The Dawn of the Planet of the Computers - Thur. Sep. 4th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Dawn of the Planet of the Computers, a program of vintage films about the rise of computer technology and the early predictions for an automated future. From Ray Bradbury Sci-Fi to William Shatner explaining microprocessors, animation and more, take a look at the future of technology through the eyes of the past.  Science Fiction's perennial Captain, William Shatner gets trippy with silica and microprocessors in the psychedelic AT&T sponsored Microworld (1976).  Ray Bradbury's The Veldt (1982) features a nuclear family in a computerized home that leads to deadly results. Presaging the current internet matchmaking trend, Comput-Her Baby is a wacky art film spoofing the notion of computer-assisted love in 1967. The wacky Signal Syntax (1980) will have you watching out for your personal computer, because it might be trying to kill you. Incredible Machine (1968) previews the latest developments in computer-assisted imagery, electronic music, and voice processing. Hypothese Beta (1967), an Academy Award nominated film features an isolated computer punch card who creates chaotic and deadly disorder. Come early for Dan Rather's warning that The Computers are Coming (1983).

Date: Thursday, September 4th, 2014 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

Beauties, Babes, and Burlesque - Fri. Aug. 29 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Christina Yglesias present Beauties, Babes, and Burlesque, a sampling of sexy short films. There will be bikini babes, pretty pin-ups, dancing ladies, and steamy stripteases, all from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. The night will progress from innocent to not-so-innocent as we take a look into the sexy (and by today's standards, sexist) world of films created to showcase beautiful women and titillate the midcentury man.  The night will start off innocently enough with The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (1950's). The athletes of the all-female gymnastic team "express serenity, poise, beauty" as they vault, hike, ski, dance, and tumble through a day of training in the Swedish countryside. In Bikini Girls (1949), a snarky narrator guides us through three shorts featuring bikini babes; Beachcombing Belle, Ants in her Plants, and Goldilocks Goes Glamorous. To provide "relief of marital boredom" for those poor "men who have submitted, suffered, and supported long enough", there is the silent, oddly surreal, pseudo-educational short How to Undress in Front of Your Husband starring Mrs. John Barrymore. Next, things will get racier with a series of nine Burlesque Screen Tests and dances. You'll see starlet Barbara Nichols doing the Latin Mambo, Bunny Spencer modeling "the stockings of tomorrow", two afro-cuban dance numbers, Million Dollar Legs, the creepy Caught in the Barbed Wire, and more. Then, eight more burlesque and musical numbers will continue the tease. Highlights include Beauty Bound (1930), which  somehow succeeds in making a full-leg cast seem sexy, and Doll Dance with Arlene and Rene (1940s), a strange strip-tease collaboration between marionette and real-life burlesque performer. To end with a splash, we bring you Lili St. Cyr's Bubble Bath Dance (1951), the famous performance that brought her to court for a "lewd and lascivious" charge. Come early and see a collection of retro commercials for bras, girdles, panties, soap, and other products marketed to increase sex appeal.

Date: Friday, August 29th, 2014 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: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Fight the Power - Radicals, Resistance and Revolution - Thur. Aug. 28 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Fight the Power: Radicals, Resistance and Revolution, an empowering and entertaining evening of film rarities documenting the history and enduring legacy of the anarchists, revolutionaries, protestors and artists that stood up to change the world. From Feminists to Black Panthers, this cinematic ode to dissent and demonstration features documentaries, experimental and collage film and even stop-motion animation.  Charles Braverman's kinestatic World of '68 (1968) sums up the riotous year of 1968 in four minutes including the politics, pop culture and the devastation of two of the most tragic assassinations in American History through a pulsating collage of hundreds of still images.  The New York Radical Women's organization stage a protest with a sheep at the Miss America pageant in the experimental documentary Up Against the Wall Miss America (1968).  In Protest: Black Power (1975), view the struggles, set-backs and triumphs of the Black Power movement with footage of Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King. See the women's labor movement through the eyes of three union organizers in Union Maids (1976). For a cartoon break, there is the anti-fascist stop-motion revolution of Tadeusz Wilcosz's Bags (1967). Sit in on the steps of our own city hall with the anarchistic Diggers in Nowsreal (1968).  Plus, multi-projection of original raw news footage of Black Panthers: Liberation School (1968), the SFSU Student Strike (1969), and the Watts Riots (1968) with an added revolutionary soundtrack. Come early to see how one Michigan town turned their antagonistic hippy/cop relations around with a football game in the entertaining documentary The Pigs vs. The Freaks (1973).  All films are original 16mm prints from the archive.

