Cinema Soiree with Anthony Buchanan - Domestic Dystopias: Lost, Found, and Reimagined - Thur. Mar. 31 - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes film collector, filmmaker and found footage expert Anthony Buchanan all the way from Colorado for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. Buchanan will be swinging into Oddball to unspool some of his new super8 films--predominantly found footage--which deal with issues of media hypnosis, distorted perception in American life, satirical but poignant commentaries on home movie traditions and ideologies, and other American mythologies. Source material for the films include orphan home movies from the '70s, Hollywood classics remixed with personally-shot footage, audio pulled from dumpsters, discarded VHS tapes, Buchanan's own one-reelers, and other media ephemera. Buchanan's super8 mm films include KneelReel (2015), Manipulating the T-Bone (2015), Flip Flick (2015), I, CHRIS (2016), and ATA Lives (2016). Also included in the program are 16mm vintage satires on consumer culture from Buchanan's own archive, as well as gems pulled from Oddball's collection including Report (1967) by Bruce Conner and Future Shock! (1972) narrated by Orson Welles!!

Date: Thursday, March 31st, 2016 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

Coming Attractions from Hell: Horror, B-Movie and Exploitation Trailers - Fri. Mar. 25th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Coming Attractions from Hell: Horror, B-Movie and Exploitation Trailers a 16mm program of rare B-Movie, “Art Film”, Horror, Suspense, and vintage XXX trailers from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. Many of these films sank without a trace, but their garish promotional trailers live on in the massive archives of Oddball Films. Ranging from 30 seconds to several minutes in length, these promotional shorts for coming attractions were often much more entertaining than the features they promote. From the 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), to the 1930s drug scare film Marihuana: Assassin of Youth (1934) to the B-movies of the 40s like Horror Island (1941) and Kiss The Blood Off My Hands (1948), to Hitchcock's seminal thrillers Rear Window (1954), Psycho (1960), and Vertigo (1958), all the way through the 1970s box office blockbusters Halloween (1978), The Omen (1976) and The Exorcist (1973), as well as the forgotten schlock of Jennifer (1978), Eyeball (1975), and Manitou (1978).  With dozens more deadly coming attractions, as well as excerpts from Dante's Inferno (1935), a writhing vision of the afterlife, and The "What Did You Think of The Movie?" Movie (1969).

Date: Friday, March 25th, 2016 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 98: “Ecstatic Motion”- High-Wire Feats, Wild Horses, & Speed Wizards - Thur. Mar. 24th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 98, a monthly evening of newly discovered films, rarities and choice selects from the stacks of the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled this 98th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 98: “Ecstatic Motion” - High-Wire Feats, Wild Horses, & Speed Wizards features a sampling of films that stretch the boundaries of cinema while serving to bring a sublime ecstasy to the viewer. From famed director Claude LeLouche’s (A Man and a Woman) mad dash (at speeds of up to 140 mph) through the early morning streets of Paris in Rendezvous (1976) to the legendary high wire artist Philippe Petit’s metaphoric bridging of the ancient and modern in High Wire (1984), this program explores the exalted, the experimental and the ecstatic side of cinema in all its genres. Other films include Denys Colomb de Daunant’s Dream of Wild Horses (1962), a remarkable cinematic poem using slow motion and soft focus camera to capture the wild horses of the Camargue District of France as they roam on the beach running through walls of fire and water, Nazi cinematographer Leni Riefenstahl's legendary (and breathtaking) Olympia Diving Sequence (1936) from the Berlin Olympics, Dream Flowers (1930s), a fascinating profile of the opium poppy and those who partake of it, Maya Deren's A Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945) which articulates the potential for transcendence through dance and ritual, The Wizard of Speed and Time (1979) featuring Mike Jitlov’s legendary mind-blowing special effects speed binge, Arabesque (1975), John Whitney’s masterpiece of shimmering, oscillating waves set to the music of Persian composer Maroocheher Sadeghi, Free Fall (1964) from the brilliant director Arthur Lipsett and featuring dazzling pixilation, in-camera superimpositions and percussive tribal music that - in his words “attempt to express in filmic terms an intensive flow of life – a vision of a world in the throes of creativity and the transformation of physical phenomena”, and finally, Busby Berkeley pushed cinema iconography a step further when he conjured up a thousand surrealist Ruby Keelers for the show stopping I Only Have Eyes for You number from the 1934 musical Dames.

