Date: Thursday, October 4th, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
It's Not Easy Being Beautiful - Thurs. Oct. 4th - 8PM
Seuss on the Loose! - Fri. Oct. 5th - 8PM
Oddball
Films presents Seuss on the Loose! a night of curious creatures, surreal
landscapes and imagination gone wild, all from the mind of the inimitable Dr.
Seuss. Theodor Seuss Geisel was an
American writer, poet, and cartoonist widely known for his legendary children's
books written under the pen name Dr. Seuss. Geisel also worked as an
illustrator for advertising campaigns and was a political cartoonist for a New
York City newspaper. During World War II, he worked in an animation department
of the U.S. Army, where he co-authored Design
for Death, a film that later won the 1947 Academy Award for Documentary
Feature. Highlights include: The Cat in the Hat (1972), The Cat
in the Hat appears to bored kids and things get way out of hand; The
Lorax (1972), in which a
boy meets a mustached defender of nature and learns about danger of mankind’s
greed; Green Eggs and Ham (1974), are constantly offered to a
unnamed character who refuses to try them up until his last straw; The
Sneetches (1974) a tale about star-belly Sneetches and plain-belly
Sneetches who waste all their money on trying to segregate themselves from one
another. The Zax (1974), a story exploring the idea of pride where two Zaxes
run into each other while trying to get somewhere and refuse to move out of the
way to let the other one pass. Horton Hatches the Egg (1957), watch
an elephant help hatch a bird’s egg while she relocates to Palm Beach. Plus
clips from the only feature film ever written by Theodor Seuss Geisel, The
5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) an inventive musical fantasy where a
little boy dreams 500 children being forced to master a concert piece for 5,000
fingers! Also the US Army’s propaganda short Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (1944)
written by Geisel. The quirky animated film shows Snafu (Situation Normal All
F*cked Up) learning the hard way about the consequences of not protecting
himself from malaria infection.
Date: Friday, October 5th, 2012 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
Bikes on Film - Benefit for NDDivis - Fri. Sept. 28 - 8PM
Oddball Films and
NDDivis present Bikes on Film: Benefit for NDDivis, a free-wheeling evening of
vintage bicycle films to benefit saving the historic Harding Theater. Neighbors Developing Divisidero is a
non-profit organization that is currently fighting to save the Harding Theater
from being demolished and condo-ified.
To help in their efforts to save our collective cinematic and community
history, Oddball opens it’s doors and screen to bring you a fun evening full of
films about bike safety, maintenance, history and more. See the legendary One
Got Fat (1963) with children dressed as monkeys attempting to bicycle to a
picnic without ending up in traction, and watch real monkeys ride bicycles with
Marquis the chimp and family in Monkey Tale (1952). Join Bill Cosby as he demonstrates all the
ways that Bicycles Are Beautiful (1974).
Visit Copenhagen: The Bicycle City (1955) and see youngsters transform
their bicycles into works of art from Industry on Parade (1954). Get a slapsticky look at the history of bikes
while following one youngster across town in Just Like A Car (1972) while Sid
Davis teaches us How To Protect Your Bike (1973). With snacks from Malaysian bike-powered food cart MamaKSF. Whether you like bikes, want to save
Historical buildings or just like a campy night with great folks, make sure you
come on down to support NDDivis.
Date: Friday, September 28, 2012 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
A Hard Road To Easy Street - Thurs. Sept. 27 - 8PM
Oddball
Films and guest curator Soumyaa Kapil Behrens bring you A Hard Road to Easy Street, an evening
of films on adventures, real and imagined, that reveal it’s not so easy to be
living the good life in today’s world. The
program explores the journey of personal and creative place-making through the
lens of groundbreaking queer cinema, vintage animations, satire and hard
hitting documentary film. The highlights
of the program include Lloyd Reckord’s 1965 short, Dream A40, one of the
first queer films of its kind, a film that goes on the road with two men and
their feelings, the bold and sometimes too truthful More Than A Dream,
(1974), following two working class families-one white, one black-in the South
who have been transformed by the civil rights movement. The Boo Boo Monster Enters
A Beauty Contest (1973) has delightful character renderings and a
groovy musical score that scats the audience along with rhythm and an
independent spirit while He Was Her Man (1937), harkens back to the beginnings of Merrie Melodies with a
classic battle of sexes. The Good,
Good, Good Life (1974) is a bizarre and musical story about finding
happiness in shiny things and Of Cats and Men (1977) animates the historical journey of the domestic cat from
Egyptian times to his current seat atop the hearts of men. No matter if you
are a boo boo monster, a human being or a kitty cat, the road to success is
rife with wrong turns and misleading situations. Who prevails and who perishes? Find out Thursday night at Oddball Films!
