Strange Sinema 54: Strange Sex - Fri. July 27 - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 54, a monthly screening of offbeat films, old gems and newly discovered oddities all culled from Oddball Films 50,000 film archive. Offbeat, genre-bending and wildly entertaining, this month Strange Sinema 54: Strange Sex features a truly oddball look at that confounding subject called sex. Films include the rarely-screened, award-winning documentary The Most (1963), featuring the crown prince of sex, Hugh Hefn*r in a candid (and unintentionally hilarious) profile of his erotic empire and the swingin' Playb*y Club in early 1960s Chicago, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs (1943), one of the greatest banned cartoons of all time tells a twisted Snow White tale, Sinderella (1968), features amateur drag queens strutting their stuff in this bitch-slapping fairy tale (and Jack Smith influenced) reenactment shot in San Francisco, Woody Woodpecker goes drag and eats his landlord out of house and home in the rollicking Chew Chew Baby (1945), Uncle Si and the Sirens (1938) integrates magical technology and voyeuristic lust, while Beaver Boys Puppet Porn (1968) shows off a foxy gay puppet!, Buried Treasure (1928) the world's first erotic and kinky animated short will bring down the house, while Sandy Sunrise in The Babysitter (1970s), 

a Triple XXX short combines themes of babysitting and vegetables with minds of their own, featuring music by the Beach Boys 'Smiley Smile' (!) album. Plus! Rare tidbits from the NY Erotic Film Festival, Weird and erotic commercials and the Cheap Smut Give-A-Way!

Date: Friday, July 27, 2012 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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

I Was Born, But... The Ocean Track - Thurs. July 26 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Christine Kwon present I Was Born, But... The Ocean Track. The program employs the music and mood of recording artist Frank Ocean as story elements of a visual journey through the artist's underlying themes‑the exploration of birth, sex, mundaneness and surreal existence. Highlights include much-beloved children's story Where the Wild Things Are (1974), an animated sex tutorial Sex, Booze, and Blues, and Those Pills You Use (1982), Charlie Chaplin classic The Tramp (1915) and segments from Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar (1959) and adventure film Sheherazade (1963) starring Anna Karina. Paired with Ocean's layered melodies and haunting lyrics, this cine-sound program seeks to capture the tones of love, loss and longing pervasive in the musician's work.

Date: Thursday, July 26th, 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

Picture This: Image-Making from the Scratch Pad to the Silver Screen - Thurs. July 19 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present Picture This: Image-Making from the Scratch Pad to the Silver Screen, a freewheeling look at the ways we immortalize the stuff of life. Scratch pad doodles come to life in Trikfilm (1973). Norman McLaren's Boogie Doodle (1941) gives a squiggle the grace of an Astaire. The powdering of a shiny nose is more bizarrely beautiful as one of the Moving X-Rays (1950). Oscar winning Frank Film (1973) weaves magazine cut-outs into a mid-century portrait of American plenty. The raw material of memories, Kodak photo-paper, rolls out in dizzying quantity to be Behind Your Photos (1970s). Can colorful payphone tokens re-enact a convincing shoot 'em up? Mais oui, as Le Western (1971) proves. Art Talent Test (date unknown) can assess your aptitude with science! Busby Berkeley pushed movie iconography a step further when he conjured up a thousand Ruby Keelers for the show stopping I Only Have Eyes for You number from the 1934 musical Dames. And more eye-popping surprises, as well as the usual home-baked treats from the Kurator's Kitchen!

Date: Thursday, July 19th, 2012 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco

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

So You Think You Know Dance? - Fri. July 20 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Kat Shuchter bring you So You Think You Know Dance?, a sumptuous evening dedicated to the art of Dance and the transformative nature of film to bring that art and beauty out in new and innovative ways.  The grande dame of modern dance, Martha Graham, brings us into her studio as her dancers demonstrate the techniques created and imparted to them by the pioneering dancer and choreographer in A Dancer's World (1957).  Maya Deren's A Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945) serves both to capture dance as well as transform it into a post-modern work of art. The two biggest names in on-screen hoofing, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, team up for a Heavenly dance-off in The Babbitt and the Bromide (1945).  Lili St. Cyr, the one-time Queen of Burlesque, dirty dances her way clean in Bubble Bath Dance(1952).  Canadian experimental animator Norman McLaren uses optical superimposition to give us his ethereal vision of ballet in the breathtaking Pas De Deux (1968).  Finally, we will see the true synthesis of dance, art, and music in the stunning piece Merce Cunningham (1964), that features not only the visionary choreographer, but his collaboration with masters in their own fields, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg.  It is a night of beauty, movement, and artistry that may inspire you to get out of your seat and move your feet!