Date: Thursday, August 28th, 2014 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

Unstoppable: The Many Moods of Momentum - Fri. Aug. 22 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro, present Unstoppable: The Many Moods of Momentum, a relentless exploration of the forces of physics and emotion with filmmakers like Chuck Jones, Claude Lelouch, Arthur Lipsett, and Halas and Batchelor. Classic cartoons, crash test footage, experimental cinema, silent Wonder Dogs and a school film or two tell tales of inertia spun out of control! Wheels, Wheels, Wheels (1970) is an exciting thrills and spills look the very symbol of go, go, go! From Britain's Halas and Batchelor studio, the endearingly animated Hoffnung’s Palm Court Orchestra (1965) are the very model of perseverance as they play on in the face of absurd disasters. Is the stuff of life piling up or collapsing in the brilliant Arthur Lipsett’s dream-like, experimental Free Fall (1964)? When a silent era wonder dog gets in on the chase in Teddy at the Throttle (1917), he’s a true star and action hero. Two furious views of Paris: Claude Lelouch’s Rendezvous (1977) puts you in the driver’s seat for a wild ride through the City of Lights while Allegro Ma Troppo (1963) is a mesmerizing nuit dans Paris at a dizzying 2 frames a second. Wile E. Coyote just won’t quit, as we will see yet again in two zippy and zany cartoons from the legendary Chuck Jones; Hopalong Casualty (1960) and Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958). See the quirky, squeaky Rube Goldberg contraption of Mouse Activated Candle Lighter (1973). Plus, more speedy surprises! And from the Kurator’s Kitchen: complimentary home-baked treats for all attendees!

Date: Friday, August 22nd, 2014 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/2014/08/unstoppable-many-moods-of-momentum-fri.html

Czech Please! - Stop-Motion Marvels from the Czech Masters - Thur. Aug 21 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Czech Please! an evening of mind-blowing stop-motion animation from the former Czechoslovakia.  With puppet and object animation; 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 greatest Czech animators including Jan Švankmajer, Jiri Trnka, Bretislav Pojar, Borivoj and Karel Zeman, Hermína Týrlová and Zdenek Miler. Jan Švankmajer, one of the most brilliant and creative filmmakers of our time, creates a dark and witty Freudian fantasy of cannibal dolls, dancing clothes, and curious cats in the loose Lewis Carroll adaptation Jabberwocky (1971).  Jiri Trnka, the founding father of Kratky Film Praha — the animation company responsible for most of the work tonight — was the visionary behind some of the greatest puppet animation the world over and we've dug up a triple dose of his brand of cheeky imagination.  Song of the Prairie (1949, directed by Trnka and animated by Bretislav Pojar) is a delightful send-up on American Westerns; Passion (1962) follows a young boy and his need for speed into his self-destructive future; and The Devil's Mill (1949) features a mischievous poltergeist playing tricks on an old soldier.  Hermína Týrlová, the mother of Czech animation and the first animator (ever) to use wire-framed puppets, brings us the tale of an outdated steam train that wants to see the world in The Little Train (1959) and a little ant that must defeat a hungry spider in Ferda the Ant (1941).  Borivoj and Karel Zeman bring to life a little girl's creepy basket of toys in the delightful A Christmas Dream (1954). A Glittering Song (1965) turns trash into treasure by animating a sparkling world entirely out of broken glass. And in Duet (1960s) two neighbors play music together in harmony, until one gets a radio and the friendship devolves into a vicious battle for the latest electronics.  Early birds will be treated to a triple helping of Zdenek Miler's classic cell-animation The Little Mole! 

