Psycho Science from the Moody Institute - Thurs. Jan. 3rd - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you Psycho Science from the Moody Institute, a mind-boggling collection of 1950s crackpot science films brought to you by the world’s strangest bible science film producers, The Moody Institute of Science.  The Moody Institute of Science, founded under the auspices of the Moody Bible Institute, an evangelical group started by Irwin Moon in San Francisco in 1938, produced a number of religious cult science films that were intended to demonstrate intelligent design through scientific experiments. These were marketed to schools and churches across the United States and their biblical subtext hit the viewer over the head with the proverbial hammer of faith. Evangelist Irwin “The Million Volt Man” Moon stars in many  of these eye-popping classroom science films as he inhales helium, runs electricity through his body, makes metal float in space, experiments with electric eels and preaches god’s creationist “intelligent design” ideology.  Tonight’s program features a sample of some of the quirkiest gems from the Oddball Moody Science collection. Films include Freedom in Flight (1972), Carnivorous Plants (1955), Facts of Faith (1956), Sense Perception (1960), Mystery of Time (1957), Blind as a Bat (1956)and The Electric Eel (1954).   

Date: Thursday, January 3rd, 2013 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

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

The Afterschool Extra Special Cut - Fri. Jan. 4th - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you The Afterschool Extra Special Cut, a very special evening of the most poignant, touching and hilarious clips from more than a dozen different ABC Afterschool Specials, NBC Special Treats and CBS Schoolbreak Specials from the 1970s and early 1980s.  These melodramatic programs graced the afternoon airways from the early-70s through the mid-90s and offered preteens and teens a healthy dose of social conditioning while touching on a variety of touching and hard-hitting subjects, from marijuana use to alcoholic parents, disabled siblings, illiteracy, bullying and so much more!  They launched dozens of young careers and featured seasoned veterans as concerned teachers and distant parents.  For this program, we are going to skip all the filler and cut right to the most special moments and only the most special moments. All films are original 16mm prints and most are not available on DVD.  Highlights include a triple dose of Scott Baio in Stoned (1980), Luke Was There (1976) and All the Kids Do It (1984);  two Bradys (Eve Plumb and Chris Knight) in one special about disability and acceptance in Sara's Summer of the Swans (1974); Kristy McNichol stars as a desperate daughter of divorce in Pinballs (1977);  Kareem Abdul Jabar (with the help of Clarence Williams III) inspires one boy to admit his illiteracy in The Hero Who Couldn't Read (1984);  June Lockhart may help people get off drugs, but she can't get her own daughter off the brownies in Dinky Hocker (1972); Scream-Queen Belinda Balasky stars in Runaways (1974); Plus, The Terrible Secret, The Movie Star's Daughter, The Amazing Awareness of Duffy Moon, Pssst! Hammerman's After You, Francesca, Baby and a few other special secrets!  You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll be sure to learn a lot of valuable lessons!

Date: Friday, January 4th, 2013 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

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

The Hard Times Revue - Depression Era Diversions - Fri. Dec. 28 - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you The Hard Times Revue: Depression-Era Diversions, an evening of cartoons, musical numbers and ephemeral oddities from the 1930s.  One of the darkest decades of the 20th Century, America in the 1930s faced untold hardships like the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl and cinema supplied a much-needed diversion, but could never quite shake the bleakness of the times.  This program of vintage films highlights the struggle of the American people and the fantasies invented to alleviate their hardships.  Betty Boop gets hooked on smack in the blackballed cartoon interpretation of the Cab Calloway song Minnie the Moocher (1932).  7 year-old Sammy Davis junior shines as he sings and dances his way to the Oval Office in the controversial all-black musical comedy Rufus Jones for President (1932).  Spencer Tracy imagines a haunting, writhing Hell in Dante's Inferno (1935).  George Pal will knock you off your feet in his art deco puppet wonderland in the early Puppetoon Cavalcade of Music (1934).   The famous talking Tiffany Chimps get into hilarious anthropomorphic antics, make an ass of yourself, playing Donkey Baseball (1935) and bundle up with Duke Ellington in Bundle of Blues (1933).  Plus timely newsreels, musical surprises and so much more!