Date: Thursday, September 27, 2012 at
8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street,
San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117
or programming@oddballfilm.com
Dinky Hocker: A Special Evening With the ABC Afterschool Special - Thurs. Sept. 20 - 8PM
Oddball Films, with Lynn Cursaro, presents: Dinky Hocker: A Special Evening with the ABC Afterschool Special. Nothing satisfies the appetite for over-the-top adolescent angst like an Afterschool Special and Dinky Hocker (1979), really hits the spot. Meet pudgy Dinky Hocker, a bright high schooler with two insatiable hungers: mom’s attention and any sugary snack she can get her hands on! Dinky's mom keeps the home cookie jar stocked, but is much too preoccupied with counseling young drug addicts and saving rivers for any other maternal chores. After reinvention via dieting fails, Dinky schemes to give mom the shock of her life. Stellar performances by Wendie Jo Sperber (Bosom Buddies) as Dinky and iconic TV mom June Lockhart (Lassie, Lost in Space) are balanced with moments of ham-fisted teen drama. Living room rolfing, anyone? Preceding, Dinky: Middle-schoolers pitifully demonstrate the privations of a crowded world with very small portions in Too Many People (1975). When Woody Woodpecker stays put for the winter, hunger leads to tried and true animated brutality in Pantry Panic (1941), one of his first cartoon outings. Also: A luscious buffet of Vintage Food Commercials will be served up, à la Oddball, throughout the screening. And . . . home-baked treats for all from the Kuritorial Kitchen (while supplies last!).
Date: Thursday, September 20th, 2012 at 8:00PM.
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Strange Sinema 56 - Friday Sept. 21 - 8PM
Oddball Films
presents Strange Sinema 56, a
monthly screening of new finds, old
gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ collection of over 50,000 film
prints. This evening features a series of short, confounding and plainly
strange films ranging from unique animation to spellbinding science to silent
slapstick. Works include the brilliant
Canadian filmmaker Arthur Lipsett’s Very Nice, Very Nice (1961), a sardonic re-reading of 1950s consumerism, mass media and popular
culture, Charlie
Chaplin’s silent Laughing Gas (1914) where he pumps his patients with laughing
gas, pulls out the wrong teeth and knocks them out with clubs, the Mouse
Activated Candle Lighter (1973), a bizarre Rube Goldbergesque short
demonstrating the principles of motion, Crystallization (1975),
award-winning filmmaker Carroll Ballard’s cinematic science excursion into microcinematography
and electronic music, another short by Arthur Lipsett- Free Fall (1964)
featuring dazzling pixilation, in-camera superimpositions, percussive tribal
music, syncopated rhythms and ironic juxtapositions, Rhinoceros (1965), Polish master Lenica utilizes cutouts creating an animated version
of Ionesco’s play about conformity, Experimental (1974), famed director Robin
Lehman’s brilliant montage of feats of flight produced with the Experimental
Aircraft Association. Other films include the euphoric Dream Flowers (1930s) featuring
opium poppy harvesting and smokers, an eye-opening verite view of
Texas cheerleaders Beauty Knows No Pain
(1971) by famed American photographer Elliott Erwitt, and a rare film They Shall See (1972) by Los Angeles filmmaker
Nicholas Frangakis with cinematographer Steve Craig in a theological
orientation to the mystery and beauty of nature, without narration and produced by the
Franciscan Communications Center. These films will amaze, delight, confound and inspire, so be sure to come get your strange on!
Date: Friday, September 21, 2012
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
Crime Watch! - Fri. Sept. 14 - 8PM
Oddball
Films and guest curator Landon Bates bring you Crime Watch!, a program
chock-full of cops and their criminal counterparts. Every film will be markedly different from
every other, but all will work together to create a sort of panoramic
noir. We’ll begin with Parole
(1956), a real live, harrowing parole hearing, shot across the bay at
San Quentin, in which an anonymous felon fleshes out his perspective before a
board of judges, attempting to have them understand what might drive a man to
murder, in hope of being granted some leniency on his sentence. We’ll then switch point of views, to that of
the law enforcement officer, with Arrest (1970’s), a reenactment of an
arrest, involving the pursuit of a blonde man suspected of robbery and murder,
armed with a pistol and a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam. Buster Keaton follows, stumbling into frame
in his classic Cops (1922) short, wherein he singlehandedly and unwittingly
stirs up a city’s entire police force, swiftly becoming public enemy no. 1. Shoot, Don’t Shoot II (1973) is an unusual
“educational” film that tests cadets-in-training on whether or not to deploy
their firearms in given situations; though its aim may be to train, so, too, it
very definitely entertains. Cheating
in Gambling (1949) gives us a privileged look at the hands of a master
card manipulator, John Scarne, who, literally, wrote the book on card
hustling. And, finally, we’ll conclude
with a characteristic bang! Flesh and Leather (1951), our only
purely fictional narrative film of the night, is a sort of sum of all the
elements featured in the preceding films, replete with cops, crooks, killings,
and a fixed game; and, it’s set amid the fogbound alleys of our very own San
Francisco. Stay off the
streets for the
evening and opt instead to watch these arresting crime films at Oddball. Plus! In addition to the films will be certain
circular treats, in commemoration of National Cream-filled Donut Day!