Date: Thursday, March 24th, 2016 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 

Sexperimental Cinema - Fri. Mar. 18th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Sexperimental Cinema, an evening of 16mm films that blur the line between experimental film and erotica. From the sensuous to the bizarre, this program features avant-garde and experimental works as well as post-modern erotica, animation, art, documentary and more. Films include Orange (1971) experimental filmmaker Karen Johnson’s abstract and erotic short consisting of extreme close-up shots of an orange being peeled and eaten, Fuck Horray (1970) an anonymous highly-edited slice of subliminal sex, Peter Foldes' eye-popping rare animation Go Faster (1971) with a man who does everything in his car including his secretary, Lot in Sodom (1933), Watson and Webber’s landmark Pre-Code Sodom and Gomorrah story filled with sinewy and semi-clad bodies and delirious bacchanales devoted to physical pleasure (print provided by the Jenni Olson Queer Archive), experimental filmmaker Scott Bartlett’s lyrical and tactile flesh and fantasy film Lovemaking (1970), an excerpt from the groundbreaking Mondo Cane (1962) featuring famed artist Yves Klein utilizing naked Human Paintbrushes on a giant canvas, 7362 (1967), Pat O'Neill's breathtaking optically printed ode to the human form and the orgasmic motion of oil derricks, Relativity (1966), Ed Emshwiller's meditation on corporeality featuring interesting manipulations of the female form, and Constance Beeson's homoerotic cine-poem Stamen (1972). Is it smut or an art film? You decide. 

Date: Friday, March 18th, 2016 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/

Tiki Fever! Vintage Hawaiiana - Thur. Mar. 17th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Tiki Fever! Vintage Hawaiiana. This evening of surf, tiki and Polynesian serenades offers an array of breathtaking, mesmerizing and rare films about an idyllic Hawaii including cartoons, mini-musicals, burlesque, promotional and ephemeral films from the 30s thru the 50s - all on 16mm film from the archive. See pre-jet travel footage of Waikiki beach and music by Sol Hoppii in Hawaiian Rhythm: Hawaiian Nights (1939). Then join the jet-set as two newlyweds travel from New England to Hawaii via stylish Pan Am jet in the campy promotional travelogue Wings to Hawaii (1947). The mini-tiki-musical Isle of Tabu (1945) features angry Tiki Gods, erupting volcanoes, human sacrifice and (of course) musical numbers. Betty Boop hulas her heart out in nothing but a grass skirt and a lei in the pre-code Fleischer Brothers cartoon Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle (1932) with an authentic soundtrack by the Royal Samoans and rotoscoped hula moves. Homer Groening gives us A Study in Wet (1964), a poetic meditation on water including plenty of groovy surf shots, natural psychedelia and a soundtrack made up of water droplets. Learn how you too can make a Coconut Head Bank (1950s) in a bizarre slice of instructional Tiki ephemera. Plus! A Hula Hottie Burlesque (1950s), an island full of Hawaiian Soundies (1940s) like the goofy Little Grass Shack , a Busby Berkeley musical number Aloha Oe from Flirtation Walk (1934) and more! For the early arrivals there is the rare Kodachrome short, Polynesian Holiday (1955) starring bandleader Harry Owens and featuring his Academy Award winning Sweet Lailani.

