The Erté Era - Deco, Design and Dance from the 20s and 30s - Thur. Oct. 1st - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Erté Era - Deco, Design and Dance from the 20s and 30s, a night of films and clips that highlight Art Deco design.  From musical delights to animation, with experimental, documentary, comedy and ephemeral gems, it's going to be a gorgeous and entertaining evening. In Erté (1979), style icon Diana Vreeland narrates a portrait of the man that coined the phrase and single-handedly started the Art Deco movement through his art, advertisement, and costume design. See the construction of some of the Big Apple's deco architecture in Twenty Four Dollar Island (1927), Robert Flaherty’s portrait of New York City in the 1920s. Learn the secrets behind your makeup with the rare and exotic promotional short Accent on Beauty (1930s). George Pal's puppetoons take to the bandstand in the stunning stop-motion short Philips Broadcast of 1938 (1937).  The silent experimental piece The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1928) features an imaginative mix of miniatures and live-action to tell a bleak but beautiful tale of broken dreams. Betty Boop is a bit of a flapper as she teaches a dance class in the pre-code cartoon The Dancing Fool (1932). For a stint of comic relief, go decor shopping with George Burns and Gracie Allen in The Antique Shop (1931), a ridiculous and hilarious early short from the famous comedy duo.  Plus, a ton of jaw-dropping 1930s musical magic including Fred Astaire and a gaggle full of high-flying chorus girls in an eye-popping musical number from Flying Down to Rio (1933), the disembodied head and army of sparkling tap dancers in The Lullaby of Broadway (1935) from Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935, and go "Slummin' on Park Avenue" with Alice Faye and the Ritz Brothers in a gender-bending clip from On the Avenue (1937). Early birds will be serenaded by Buster Keaton and his juggling radio act in Grand Slam Opera (1936).

Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 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 

Futures Past - Vintage Visions of Tomorrow - Fri. Oct. 2nd - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Futures Past: Vintage Visions of Tomorrow, a night of films from the 20th Century that attempt to envision and predict the future. From documentary to comedy, sci-fi, animation, experimental and more, this is a multi-genred night of futurism from the 1900s through the 1980s.  Walter Cronkite and the folks at CBS News look forward to domesticity in the 21st Century including paper furniture and 3D TVs in At Home 2001 (1967).  Georges Melies applies his patented movie magic to imagine the very first lunar mission in A Trip to the Moon (1902).  Mr. Fox is excited to come back to life after his cryogenic defrosting, until he sees what life is like as only a head in the satirical sci-fi short Welcome Back Mr. Fox (1986).  In case you were worried that the world has run out of innovation and invention, turn to Lowell Thomas who is happy to report that the wells of innovation have yet to run dry in Frontiers of the Future (1937).  Donald Fox's optically printed Omega (1970) foretells the end of the world through a series of stunning images dissolving into ethereally apocalyptic visions. In the stunning No. 00173 (1969), Polish director Jan Habarta creates a bleak dystopian factory momentarily brightened by one beautiful butterfly. Plus! A robot band from Focus on Automation: Pushbuttons and Problems (1940s), The School of the Future (1960s) and even more futuristic surprises!

Date: Friday, October 2nd, 2015 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 

Strange Sinema 92: Too Cool - Fri. Sep. 25th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 92, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ vast collection of 16mm film prints. Drawing on his archive of over 50,000 films, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has complied his 92nd program of classic, strange, and unusual films. For Strange Sinema 92: Too Cool, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has curated a super-cool collection of teenage shorts that scream out COOL. These films, drawn from diverse genres such as mental hygiene, promotional, independent shorts, cartoons and documentaries examine the teenage lifestyle from the 1940s through 1970s touching everything from teen sex to shoplifting. These films are remarkable in their style, scope and cinematography. The program includes George Kaczender’s cool 1966 gem The Game, featuring mod rocking teens fumbling for play, Skater Dater (1965), the cult skateboarding/coming of age film made by Noel Black and featuring music by Davie Allen and the Arrows, United Airlines New York City (1968) a fast-paced NYC promo film featuring garage rockers The Churls, Turned On (1969), turned on kids at the beach with fast cars, heavy surf and a wild “Wipe-out” soundscore, The Day That Sang and Cried (1968), Dale Smallin’s (The Surfaris) groovy look at the inner life of a SoCal teen, Caught in a Rip-Off (1972) one of the best social guidance films ever made and proof that shoplifting will ruin your life!, Dating Do’s and Don’ts (1949), one of the campiest dating films ever (and a Oddball favorite), The Trendsetter (1970), Vera Linnecar's slyly animated commentary on hipness, and for the early birds, famed animator Chuck Jones unleashes his Lothario-skunk, Pepe Le Pew (and Penelope Pussycat), in the Oscar-winning cartoon For Scent-imental Reasons (1949).

