Cults, Sects and Mind-Control - Thurs. Oct. 20th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Cults, Sects and Mind-Control, a program of vintage films, trailers, original news footage and TV specials about the extremities of beliefs that can lead to brainwashing, violence and even murder. It's October, and that means it's time to examine the darker reaches of our souls, beginning with the tenuous grasp we each have on our own self-will. This program will investigate many of the most famous, most destructive cults of the 20th century, many of whom had their roots in San Francisco. We will begin with two outrageous long-form trailers, one for the docu-drama Manson (1973) containing real footage of "The Family" and The Lash of the Penitentes (1936), a pseudo-documentary of a sect of Catholic flagellators. CBS news looks into cult brainwashing tactics in Cults: Choice or Coercion (1979). One young ex-Moonie stars as himself in a reenactment of his journey with the Unification Church until his benevolent capture and deprogramming in the super-rare TV-special Moonchild (1983). Witness an excerpt from the outrageous "documentary" Mondo Cane (1962) about a tribe of New Guineans that worship cargo planes. And for such a heavy show, we'll need a bit of comic relief, in the form of Dan Akroyd starring as the didactic preacher of the Church of Jack Lord (from Hawaii 5-O) in a segment of the underground classic Mister Mike's M*nd* Video (1979). Di$ney's Chicken Little (1943) warns of falling for sweet-talking foxes reading from Mein Kampf. From Friz Freleng comes a similar allegory: Fifth Column Mouse (1943) only with a freewheeling community of mice that become slaves to a hungry cat until they stand up and fight back with a mechanical bulldog. In De Overkant (1966), Belgian filmmaker Herman Wuyts brings us a bleak interpretation of a totalitarian society in which independence equates to death. And finally, from San Francisco's own News Outtakes, an original 1977 news broadcast of Jim Jones and members of the People's Temple after a fire was set at the temple on Geary, and original uncut footage of the 1975 capture of Patty Hearst, the poster-heiress for brain-washing and Stockholm syndrome. All films are original 16mm prints from our 50,000 title archive and most are not available to view anywhere else. 

Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2016 at 8:00 pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Bay Area Bizarre - SF's Strangest Amateurs, Indies, Smut, and Home Movies - Fri. Oct. 14th - 8pm

The San Francisco Media Archive and Oddball Films present Bay Area Bizarre - SF's Strangest Amateurs, Indies, Smut, and Home Movies in conjunction with the 14th Annual Worldwide Home Movie Day. This night of 16mm cinema from the 1930s-1970s includes swimming horses, drag fairy tales, children acting as adults, homegrown erotica, psychedelic animation and rare films by hometown heroes George Kuchar, Chick Strand, and Vince Collins. We begin with Welcome San Francisco Movie Makers (1960) a rare introductory film for the San Francisco Amateur Filmmakers Club. Local legend George Kuchar's Lady from Sands Point (1967) is a zippy, trippy portrait of artist Betty Holiday. Underground Film (1970) is a television arts program segment on the Bay Area's own Chick Strand, going in depth into her process and displaying excerpts of several of her most important films of the 1960s. Get a taste of some homegrown auto-worship with the Kodachrome time capsule San Francisco Excelsior: Low Rider Car Show (1965). Witness the baffling From Here to Profanity (1959), a local amateur film with children acting out adult rolls. San Francisco co-stars in The Screening Room (1970s), an erotic tale of two lovers shooting a porno in Renaissance costumes, then seeing themselves on a North Beach screen. The camptastic Sinderella (1962) retells an age-old fairy tale with a cross-dressing twist for a new generation. Blackie the Wonder Horse Swims the Golden Gate (1938) stars our own local equine hero in all his glory. Plus, local animator Vince Collins' psychedelic patriotic nightmare 200 (1976), and The Black Sabbath Parade (1970). And if you have home movies on 16mm film, we will project them on the big screen before the show, so bring us your family treasures and join us for a night of the Bay Area Bizarre!

Date: Friday, October 14th, 2016 at 8:00 pm, bring and screen your 16mm films starting at 7:30pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 (half price if you bring a film) Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