Date: Thursday, March 17th, 2016 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's 3 Year Anniversary - Shockucation's Greatest Hits - Fri. Mar. 11th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson's 3 Year Anniversary: Shockucation's Greatest Hits, the 36th in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. After 3 years of digging out the best and worst the archive has to offer, we are celebrating our 3 Year Anniversary with a sampler of all our favorite lessons thus far including sex, drugs, enemas, talking cars, exploding dolls, choking babies, and the creepiest of creepy puppets. Find all about wet dreams and unexpected hard-ons in the outrageous male puberty primer Am I Normal? A Film about Male Puberty (1979). The US Navy gets unclassified and teaches you the ins and outs of Giving an Enema (1944). Watch out for those burning dolls and exploding refrigerators in GE's explosive safety film Chemical Booby Traps (1959). See how Barbara loses friends by being a pushy, mouthy scalawag, maybe reading a book from the library can give her better Manners in Public (1958) and more square friends. Get ready for one swingin' party with The Munchers (1973), a groovy oral hygiene rock opera featuring a mouthy bandstand of claymation teeth. Jimmy dreams of overbearing anthropomorphic automobiles in the surreal The Talking Car (1969). Plus, the triumphant return of Gooney and Herky, the ugliest most belligerent puppets ever in Feelings: Don't Stay Mad (1972). Plus, musical numbers from Free to Be... You and Me (1974) and Junior High School (1978), and for the early birds a predatory scare film: Meeting Strangers: Red Light, Green Light (1969). It's an extra-special night to learn your lesson!

Date: Friday, March 11th, 2016 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/

Better Call Saul - Saul Bass on Film - Thur. Mar. 10th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Better Call Saul: Saul Bass on Film, an evening of 16mm short films showcasing one of the 20th century’s legendary graphic designers, filmmakers and title producers - Saul Bass. The man responsible for some of the most easily recognizable corporate logos, film posters and film title sequences was–in his own right–an incredible, visionary and award-winning filmmaker. Films include documentary Bass on Titles (1977) featuring the man himself musing on the creation of some of the designer’s most iconic title sequences from such films as Man with a Golden Arm, It’s a Mad Mad Mad World, Seconds, West Side Story, Grand Prix, and Walk on the Wild Side as well as some of his most famous corporate logos; Notes on the Popular Arts (1977), explores escapism in American popular media through a smorgasbord of bizarre dream sequences with exquisite time-lapse cinematography; Why Man Creates (1969), a series of explorations, episodes and comments on creativity by Saul Bass and winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 1969; and A Short Film on Solar Energy (1980), presents an animated history of solar power and a possible future without fossil fuels. Plus trailers for films with Bass-designed titles sequences and more!

Date: Thursday, March 10th, 2016 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/

Film on a Bender - Fri. Mar. 4th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Film on a Bender, a night of film drenched in booze with intoxicating cartoons, rare all-star television, sauced soundies, alcoholic commercials and (of course) shocking educational shorts; all on 16mm film from the archive. Join Patty Duke and Rue McLanahan for a very special episode of Catholic mental-hygiene show Insight: A Slight Drinking Problem (1977). Four friends head out for a day of fishing, but head over a cliff instead in Social Drinking: Fun and Fatal (1974).  In the early Chuck Jones cartoon Naughty but Mice (1939), Sniffles the mouse gets drunk on cough syrup and tangles with an electric razor. Bill's got a nagging wife, a terrible commute, a high-pressure job and worst of all, a nasty Hangover (1978). Be on the jury for one Mr. "Al K. Hall" while he defends himself against a barrage of witnesses whose lives he affected in the ridiculous cartoon The Day They Tried Alcohol (1976). Watch who you're drinking with in the cowboy soundie Seven Beers with the Wrong Woman (1941). With a drunk-tank full of Lucky Beer Commercials (1960s) and loaded excerpts, like Robert Mitchum narrating America on the Rocks (1973), drunk-driving massacre Just Another Friday Night (1984) and so much more!

Date: Friday, March 4th, 2016 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/