Date: Friday, September 25th, 2015 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 

Cinema Soiree: Tommy Becker's Passing Periods - Thur. Sep 24th - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes media maker Tommy Becker to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Becker will be presenting Passing Periods- Reflections Through a Classroom Window, an expanded cinema performance that explores and celebrates the dynamics of the high school landscape and complexities of relations in the cultural construct of the classroom and beyond. Becker mixes poetics, performance, props and pop music into an eye-popping and toe-tapping experience. Blending virtuoso editing and fx with archival footage, Becker's brilliant, off-kilter works incorporate satire, menace and humor in an live, immersive environment. This 80-minute performance revolves around eight music-based essays that combine live vocals with projected video and pre-recorded sound. Within the program, the role of color in art history, the vitality of lemons as educational inquiry and the ebb and flow of our interpersonal lives is viewed through PowerPoint and celebrated in song.  The program includes Song for Hellos and Goodbyes (2013), Song for the Pain Body (2014), Song for Awe and Dread (2015), Song for Disobedient Youth (2008), Song for Primary Colors (2013), Song for Failed Connections (2012), Song for the Lemons (2013), and Song for a Love Song (2014).  Before the show, we will be screening the bizarro 16mm classroom film Route One (1976) featuring one curious class and one very drunk dog!

Date: Thursday, September 24th, 2015 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

Video Demo: https://vimeo.com/115918636

MESS with Beat Poet ruth weiss - Fri. Sep. 18th - 8PM

Oddball Films is proud to present the seventh annual installment in the innovative interview-based series MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon) featuring a rare appearance of one of the first ladies of the Beat Generation: poet, playwright and artist ruth weiss. For one night only, Los Angeles media artist and curator Gerry Fialka will interview weiss in person on Oddball's Cine-Stage. MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon) is an engaging interview by Gerry Fialka with modern thinkers who will address the metaphysics of their callings and the nitty-gritty of their crafts. ruth weiss was one of the pre-eminent women of the largely male Beat Generation and a good friend of and collaborator with Jack Kerouac. A performer as well as a poet, weiss often combined live jazz music with her poetry (the first to do so) and organized jazz and poetry nights at The Cellar, a San Francisco beat club in the 1950s. In addition to this unique interview delving into weiss' fascinating personal and professional life, we will be screening weiss' rare cinematic film poem The Brink (1960) photographed by painter Paul Beattie. The Brink was described by Stan Brakhage as "one of the most important San Francisco films of the period." Plus, early arrivals will be treated to several 16mm beat rarities from the Oddball Archives before the show including rare footage of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and the beat rhapsody Help My Snowman is Burning Down (1964). 

Date: Friday, September 18th, 2015 at 8:00PM 
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 in advance or $15.00 at the door, Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com 