http://www.centerforhomemovies.org/hmd/ 

Killer Science: Nature's Horror Show - Thur. Oct. 13th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Killer Science: Nature's Horror Show, an evening of vintage 16mm science and nature films from the 1930s-1970s highlighting the dark, grisly, and deadly aspects of Mother Nature's wrath. From man-eating sharks to killer hurricanes to hungry bugs and battling squids, it's one night of nature's fury you won't want to miss. Leonard Nimoy explores the mysteries of the earth's deadliest storms when he goes In Search of Hurricanes (1978). Marvel at the ferocity of tiny adversaries when termites square off against hungry ants in The Battle of the Centuries (1932). Then, go under the sea to see the manta rays, battling squid and killer eels that are the Demons of the Deep (1938). Decades before Jaws, the British Pathé warned Australian visitors and newcomers to The Shark Menace (1955). For a little sci-fi fun, we revisit a highlight reel Tarantula (1955) to witness a giant arachnid that lays waste to a whole town. Plus, segments and snippets galore including the faux-suicidal lemmings of Di$ney's White Wilderness (1958), the bugs that bring on the end of the world in the pseudo-documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971), and a mantis looks to a caterpillar for dinner in The Butterfly with Four Birthdays (1965) from one-man-band turned amateur-filmmaking legend Sid Laverents. Everything screened on 16mm film from our massive stock footage archive.

Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2016 at 8:00 pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Nevermore - The Horrific Tales of Edgar Allan Poe - Fri. Oct. 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films is kicking off the haunted month of October with Nevermore: The Horrific Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, a ghastly evening of rare 16mm short films and animation based on the Gothic novels and short stories of the grandfather of modern horror: the inimitable Edgar Allan Poe. We begin the night with trailers for two classic Hollywood adaptations: Roger Corman's House of Usher (1960) starring Vincent Price, and Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954) with Karl Malden. Veteran actor Monty Woolley brings to life the claustrophobic Cask of Amontillado (1954) in a short but chilling rendition. Ray Bradbury heralds the writer and the tradition of the Gothic literary movement in A Discussion of the Fall of the House of Usher (1975). Czech animation legend Jan Svankmajer breathes new death into The Fall of the House of Usher (1980, video) utilizing disorienting camera angles and visceral claymation. Grief takes wing in the breathtaking optically printed animation The Raven (1978) featuring the engravings of Gustave Dore. The melancholic love poem Annabel Lee (1971) evokes more ghosts of lost love. Guilt sends one man into the grip of madness in the haunting adaptation of The Tell-Tale Heart (1971). Plus, a puppet of Edgar Allan Poe weighs in on The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays (1957) in an excerpt from Frank Capra's Bell Science Special and show up early for a pre-pubescent Anthony Michael Hall starring in an ABC Weekend Special The Gold Bug (1980). Drive your hearse down to Oddball and get your October started with a fright!

Date: Friday, October 7th, 2016 at 8:00 pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Cinema Soiree - San Francisco's Wild History Groove with Mary Kerr - Thur. Oct. 6th - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes documentary producer/director Mary Kerr for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. Kerr will be presenting her documentary San Francisco's Wild History Groove - a look into the untold stories of the Bay Area's Beat scene and unsung artists. The film is a “wild” history of the 50s underground art and poetry scene in California. These individuals produced unusual art as well as spirited poetry, unique to the West Coast. Their mantra was "don't sell out"--no compromising for money or recognition. They took risks, exploring new directions in their work and in the way they lived their lives. This documentary shows the viewer how and why it happened. It brings insight into what developed in San Francisco among these Beat Era rebels. To foreground this fascinating documentary, we'll be screening several 16mm Beat Era rarities from of the archive including the Oscar nominated absurd Beat rhapsody Help My Snowman is Burning Down! (1964) and The Interview (1960) - the hilarious animation from Ernie Pintoff and Lenny Bruce and featuring fictional horn-playing hep-cat Shorty Petterson as he gives a truly bizarre interview. Also screening are excerpts of the incredibly rare documentary USA Poetry: Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1969) with poetry readings filmed at City Lights Bookstore.

Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2016 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Marc Huestis’ Notes from the Underground Archives: How a Tacky 50's Educational Film Found In a Trashcan Jump Started My Film Career - Tues. Oct. 4th - 12PM

Oddball Films would like to invite you to our new Seasonal Seminar Series. We'll be opening the vaults of our incredibly unique stock footage company and film archive and inviting intriguing professional personalities to share their unique insights in various realms of cinema for filmmakers, post-production professionals and students inside San Francisco’s strangest film archive and microcinema.   Our first guest, Marc Huestis is a cultural institution and a living local legend.  An award-winning filmmaker, festival organizer, and presenter, Huestis is a larger than life camp icon. He will be on Oddball’s cine-stage divulging his dirty secrets of underground filmmaking centered around his cult masterpiece Whatever Happened to Susan Jane? (1982). The film utilizes the 1950s social guidance film The Outsider to hilarious effect in its flash back sequences, recontextualizing the didactic mental hygiene short into a campy nostalgia-fest. It's also an opportunity for students and professionals to tour a working film archive and to see the ins and outs of the exciting world of stock footage, film restoration, digitization and screening. This warehouse of celluloid delights is the home to over 50,000 tins of actual, tactile film, from 8mm to 16mm to 35mm; from feature films to educational shorts, military training films, antique erotica, ephemeral films, ethnographic pieces, commercials, and animation. Oddball Films has provided unique stock footage for projects like Transparent, Going Clear, Behind the Candelabra, Milk, Mythbusters, Boing Boing, and more commercials, documentaries, music video, feature films and television worldwide. In today's world of digital media, most college students won't even remember film as a medium, despite its long and glorious history and its potential to survive long beyond any digital media type. This is a chance to re-instill a love of the original moving picture format in the next generation of media makers, as well as demonstrate one of the many facets of the production world that often goes unnoticed.