Date: Friday December 28th, 2012 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp St., San Francisco 
Admission: $10.00 (cash only). Seating is limited - RSVP to 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com

Saul Bass and the Creative Impulse - Thur. Dec. 27 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Landon Bates bring you Saul Bass and the Creative Impulse, an intimate look at the work and processes of several seminal American artists, among them Saul Bass, the Titan of Title Sequences.  While not unacknowledged, one might contend that Saul Bass, a master of credits, hasn’t been duly credited himself.  So, we’ll begin the evening with an unusual, vaguely educational sort of short film, Why Man Creates (1968), directed by Bass.  This film, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 1969, is a manically digressive, madcap essay that alternates between animation and live action (as did Bass’s title sequences), inquiring into that broad and most fascinating of topics, the creative impulse.  And, since this program is partially a tribute to Bass, Why Man Creates will serve the foundational function to it that Bass’s title sequences did for their films, announcing the theme.  Appropriately, our first case study is Bass himself, in Bass on Titles (1977), wherein he discusses his indelible contributions to 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.  This titillating talk is interspersed with the complete corresponding title sequences, a rare privilege to see grouped together and in isolation from the films.  The next creative workshop we’ll peak into will be that of Woody Allen, in Woody Allen: An American Comedy (1977).  If you missed Woody in town shooting on location for his next film, or simply didn’t get your fill, you needn’t despair.  See him up close in this film in which he discusses his creative process in delectable detail.  His comic influences, entry into film, writing style, and interest in jazz are all at play here, as are clips of such early classics as Bananas, Sleepers, Annie Hall, and Love and Death.  We’ll conclude our creative examination with USA Artists: Jasper Johns (1966), a meditative meeting with the gentle Johns, whose searing eyes and subdued demeanor slightly hypnotize as the painter muses on specific works, art in general, and remote existence in his sleepy South Carolina home. In sum, slough off your holiday hangover and come get inspired at Oddball in preparation for a new year!

 

Date: Thursday, December 27th, 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

Strange Sinema 59: Strange Christmas - Fri. Dec. 21 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 59: Strange Christmas. Drawing on his archive of over 50,000 16mm film prints Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has complied a program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual Christmas themed films.  The program features the early Di$ney animated surrealism of Mickey Plays Santa Claus (1931), a bizarre clip from the schlockmeister of kids scare films Sid Davis's Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen(1951),  Grant Munro's Toys (1966), featuring war toys coming to life before kids eyes in a Christmas window display, Big Business (1929) where Laurel and Hardy go door to door selling Christmas trees and wrecking slapstick havoc!,  Christmas in Oaxaca (1971) featuring all the colorful  costumes, parades, piñatas and rituals of Christmas in Oaxaca,  Mexico,  National Film Board of Canada's founder Norman McLaren's avant-garde animated Christmas Cracker (1963) and a few lively Christmas closers by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby in Happy Holidays with Frank and Bing (1957).  Plus! Holiday commercials featuring Kodak movie cameras, and early kinescopes of General Electric Christmas lighting!

Date:  Friday, December 21st , 2012 at 8:00PM

Venue: Oddball Film & Video, 275 Capp St. San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 RSVP  to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com 

Merriment, Mayhem and Moviedom: A Jolly Filmic Folly - Thurs. Dec. 20 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present Merriment, Mayhem and Moviedom: A Jolly Filmic Folly.  It's a festive grab bag of colorful ephemera, cartoons and silent slapstick with just a pinch of the season. The yule mood is more impish than elf-like in Big Business (1929), a Laurel and Hardy classic of Christmas trees and cinematic gold. The spoof is on in Renee Taylor’s borscht-belt send off to Fellini, Two (1970). Stop-motion pioneer Wladyslaw Starewicz’s charmingly buggy The Cameraman’s Revenge turned 100 this year, so it’s time you saw it! Oscar-winning Frank Film (1973) weaves magazine cut-outs into a mid-century portrait of American plenty. Christmas is often synonymous for toys and Charles and Ray Eames’s beautiful and mesmerizing Tops, (1969) spins them to perfection. Two Warner's cartoons supply the surrealist edge: Hopalong Casualty (1960) with a new take on the age-old tale of a creative and hapless coyote, and Porky Pig dips into the Dali in Dough for the Do-Do (1949). For the early birds, Stop, Look and Listen (1970) is a madcap stop-motion examination of carless car culture. Plus! More ephemeral gems and gingerbread lions and other complimentary home-baked treats for all!

Meet the Beetles

Date: Thursday, December 20, 2012 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

Admission: $10.00, Limited Seating

RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com

Teen Dreams and Puberty Nightmares - Thurs. Dec. 13 - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you Teen Dreams and Puberty Nightmares, a star-studded night of vintage films full of those awkward, horrible, and occasionally musical moments that afflict the youth of any era. Junior High School (1978), a hilariously awkward musicalamity featuring a 16 year-old Paula Abdul and a cast of gangly teens and preteens singing and dancing about the "Itty Bitty Titty Committee", wearing a cup in gym class and having a boy-girl party.  It is one part toe-tapper, one part gut-cringer and all magic!  Di$ney has the all the answers for the growing girl with the dreamily animated The Story of Menstruation (1945).  For the guys, actor Ken Howard has all the Facts for Boys (1980) when he talks about wet dreams with three young men on an unsupervised camping trip (with a killer soundtrack).  Real teens talk about their dalliances with substance abuse in the classroom primer aimed at preteens, Drugs: First Decision (1978).  Watch out for fast moving boys and the emotional and genital sores they may leave in The Innocent Party (1959).  A teenaged Michael Jackson sings "We don't have to change at all" in a musical number from Free to be You...And Me (1974).  With teen trailers, vintage commercials, a dash of Degrassi Junior High and an aerobic workout with every girl's favorite doll and a 13 year-old Jennifer Love Hewitt in an excerpt from The B@rbie Workout (1993).  This program with have you laughing, singing, cringing and thanking your lucky stars those days are behind you!

