Man and the Machine - The Future of Technology from the Past - Fri. May 31 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Man and the Machine - The Future of Technology from the Past, a program of vintage films about computers, robots and other omnipresent technological marvels.  In Microworld (1976) an overly dramatic William Shatner explores the oddly psychedelic world of microprocessors.  Ray Bradbury's The Veldt (1970s) features a nuclear family in a computerized home that leads to deadly results.  Isaac Asimov and Walter Cronkite investigate The Weird World of Robots (1968). Go behind the scenes of turning Yul Brenner into a killer cyborg in The Westworld Production Short (1973). Presaging the current internet matchmaking trend, Comput-Her Baby is a wacky art film spoofing the notion of computer-assisted love in 1967. IBM commissioned Ray and Charles Eames to create the short cartoon The Information Machine (1958) chronicling man's relation to data processing.  With more surprises, trailers and commercials in store!

Date: Friday, May 31st, 2013 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

Formidable Conformity: The System Fights Back - Thur. May 30 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Formidable Conformity: The System Fights Back, a program of films about man's struggle against the status-quo.  With vintage cartoons, industrial films, PSAs and avant-garde breathtakers, this is one night the "system" never saw coming.  The laughable Plastics Council sponsored film, How To Infiltrate the Establishment (1960s), seeks to recruit young hip surfers and rockers to the plastics industry by making it look groovy to get a job.  Michael Keaton attempts to change employers' minds about hiring the handicapped in a musical-comedy all-star extravaganza A Different Approach (1978). A single butterfly valiantly attempts to bring beauty into the sterile world of a dystopian factory in Jan Habarta's incredible film No. 000173 (1969).  There was a time when the concept of female authority was so novel, they needed to prep men with primers so that they could deal with it, like the cartoon I've Got a Woman Boss! (1977).  One man goes up against the Hollywood system in the silent low-budget experimental triumph The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928).  Hipsters must die in Vera Linnecar's British cartoon The Trendsetter (1969).  Hippies square-off against the police in a football game in the hilarious documentary (later turned into an Afterschool Special starring Patrick Swayze) The Pigs vs The Freaks (1960s). Polish artist Jan Lenica gives us an animated adaptation of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros (1965). With Eli Wallach in The Dehumanizing City...And Hymie Schultz (1967) for the early birds, the trailer for dystopian classic Logan's Run and other surprises, stick it to the man and get over to Oddball.

Date: Thursday, May 30th, 2013 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 

Play with your Toys! - Fri. May 24 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Play with your Toys! a fun, freewheeling program of vintage short films celebrating toys.  Marvel at the childlike wonder instilled in artist Alexander Calder as he plays with his kinetic sculptures in Calder’s Circus (1963). Charles and Ray Eames were huge miniature and toy enthusiasts and offer up two visually stunning shorts, Tops (1969), a brilliant childlike anthropological film capturing spinning tops from different cultures and eras and Toccata For Toy Trains (1957) a marvelous celebration of antique toys.  Grant Munro's Toys (1966) brings to life your GI Joes, but as it turns out, that's not a good thing.  Everyone's favorite little green buddy, Gumby gets into shenanigans with toy trucks in the original 1957 short Toy Fun.  A little girl's creepy dolls come to life in A Christmas Dream (1954).  Watch a toy truck from the factory to the classroom in the gorgeous Technicolor funucational short Toy Telephone Truck (1953).  Dolls aren't just for girls and Free To Be You and Me (1974) wants you to know it with the song "William Wants a Doll". Learn to share your toys or be alone with the animated social conditioning primer Most Important Person - Share it with Someone (1972). Plus! Naughty exxxcerpts from stuffed-animal smut and burlesque, vintage toy commercials and even more surprises!

Date: Friday, May 24th, 2013 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 

You Give Me Fever - God, The Devil and Betty Boop - Thur. May 23 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents You Give Me Fever - God, The Devil and Betty Boop, a hodge-podge of vintage shorts, documentaries, cartoons and burlesque numbers about the fervor of faith and the seduction of Satan.  Films include local filmmaker Peter Adair's incredible documentary Holy Ghost People (1967), featuring the seemingly bizarre practices of a West Virginia Pentecostal congregation including speaking in tongues, ingestion of poison and use of snakes within their religious ceremonies.  Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) is a satanic fueled vision in Technicolor with a droning music score by Mick Jagger and featuring the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey.  Betty Boop is ice cold when she faces off against the Devil in the Fleischer brothers classic Red Hot Mamma (1934).  Burlesque queen Betty Dolan is half Devil, half sexy lady and all sizzling in the innovatively costumed Satan-Tease (1955). Other shorts include Eucharist, the 60s neo-psychedelic short produced by the Lutheran Church, the trailer for the adult feature Satan's Cheerleaders, and for the early birds, evangelist Dr. Irwin Moon from the Moody Science Institute electrocutes himself to prove the Facts of Faith (1956).