Date: Thursday, August 21st, 2014 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/2014/08/czech-please-stop-motion-marvels-from.html

Fashion Backward: Beauty and Style from Yesteryear - Fri. Aug. 15 - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Fashion Backward: Beauty and Style from Yesteryear, an ephemeral film fashion show from the 1920s-1970s.  We're taking the wayback machine to see the epitome of vintage style with kitschy promotional films, newsreel rarities, silent slapstick, commercials and more, all on 16mm film from the archive.  Every stylish look begins with a good foundation and the 1920s give us the birth of the bloomer in the sassy, silly, sexy romp Reckless Rosie (1929) starring Frances Lee.  See the latest in 1930s fashion with the Fox Movietone Newsreel Filming the Fashions (1933). Step into the comfortable and classy shoes of your dreams with the gorgeous Kodachrome promotional rarity Sunsteps (1940s).  A pretty young thing leaves the farm and joins a traveling fashion show in Rolling in Style (1954).  Take a road trip with three glamorous gals and their carload of fabulous clothes from Penney's in the hilarious Oddball favorite The Scenemakers (1960).  Ship n' Shore Fashions wants you to see the future of machine-washable clothing with two giggling girls at the 1964 World's Fair in Fashion Fair (1964). Plus, tons of Vintage Fashion Commercials; a news segment on Frederick's of Hollywood (1970s) and fashionable excerpts from Sears' Styles That Made a Splash (1975), manic Mod fashion with Twiggy in swingin' 1960s London; and Penney's ode to the modern American general store in Whatever Your Fancy (1960s).  Early birds can learn how to make-up their face and shut-up when men are talking in the laughably un-feminist Why Not Be Beautiful? (1969). It's a vintage fashionista's film fantasy! 

Date: Friday, August 15th, 2014 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: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com  

Strange Sinema 79: Psychoactive - Thur. Aug. 14 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema, 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 79^th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment Strange Sinema 79: Psychoactive is an exploration into the cinematic stimuli of moving images. It destabilizes and reconfigures concepts of moving image programs by recontextualizing discordant film footage cast-offs into a cohesive, "entertaining," yet disturbing mutation. Psychoactive utilizes clever bits of camp, cultural kitsch, musical mayhem, severed film frames and narrative and non-narrative techniques.  It is also an experiment in purpose, perception and patience giving new meaning to the phrase "What the f*ck kind of film is that?" Expect to see anything from Pavlovian dog experiments, low-tech science segments, behind the scenes clips from adult films, and just plain WEIRD CINEMA. It’s dark, disturbing, edgy and campy! Films include Home Movie Hi-jinks with Front Yard Bob (1960-1962) featuring the ludicrous hi-jinks of  ”Front Yard Bob” as he juggles flaming torches in front of his house and plays a pipe organ in his garage next to his Ford Thunderbird!, First Race Golden Gate Fields (1962) trained horses run wild in the mud, De L’Organe Endolymphatique (1940s), French sea creature experimentation, Creepy Christmas Basket (1950s), elders dissect selected items from a basket of mundane gifts-hilariously surreal!, Industrial B-roll (1960s) watch the abstraction of mechanical lubrication in industry-who knows what parts are being made?, Candy Girl (1970s) one of the most outrageous stunts you’ve never seen at a movie theater-a concession stand gal gets down and dirty with popcorn and candy!, Wild Elephant Roundup (1950s) Indian elephants rounded up to work!, The Effect of Frontal Lobotomy on Generalized Tics (1940s), a shockingly bizarre experimentation on a human subject-all for naught!, Michael, What is This? (1950s), Clinical audio testing of a young boy with his parents, Bulb Snatcher (1950s, kinescope), Early GE commercial for electric lights-don’t let the bulb snatcher steal your light bulbs! San Francisco Police Bombing (1970) The aftermath of the infamous Park Station bombing in San Francisco and a surprise bomb attack at a police funeral, Wexler Allergy Test Film Outtakes (1950s), see patients injected with allergens react in these hyper real medical clips, Untitled Russian Reel (1960s), Watch blind students in Russian academia and industry in this offbeat propaganda film-in French!, Remington Model 1100 (1950s), state of the art shotgun demonstration illustrates high technology in gun manufacture and the values of American manhood-ludicrous!, Blind Children with Pony (1960s) a heroically inept television reporter interviews blind children as they saddle up and mount a pony. Also! A hysterically comic Colt 45 Malt Liquor (1960s) commercial shot on the beach in a “war zone” and the mind-melting cinematic closer Caprice: The Love Car (1960s) a long form promo for a sexy and sensual erotic car! Plus! Airplane wing tests and more! Psychoactive premiered at Chicago Filmmakers as part of their series "Odds and Ends: Exploring the Cinematic Junk Drawer”.