Date: Friday, September 14th, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275
Capp Street San Francisco
Ladyfest Bay Area Presents: One Good Turn - Thurs. Sept 13 - 8PM
(1976),
an inspiring and insightful exploration of the labor movement in the 1930s,
told through the eyes of three women who bravely fought for equal rights during
this period. Refined, ravishing, and rife with complexity, the ladies in this
collection serve to dispel the myth of the magical woman and present something
much more real — women who play, fight, and work, and look damn good doing it.
Date: Thursday, September 13th, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Buggin' Out with Live Insect Pre-Show - Thurs. Sept 6th - 8PM
Oddball Films and guest curator Kat Shuchter
bring you Buggin’ Out, a night of vintage 16mm films crawling with all
your favorite insect friends and foes.
From mesmerizing nature films to charming cartoons from around the world
to kitschy educational primers, we take this night to celebrate all things
buggy. Watch the rare and delightful
Ferda
the Ant (1941), a Czech puppet-animation sporting the first wire-framed
creatures on film. Merrie Melodies
brings us Bug Parade (1941), replete with countless sight gags about a bevy
of cartoon bugs. View the beauty and
intricacies of the beehive while it’s projected 10 feet high in Bees:
Backyard Science (1978) and marvel at the incredible metamorphosis of
lepidotera in The Monarch Butterfly Story (1987). The Japanese bring us the cutest dancing bug party
ever, in the trippy stop-motion version of the Aesop’s Fable The
Ant and the Grasshopper (1967). Marvel at the ferocity of tiny adversaries
when termites square off against hungry ants in The Battle of the Centuries
(1932). Get ready for the itchy-kitschy Lice are not Nice (1985), a
hilarious classroom primer on that playground scourge, head-lice. Meet the fly’s worst nightmare in Carnivorous
Plants (1965). With vintage
insecticide commercials, creepy-crawly trailers, free gummi-worms and tons of
other surprises including a special appearance by the Bay Area's award winning Insect Discovery Lab, visit with Giant African millipedes, Australian walking sticks, giant thorny phasmids, and eastern lubber grasshoppers and a few mystery guests , this is one night that will leave you itching for more!
Date:
Thursday, September 6th, 2012 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.
I Want You To Bite Me! - Fri. Sept. 7 - 8PM
Oddball
Films and guest curator Emily Schleiner present I Want You To Bite Me!, an evening that examines and celebrates
those glorious shape-shifting bloodsuckers, Vampires; both the lore and the
fearful psychological fascination. Vampire lore, in one form or another, has
existed in different cultures throughout the ages. From the Mesopotamian and
Hebrew traditions, and even on to the monsters from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Laugh at and shiver from tales of
vampires and their precursors! Sink your fangs into delicious excerpts from the famous Dracula (1931), starring Bela Lugosi, a
confection that introduced the legendary Count Dracula and his spider eating
minion Renfield to the silver screen. Delve
into a psychadelic mishmash of otherwordly Tibetan demons from ancient scroll
paintings in Tanka (1976), by David Lebrun. Hide your femoral artery for Doom of Dracula, excerpted from House of Frankenstein (1927), a short
film about a conscienceless professor-impersonator who brings Dracula to
life! On the lighter side, see hilariously spooky bits from Bud Abbott
and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), directed by Charles Barton,
where the wacky duo encounter Dracula! A 1970s anti-smoking
commercial takes the form of a melodramatic vampire scene called Ashes of Doom! The rarely screened Teeth Are for Chewing (1971) gives incisive information about your
incisors. Catch the 1970’s documentary about animal hunters, their canine
teeth, and their killer instincts in Predators
of North America (1981) as well as excerpts from the documentary Freud: The Hidden Nature of Man (1970)
where you will learn about our human impulses that lie just beneath the
surface! And watch Felix the Cat hypnotize
a hippo! Whether you enjoy a good
startle or some hilariously dated antagonists, there is something here for
everyone, humans and bloodsuckers alike!
Date:
Friday, September 7th, 2012 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.