Date: Thursday, December 13th, 2012 at 8:00PM. 

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 

Admission: $10.00 RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or programming@oddballfilm.com

Home is Where the Heat Is: Peninsula Performances, PII - Fri. Dec. 14 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Christine Kwon present Home is Where the Heat Is: Peninsula Performances, PII, with a live score by Korean American musician Donghoon Han. Home is a polarizing topic: most of us spend our lives running away from it or trying to return to it, and our work often revolves around the preservation or destruction of what we consider home. Home is Where the Heat Is explores the centuries-old idea of nostalgia, and the longing to return to a better time in light of social, political and technological progress. Program highlights include local home movie footage of Chinese Americans and rare archival footage of the Korean War in, paired with a live improvised score. Films include the personal perspective of Chinese-Americans in Chinese New Year: San Francisco Chinatown Rice Bowl Parade (1951), history is told by the victors in A Motion Picture History of the Korean War (1950s), News Parade of the Year 1947, a time capsule of nostalgia, and The Sea Turtle (1970), a tranquilizing trip into the sea with the graceful underwater creature. Paired with Donghoon Han's unique blend of vintage Korean pop music and improvised electronic beats, it's the second part of a journey of nostalgia, beauty and finding a way home.

Date: Friday, December 14, 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 

The Best (And Worst) of the Blonde Bombshells - Fri. Dec. 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Best (And Worst) of the Blonde Bombshells, a program celebrating our favorite smoldering, cheeky, entertaining blondes from the Golden Age of Hollywood.  With rare, bizarre and hilarious clips, excerpts, musical numbers and burlesque performances, you'll be sure to have more fun with these blondes!  The Art of Film: The Love Goddesses (1965) chronicles the rise of the woman as a cinematic sex symbol with clips and commentary about our favorite blondes and some noteworthy brunettes that made the big screen sizzle.  There's a double-dose of of the funny and fabulous Mae West, in the marvelous I'm No Angel (1933) where she plays a bold and brassy lion-tamer at the Circus (even putting her head inside a lion's mouth!) and small screen oddity Mae West Meets Mister Ed (1964) in which Mae West, playing herself, asks Wilbur to come on up and redesign her stables sometime.  Sultry German vixen Marlene Dietrich belts out a song before brawling with the boys in a rowdy saloon in an action-packed excerpt from Destry Rides Again (1939). Jayne Mansfield knocks Mickey Rooney speechless at the 1958 Golden Globe Awards in a hilarious vintage Kinetoscope recording.  Zsa Zsa Gabor cashes in on the Workout Tape craze and does pushups on half-naked beefcakes in It's Simple Darling! (1993). We've also got burlesque blondes including The Fabulous Cat Girl (1954), several swinging sixties Scopitones, the tantalizing trailer for The Seven Year Itch, plus Vintage Hair Commercials and so much more!

Date: Friday, December 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

The Hellstrom Chronicle and other Junk Science - Thurs. Dec 6 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Hellstrom Chronicle and other Junk Science, a night of subjective science films that stretch the definition of documentary. The centerpiece of the night, The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971) is one of the strangest recipients of the Academy Award for Best Documentary due to its obtuse facts and florid doomsday message.  The film utilizes mesmerizing microcinematography of insects juxtaposed with narration from our host Nils Hellstrom, a fictional mad scientist who poetically reveals that insects stand to take over the world and laugh on the collective grave of the human race.  Part documentary, part horror film, part apocalyptic prophecy, The Hellstrom Chronicle is the dark, foreboding step-mother of Microcosmos.  The film was produced and conceived by David L. Wolper, producer of such far-reaching productions as Roots, The Thorn Birds, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Wattstax, penned by Omen scribe David Seltzer and features a fabulous synthy score by master-composer Lalo Schifrin.  Campy, creepy, provocative and hypnotizing, The Hellstrom Chronicle has got it all! Paired with this beautifully prophetic mockumentary are two 1950s crackpot science films brought to you by the world’s strangest bible science film producers, The Moody Institute of Science.  Evangelist Erwin “The Million Volt Man” Moon shocks his crew to demonstrate God's design in The Electric Eel (1954) and goes on to manipulate a couple of furry tree clingers in Slow as a Sloth (1954).  It is an evening that explores if science can remain science when you take it personal.

Date: Thursday, December 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