1964). Oscar-winning animator Dusan Vukotic brings us A Stain on His Conscience (1968), a poignant parable of mixed live-action and animation. See a rare glimpse into the early career of one of dance's most catalyzing figures in Paul Taylor: An Artist and his Work (1969).  The surreal and stunning Vitaphone short Yamekraw (1930) features an all-black cast and a soundtrack by James P. Johnston. Go behind the scenes when Twiggy teams up with the audacious director Ken Russell for one dazzling musical epic in The Boyfriend Featurette (1971). A bull and matador jump out of the inkwell and into the action in the paint on glass- animated short Red and Black (1963) from Polish animator Witold Giersz. Come discover these filmic treasures you won't be able to unearth anywhere else.


Date: Thursday, January 8th, 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