Date:Friday, July 12 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

Spooky Booky! Fri. July 13 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Landon Bates bring you Spooky Booky!, a program of spooktacular gothic literary adaptations that will bring out the boo! in book.  This Friday the 13th, take a break from all your mid-summer sun-tanning and recede for an evening into the shadows, with a program of live action short story adaptations, as well as animated interpretations of several classically creepy poems.  The selections include The Hangman (1964), a semi-surrealistic animated rendering of Maurice Ogden's poem; a made-for-TV adaption of William Faulkner's cobweb-infested A Rose for Emily (1983), starring Anjelica Huston in the title role; The Raven (1978), an experimental take on Edgar Allen Poe's nightmarish verse, designed from the engravings of Gustave Dore; The Boarded Window (1973), from a ghastly Ambrose Bierce tale; and lastly, an animation of  Samuel Taylor Coleridge's spectral Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1967), powerfully narrated by Sir Richard Burton.  These films will leave your skin crawling and your spine tingling!

Date: Friday, July 13th, 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

Black Music In America - Thurs. July 12 - 8PM

Oddball Films brings you Black Music In America, an evening saluting the great contribution of African American artists to the musical and cultural landscape of the mid-20th century.  From Blues, to Jazz, to Motown, to Funk, with shorts, documentaries, performances and portraits.  Including a rare screening of Bessie Smith's only screen performance before her tragic death, St. Louis Blues (1929).  Then, Louis Prima and Keely Smith get a little rowdy at Lake Tahoe in The Wildest (1958).  Street-guitarist, singer and ordained minister, Blind Gary Davis (1964) plays us some blues and takes us around Harlem.  Learn about the men behind the music, in James Brown - The Man(1967) and Eddie Kendricks (1973), a portrait of the former Temptation.  With the comprehensive documentary Black Music in America: From Then Till Now (1971) that explores the roots and progression of black music, including footage of Nina Simone, Duke Ellington and Sly and the Family Stone.  It is sure to be one soulful and funky evening!


Date:Thursday, July 12th 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 Scene of the Mutant Gene! Fri. July 6 - 8PM

Oddball Films and guest curator Emily Schleiner present The Scene of the Mutant Gene!, featuring films about DNA, heredity, mutants, and genetic throwbacks!  Be amazed by the antics of mutant monsters, heredity, inheritance and see the results of science experiments on DNA long before  Jurassic Park made its debut and Dolly the sheep walked the Earth! This program features excerpts from Creature From The Black Lagoon, a water monster spine-tingler from 1954, directed by Jack Arnold and starring Richard Carlson and Julia Adams. This film series awed 1950s audiences with nothing less than a fish-humanoid monster with a penchant for lady scientists! Future Shock, a 1972 documentary narrated by Orson Welles, about speedy future technologies and our human inability to keep up with the times; segments from the creature feature sequel Revenge of the Creature (1955) - the monster transplanted to a water park in Florida, only to fall for the beautiful scientist overseeing it (him?) again!  In the dated and British-English accented A Clone of Frogs (1979) documentary, scientists create albino frogs. See the amazingly small tools and substances these scientists use when creating clones!  The Double Helix (1960s) will teach you about the complex machinery used to study DNA and view a photograph of the moment when DNA splits! Find out whether dinosaurs still walk the Earth when a group of stalwart scientist explorers follow a journal entry written by their deceased colleague in the 1925 silent classic A Lost World, directed by Harry O. Hoyt with stop motion special effects by Willis O'Brien. In My Mother Was Never a Kid (1980s) a young girl travels back in time to meet her mother as a girl, discovering just how similar they really are!  In the final creature sequel, The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), the renegade monster is captured and changed into an air-breathing monster by a wealthy scientist, making the monster truly unstoppable!  Plus!  Excerpts from a 1935 version of Dante’s Inferno in which a wayward father attempts to derail his son from a path of greed and treachery.  Scenes of smoke machines and writhing semi-clothed people abound! 

     

 

Date: Friday, July 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.

America the Strange - Thurs. July 5 - 8PM

Oddball Films present America The Strange. An evening of odd Americana on film, this program highlights the most masterful animations, campy educationals and downright bizarre safety films in Oddball Films 50,000 reel collection. Featuring: Vince Collins' supremely psychedelic animated tribute to our nation's bicentennial 200 (1975); precursor to Super Size Me and Food Inc., All American Meal (1976) is a little gem of an educational that warns of the dangers of processed food; and a kooky safety film starring a fire puppet (!) Fireworks (1970s). Peter Fonda in his trademark Captain America helmet narrates and stars with the quintessential American Evel Knievel in Not So Easy (1973) - a "hip" motorcycle safety film; comedy where you least expect it in Sewage Treatment Workers (1970) an entertain short focusing on 3 New York sewage workers, their unusual job and how they get through the day; and  The Star Spangled Banner with vintage meat, bbq, beer and junk food commercials, and some tributes to recently departed American icons. Plus! An American Time Capsule (1968), 200 years of American history in 3 minutes, and much more American mayhem!

Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012 at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

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