Date: Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 at 8:00PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

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

Sugar Shock: Candy, Cavities and Saturday Morning Shenanigans - Fri. May 17 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present: Sugar Shock: Candy, Cavities and Saturday Morning Shenanigans, a batch of gooey ephemera sure to please sweet tooths and film fans alike. The exquisitely piped icing on a royal wedding cake is one mind-blowing work of Artistry in Sugar (1971), and the confectioner can even make edible dishes. Kids get into the act in At Your Fingertips: Sugar and Spice (1970), a guide to molding sparkling crystals into objets d'arts to treasure! Recently departed practical-special effects legend Ray Harryhausen whips up a yummy puppet version of Hansel and Gretel (1951). Learn all about chocolate along with Woody Allen, Jonathan Winters and pals in Chocolate: What is it? (1971). Lucy and Ethel are up to their eyeballs in hand-dipped vanilla creams in a well-loved episode of I Love Lucy (1952). We included the stunning and psychedelic dental hygiene claymation rock-opera The Munchers (1973). Celebrate sugar’s sacred place in the rituals of Saturday morning with the Banana Splits and Friends (1970s) excerpts and vintage ads for sugary treats! And MORE! As usual, home-baked pie and other complimentary treats from the curator’s kitchen for all! (All films are 16mm unless noted.)

Pipe Down!

Date: Friday, May 17th, 2013 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

Strange Sinema 64: Optical Explorations - Thur. May 16 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 64: Optical Explorations, an evening of newly discovered and choice rarities from the stacks of Oddball Films’ 50,000 reel film archive. This installment of Strange Sinema features an eclectic combination of films that illuminate the visual vanguard and optical experimentation. We begin with Rene Claire’s surrealist/dada masterpiece Entr’acte (1924) featuring avant-garde photographer Man Ray and Frances Picabia, followed by the rare documentary Art of the Sixties (1967), featuring the eye-popping soft sculptures of Claes Oldenberg, kinetic artist Len Lye, Les Levine’s early interactive environments, action painter Jackson Pollock and more. We follow up with West Coast experimental filmmaker Donald Fox’s exhilaratingly beautiful optical poem Omega (1970) and Who is Victor Varasely?, (1968) a fascinating documentary about the French/Hungarian father of Op Art and his cybernetic approach to image creation. Other films include seminal motion graphics pioneer John Whitney’s short Arabesque (1975), an oscillating color dance to the music of Persian rhythms created using early computer generated waveforms; Perspectrum (1974), directed by famed Indian animator Ishu Patel, with Japanese koto soundscore produced for the National Film Board of Canada; and a sublime work Infinity (1980), by Bay Area abstract image pioneer Jordan Belson. Plus! Let us play even more tricks on your eyes with Optical Film Loops!

Date: Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 8:00PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

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

Czech Please! Animated Wonders from the former Czechoslovakia - Thur. May 9th - 8PM

Oddball Films Presents Czech Please! an evening of mind-blowing animation from the former Czechoslovakia.  From cut-outs to puppets to stop-motion; from the adorable to the dark and thought-provoking, this evening will open your eyes to the brilliance, vision and creativity of some of the great Czech animators.  Films include Jiri Trnka's exquisite parable of totalitarianism, The Hand (1965).  The two-cutest bird friends you may ever see dance to the radio, take pictures of themselves and fight off a hungry cat in the insanely adorable Queer Birds (1967). Recurring cartoon hero The Mole paints his friends in psychedelic colors in The Mole as Painter (1972).  Zip off into the future in space in the trippy, zippy Kosmodrome 1999 (1969).  Clever cutout animation The Sword (1967) gives a unique take on mortality.  The rare and delightful Ferda the Ant(1941), a puppet-animation sporting the first wire-framed creatures on film.  A young girl's ears grow and she flies away to start a band with jungle animals in Cecily (1970's).  A jungle breaks out in the classroom when two kids steal a magician's top hat in Nature in a Top Hat (1960s).  A clown gets upstaged by a fish in The Clowns (1968).  Bulbous-nosed inventor Mr. Koumal (1968) deals with a series of amusing calamities following inventing fire, robots and wings. Plus more for the early birds!

Date: Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco


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

Learn Your Lesson...on Drugs: Shockucational Shorts for the D.A.R.E. Generation - Fri. May 10th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...on Drugs - Shockucational Shorts for the D.A.R.E. Generation, the third in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic shockucational films and TV specials of the collection. This time, we're taking drugs; that is taking on drugs and the filmic pharmacy is officially open!  Melanie and Kathleen are desperate to experiment with drugs in excerpts from Degrassi Jr. High - The Experiment (1987). Creepy double-headed puppets designed by Julie Taymor teach us about intergalactic teens and peer pressure in Deciso 3003 (1982).  Benny's the little man on campus and while steroids might make him bigger, they might cost him everything important in Di$ney's Benny and the 'Roids (1988).  It might be in Spanish but you won't miss the meaning behind the hilarious cartoon Sex, Booze, Blues and those Pills You Use (1982). McGruff the Crime Dog is back (as a man in a clumsy dog suit and trademark trenchcoat) and he's got a lesson for the kiddies on how to narc on your druggy friends in McGruff's Drug Alert (1987).  Sonny Bono gets high (pre-taping) and dons a gold lamé pajama set to tell you all about Marijuana (1968).  And because it never gets old, the Oddball favorite The Cat Who Drank... And Used Too Much (1987) will be stopping by.  Plus! a multi-projector Celebrity Drug PSA Mash-up featuring Beau Bridges, Paul Newman on PCP, Phil Donahue on crack and Richard Dreyfuss on cocaine!  Early birds shall enjoy Narcotics Pit of Despair (1967).

Date: Friday, May 10th, 2013 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