Date: Thursday, August 14^th 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: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com 

Learn Your Lesson...about your Private Parts: A Pelvic Shockucation - Fri. Aug. 8th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...about your Private Parts: A Pelvic Shockucation, the eighteenth in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection.  This month we are dealing with all your favorite and taboo body parts, the genitals!  From menstrual cramps to VD, masturbation and sexual development, prophylactics and more, this is one shockucation your ovaries and gonads don't want you to miss!  In You Got WHAT? (1970), life is all bell-bottoms and flower power, until you're saddled with VD!  Learn all about your first period and making out with smiley-faced pillows with the most awkward pubescent heroine of the 80s in Dear Diary: A Film about Female Puberty (1981). A rabbi, a priest and a psychologist talk about sexual development, masturbation, nocturnal emissions and more squeamish topics in Parent to Child About Sex (1965). Canadian women talk openly aboot the taboo subject of menstrual pain in the laughably menstrutaining film Cramps! (1982).  Planned Parenthood wants all men and women to know all about their options in birth control, but mostly to know that Hope is Not a Method (1973). Plus, the infamous Di$ney cartoon The Story of Menstruation (1945) and the double-projection of antique puberty primer Your Body During Adolescence (1956) and Vintage Smut!  It's a great night to learn your lesson.    

Date: Friday, August 8th, 2014 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: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

An Existence of Nonsense - Surreal and Absurd Cinema - Thur. Aug. 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents An Existence of Nonsense - Surreal and Absurd Cinema with works by Man Ray, István Szabó, René Clair, Eugene Ionesco, Franz Kafka, Jan Lenica and Luis Buñuel. Realism is overrated and this program explores the magnitude of creative expression when freed from the constraints of rational and linear structures. Man Ray's surrealist classic L'Etoile de Mer (1928) captures the furtive, flirting moments of sexual desire, ever so dreamily obscured. István Szabó's A Dream About a House (1972) demonstrates the absurdities of war when contrasted with the consistencies of the familial unit. Rene Clair's Entr'acte (1924) disrupts all sense of reason through seemingly random juxtapositions that defy convention and construct new associations with familiar events and objects. Jan Lenica's hip animated reimagining of Ionesco's Rhinoceros (1965) paints an absurd picture of the dangers of conformity. Also from the mind of the great Eugene Ionesco, the bizarrely funny adaptation of The New Tenant (1975). And from Luis Buñuel, one of the forefathers of both surreal and absurd film, an excerpt of The Exterminating Angel (1962). For the early birds, a bleak adaptation of one of Franz Kafka's final works, A Hunger Artist (1984).  All this beautiful nonsense will be screened on 16mm film from the archive.

Date: Thursday, August 7th, 2014 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

What the F(ilm)?! 8: Animated Insanity from the Archive - Fri. Aug. 1st - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present What the F(ilm)?! 8: Animated Insanity from the Archive, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection.  This month, we are going all animated with the most insane program of cartoons you will ever see with a unique blend of surreal, educational, propaganda and experimental cartoons too weird to be believed.  One of our favorite animators, Bruno Bozzetto will knock you out of your seat with his surreal, sexy, funny and morbid brand of animation and we have three mind-blowing shorts: Opera (1973), Ego (1970) and Pickles (1973).  Di$ney takes on the eradication of malaria in The Winged Scourge (1943) with help from the Seven Dwarves and STDs in VD:Attack Plan (1973).  The medicine cabinet becomes a horrifying musical of singing pill bottles in Sniffy Escapes Poisoning (1967). Get the first turkey perspective of your Thanksgiving feast in the bizarre and macabre animation I Was A Thanksgiving Turkey (1986).  The Oscar-winning Australian short Leisure (1976) mixes cell-animation and pop-art collage to make you think differently about the way you spend those off hours.  Herbert Kosower manipulates engravings by Piero Fornasetti in the "film absurdity" The Face (1967).  Adorable bunny rabbits resort to lepucide and face the strange legal system of hooded bunnies in The Punishment Fits the Crime (1972).  Plus! Fantasy (1975), psychedelic animation from Vince Collins; Vera Linnecar wants hipsters to die in The Trendsetter (1970); the triumphant return of Caninabis (1979) and even more animated insanity! 

Date: Friday, August 1st, 2014 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