Oddball in the Huffington Post!

The Archivist's Dilemma: Q&A With Oddball Films' Stephen Parr

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-nirenberg/the-archivists-dilemma-qa_b_6273140.html

Michael Nirenberg Become a fan

Director, currently working on Subcultural history of Computer Hacking. Founder of Restraining Order Inc. with John Torrani and Flynn Hundhausen

While working on my new film in the Bay Area this summer, I had the good fortune of being introduced to Stephen Parr and his massive 6000 sq. ft. archive aptly namedOddball Films. My colleagues and I caught a real psychedelic Will Vinton animation screening and got a tour of Oddball Films, which was unlike anything, I've ever seen.

Oddball's XXX-mas Spectacular - Fri. Dec 19 - 8PM

Oddball Films invites you to Oddball's XXX-mas Spectacular, a program of vintage 16mm weirdness, with a delightful hodge-podge of creepy and kitschy Holiday insanity, seasonal and sexy animation, and bizarro smut all from our massive archive.  In Santa's camp, we have the insanely campy Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen (1951) from Sid Davis, the man who brought us such shock classics "The Dangerous Stranger" and "Why Did Sammy Speed?".  The National Film Board of Canada brings us two witty animated shorts; the delightfully strange Christmas Cracker (1964) featuring 3 odd Christmas vignettes from the brilliant Norman McLaren among others, and Jeff Hale's The Great Toy Robbery (1963), where Santa is held up by bandits in the Old-West.  From Czech greats Borivoj and Karel Zeman, comes A Christmas Dream (1954) the creepily charming stop-motion tale of toys come to life. More Christmas kookiness includes Snowtime Serenade Soundies (1948), Kodachrome oddity Creepy Christmas Basket (1950s), and a few lively Christmas closers by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby in Happy Holidays with Frank and Bing (1957).  And to put the XXX in XXX-mas, we've got the original pornographic cartoon, the infamous Buried Treasure (1924) starring the well-endowed Eveready Hardon; the raunchy cartoon tale of a girl and her vegetable pals in the unforgettable Sandy Sunrise in The Babysitter (1971); the tantalizing new television technology of the nudie-cutie Uncle Si and the Sirens (1938); homegrown homoerotica The Groping Hand (1969); and excerpts of Queen Kong (1970s) and Naked Marching Band (1970s).  We'll be staggering the themes and even double-projecting Santa and Smut together! Get your kicks and get your Santa fix because XXX-mas comes but once a year!

Date: Friday, December 19th, 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

Jew Ought to be in Pictures: Choice Comedy Rarities from the Chosen People - Thur. Dec. 18 - 8PM

In honor of Hanukkah, Oddball Films and Jewish curator Kat Shuchter bring you Jew Ought to be in Pictures: Choice Comedy Rarities from the Chosen People.  This program of comedy masters features rare films with hilarious Jews like Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Mel Blanc, Friz Freleng, Tom Lehrer, Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach and more.  All four Marx Brothers bring us ridiculous warfare that includes dozens of costume changes, parliament breaking into song and Harpo Revere in This is War?(1933, excerpts from Duck Soup).  From Mel Brooks, we have his Oscar-winning animated short The Critic (1963) and a live performance with Carl Reiner of the 2,000 Year Old Man (1961). Reiner also teams up with Sid Caesar in a rare excerpt from Your Show of Shows (1950s).  Bobby Rydell flusters the king of deadpan, Jack Benny by impersonating him in a segment of the Jack Benny Program (1961). Song satirist Tom Lehrer's Pollution (1969) gets the montage treatment for one hysterical political statement. Two animated Jews (director Isadore "Friz" Freleng and voice talent Mel Blanc) team up for one classic Merr*e Melod*es short Stage Door Cartoon (1944). Woody Allen's early career and process are revealed in the documentary Woody Allen: An American Comedy (1977). Making it's Oddball debut is Oscar-nominated short That's Me (1963) written by and starring Alan Arkin.  Plus! Lane Truesdale sings Who's Yehoodi? to a lecherous painting of a hassid, Rodney Dangerfield peddles Miller Lite, Sammy Davis Jr. sells Alka-Seltzer, Tony Curtis and Jack Klugman play board games, film trailers with Peter Sellers and Jerry Lewis and much much more! So, grab your yarmulke, your tallit and your torah and get ready to laugh your tuchus off!