Tuesday, October 4^th 2016

Tour and lunch at 12, talk and Q+A at 1PM, light lunch provided

$15.00, limited seating RSVP to info@oddballfilms.com

Oddball Films, 275 Capp st. San Francisco, CA 94110

Schoolhouse Schlock! - Insane Educational Shorts from the Archive - Fri. Sep. 30th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Schoolhouse Schlock!, a ridiculous night of campy, trashy, antiquated, bizarre, and hilarious 16mm educational films from the archive. From the 1940s-1980s, with creepy puppets, evangelical batmobiles, children dancing like toasters, outdated science, and musical numbers galore, it's the best (and worst) educational film has to offer! School kids are forced to act out household appliances in a sad attempt at physical education in Perc! Pop! Sprinkle! (1969). Encyclopedia Britannica teaches you to wash your hair once a week and give yourself a good rubdown with a towel in Keeping Neat and Clean (1956). Science has come a long way since the 1940s, see just how far in two antiquated science shorts: Blind as a Bat (1955) from the evangelical Christian science organization The Moody Institute of Science and Magnetism (1947) as Dick and Jane explore magnets. A disgusting puppet named Trezlar tags along with an artist and learns all about rainbows, prisms, and Light (1980). Schoolhouse Rock brings us the much sampled musical favorite 3 Is The Magic Number (1973). Crash, Bang, Boom (1970), an early seventies oddity, proved that “school” plus “band” could add up to "far out". Learn about basic nutrition with a gaggle of creepy singing children in the campy classroom primer The Eating, Feel Good Movie (1974). More angry little monsters sing about their anger issues in another mini educational musical I'm Mad at Me (1974) from the Feelings series. Woody Allen and the Hot Dog gang weigh in on that age old question: How Do They Make Playing Cards? (1970). Plus, a strange trip to the school nurse: How Awful (1972) and more terrible surprises for the early arrivals. Everything screened on 16mm film from and in our massive stock footage archive.

Date: Friday, September 30th, 2016 at 8:00 pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

The 1940s and the Rise of the American Woman - Thur. Sep 29th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The 1940s and the Rise of the American Woman, a riveting night of 16mm films from the 1940s featuring the flood of women out of the home and into the workplace, the cockpit, the wrestling ring, leading the band, getting behind the camera, and into the modern era. The collection kicks off with Woman Speaks (1940s), a rare and fascinating series profiling pioneering ladies of the 1940s. Katherine Hepburn heralds the rise of women in the workplace during WWII in the Eleanor Roosevelt penned Women in Defense (1941). Meet the women who worked in the wartime defense factories in an excerpt of The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980).  Sign up for the coast guard and free a man for combat in the propaganda recruitment film Coast Guard Spars (1942). Take to the skies with a pre-pubescent pilot, Deborah Gubbins in the Popular Person Oddity: Pigtail Pilot (1944). Two fierce fighting dames duke it out for the women's wrestling world championship in Lipstick and Dynamite (1948). Maya Deren - the grandmother of avant-garde film - forever altered the landscape of cinema; her breathtaking and pulsating piece: A Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) transforms representational performance art into abstract, non-narrative filmmaking through intersecting currents of subconscious, parallel realities. Watch out boys, the ladies bowling champ Tillie Taylor is tearing up the lanes, now would be a good time to fat-shame another woman trying to knock down a few pins in Splits, Spares and Strikes (1941). The ladies also took over the bandstand, evidenced by the endlessly entertaining Big Band Soundie Feed the Kitty (1942) featuring Rita Rio and her Maids of Melody and Ina Hutton's Girl Time (1947) showcasing dancing, singing, marimba player virtuosos and a standout performance from Nellie Lutcher. Plus, burlesque queen Sally Rand performs her legendary Bubble Dance (1942) and more surprises from our massive stock footage film archive.

 
Date: Thursday, September 29th, 2016 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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