Date: Thursday, December 18th, 2014 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco


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

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/

Learn Your Lesson...from the Mormons: An LDS Shockucation - Fri. Dec. 12th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...from the Mormons: An LDS Shockucation, the 22nd in a monthly 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 tapping into the ultra-schmaltzy mental-hygiene shorts of Brigham Young University.  While rarely using the church as a character or setting, these wholesome shorts sought to instill the church's teachings of family values, abstaining, avoiding peer pressure, and the value of hard work through the cheesiest of cheesy narratives. The most famous of these shorts, The Cipher in the Snow (1974) tells the heartbreaking story of a little boy that nobody noticed, until he suddenly collapses dead in the snow.  One boy has to learn to listen to his mother and stand up to the fast-riding, beer-guzzling cool kids in the howlingly funny Measure of a Man (1962).  Are You Listening? (1973) will teach you how to "listen with your heart" as one family struggles to really hear each other and the people in their lives. The Phone Call (1977) wants you to know that even geeky, karate and bassoon-loving fast food workers deserve love, and with a little self-confidence and a great ginger-fro, they just might get it. Plus Man's Search for Happiness (1964), the film made for the Mormon Pavilion at the New York World's Fair, an excerpt from Meet the Mormons (1973), and even more surprises. 

Date: Friday, December 11th, 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 

I Want it All! - Consumer Culture on the Skids - Thur. Dec .11th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents I Want it All! - Consumer Culture on the Skids, a program of vintage films that fall on both sides of the issue of wealth, consumption, and advertising.  With long and short-form commercials, cartoons and capitalist-skewering satire, it's an evening that will make you think differently about pulling out your wallet.  Pick the color of your refrigerator to Match Your Mood (1960s), a swingin' promotional film from Jam Handy and an Oddball audience favorite. Then, pick the color of your shiny new 1951 Chevy in The Rainbow is Yours (1951). Woody Allen and Joanne Worley try to answer that burning question in a segment from the show Hot Dog-How Do They Make Dollar Bills (1971).  Learn how credit can change your life, or just burden you with crap and debt in the bizarre, hilarious and musical The Good, Good, Good Life (1974) Three groovy young girls and their dad  get a lesson in over-shopping in Consumer Education: Budgeting (1968).  We all know sex sells; learn the tricks of its best sellers in a Special Edition segment on Frederick's of Hollywood (1970s).  Unrelenting advertisements and the implied pressures impede young love in the bittersweet mixed-media animation Harold and Cynthia (1971).  The grocery witch is here to teach you how to spend your money wisely in Magical Disappearing Money (1972). Plus, a slew of real commercials and a reel of bizarre faux commercials with the head-scratching It's Not Commercial (1950s).  

Date: Thursday, December 11th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco (map)

Admission: $10.00 - Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Strange Sinema 83: Bizarre Cinema Histories - Fri. Dec. 5th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 83: Bizarre Cinema Histories, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ collection of over 50,000 film prints. Tonight we present another offbeat look at the origins and bizarre expressions of cinema through historical inventions, experimental innovations and hand-made films throughout the ages. We start off with a fascinating documentary The Origins of the Motion Picture (1955) examining cinema history from Leonardo de Vinci to Thomas Edison featuring oddities such as the Thaumatrope, the Phenakistiscope, Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope and more. We follow with the early cinema experiments of Georges Méliès in excerpts from Baron Munchausen’s Hallucinations (1911) and Tex Avery's Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938) where our duckster editer makes movie mayhem by creating a masterpiece using stock footage to enrage his boss!  Witness Camera Magic (1943), a rare curio by notorious oddball photographer Arthur “Weegee” Felig demonstrating a variety of camera techniques used to produce special effects. Moving on to the 70s, we take a cue from Stan Brakhage, Len Lye, and other avant-garde film makers in Michael and Mimi Warshaw’s How to Make a Movie Without a Camera (1972) and Yvonne Andersen’s Let’s Make a Film (1971), films which encourage kids to make beautiful movies by scratching and drawing directly on film and animating films using hinged cut-outs, clay, toys, painted film and live action.  Another rare doc Richter on Film (1972) profiles Dadaist and abstract/avant garde filmmaker Hans Richter as he talks about his ground-breaking experimental films of the 1920's. Also included are Underground Film (1970), an exploration into ‘underground’ film through the eyes (and films) of California experimental filmmaker Chick Strand; Bombay Movies (1977), an inside look at the wild and extravagant world of Bollywood films in the 1970s; and L’Etoile de Mer or The Star of the Sea (1928), Man Ray’s surreal quasi-narrative of lust, sex, and thwarted desires. Plus! Rare avant garde shorts and excerpts.

Date: Friday, December 5th, 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