Cartoons Go To War: Animated Propaganda from WWII - Thur. Sep. 17th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Cartoons go to War: Animated Propaganda from WWII, a night of outlandish, hilarious and didactic cartoons from the 1940s (and a couple from the 1930s) calling for a patriotic spirit, heralding the soldiers, shilling war bonds and warning against the scourges of malaria and The Axis Powers. During World War II, cartoons changed to reflect the times, both heralding and roasting the war effort, doing their part to grease the American propaganda machine, demonizing the enemy and guilting viewers into patriotism, or simply just adding a bit of humor into an otherwise trying era.  Porky Pig reveals all America's goofiest secrets when he presents a faux-propaganda satire in Meet John Doughboy (1941).  Humor meets education in the US Army’s propaganda short Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (1944) written by Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel which shows Snafu (Situation Normal All F*cked Up) learning the hard way about the consequences of not protecting himself from malaria infection. Mosquitoes go to boot camp in the hilarious send up of War-time newsreels in Of Thee I Sting (1946). Di$ney got into the war effort in a number of films from a variety of perspectives.  In The Spirit of '43 (1943), Don@ld Duck is guilt tripped into filing his taxes (to defeat The Axis!); while in The Grain that Built a Hemisphere (1943), Di$ney touts the miracle properties of that native grain: corn; and in allegorical fashion, 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. Bugs Bunny gets in the patriotic spirit when he attempts to thwart a tiny gremlin hell-bent on detonating bombs at a US air base, in Falling Hare (1943).  The puppetoons take to the skies in George Pal's Sky Pirates (1938). Funny pages favorites Nancy and Sluggo help raise money for war bonds in Nancy and Sluggo Doin' Their Part (1944).  One World Or None (1946) is a postwar film warning against the new threat of total global nuclear annihilation.  Plus, an early version of Porky Pig in Boom Boom (1936), Woody Woodpecker flies a PU-2 bomber (get it? PU?) in Ace in the Hole (1942) and more surprises for the early birds!

Date: Thursday, September 17th, 2015 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 

Orphan Offerings: Refugee Reels from the 3TON Treasure Chest - Fri. Sep. 11

Oddball Films presents Orphan Offerings: Refugee Reels from the 3TON Treasure Chest, a unique program of various notable non-theatrical shorts, all on 16MM, this time selected from the stacks of 3TON Cinema’s DIY “film orphanage” in Oakland! Guest Curator Montgomery Cantsin returns to unravel a hidden history of so-called non-theatrical film—one which bursts at the seams with beautiful bastards, expired gems, quiet masterpieces and more. This evening’s reels, hand picked and wrangled by 3TON’s co-founder, runs the gamut: from fun to factual, animation to ethnographic, and from 1903 to 2014. Expect a potpourri of A/V delights and ‘other’ cinemas! Highlights include: Dragonfold and Other Ways to Fill Space (1979), an early computer animation by Bruce and Katharine Cornwell; Birth of a Mountain (1977), Bert Van Bork’s classic Kilauea eruption documentation; Piece for Grate (1975), a brief and hypnotic music film; Perilous Paradise (1950), a trip to Zambo Island; Free Fall (1964), Arthur Lipsett’s hallucinogenic tour de force; Bear Facts (1944), a cartoon featuring Kiko the Kangaroo; and Memo (2014), Cantsin’s own recent “de-instructional” experiment. Plus: newsreels, doodles, mutoscopes & more.  Arrive early for hand-altered bits, clowns, and a rare Frank Sinatra reel!

Date: Friday, September 11th, 2015 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

Learn Your Lesson from Alexa Kenin - A Memorial Afterschool Special Triple Feature - Thur. Sep. 10th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson from Alexa Kenin - A Memorial Afterschool Special Triple Feature, a special tribute to the child star Alexa Kenin who passed away 30 years ago to this day, under disputed and curious circumstances.  A talented girl with a seemingly bright future, Alexa Kenin died tragically at the age of 23, just as she was set to cross over into adult roles.  Cast and crew on her final film Pretty in Pink were told she died of asthma, while others heard rumors of being beaten to death by her boyfriend, and still others believe it was a drug overdose. Whatever the circumstances of her untimely death, we honor her legacy to the Learn your Lesson canon with a screening of 3 of the 5 (and an excerpt of a fourth) Afterschool Specials she co-starred in as well as trailers for her big screen work, including Little Darlings (courtesy of the Jenni Olson Queer Archive) and Pretty in Pink.  In her first special, The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon (1976), Kenin plays Boots McAfee, a tough as nails bad-ass that terrorizes the titular Duffy Moon as he attempts to summon his courage to confront her. In Me and Dad's New Wife (1976), she helps Kristy McNichol and Lance Kerwin play a nasty trick on Kristy's stepmom and new homeroom teacher.  In A Movie Star's Daughter (1979), she's the sassy editor of the school paper and the only one interested in the heroine for more than her father's fame. And in Make-Believe Marriage (1979) she's all ready to marry her jock boyfriend, until he fake marries the school's stubborn feminist, and begins to see marriage differently. Plus! A digital clip show of her film career with heavyweights like Bette Davis and Clint Eastwood. Come learn your lesson from the ballsiest child actress to grace the small and big screen and honor her legacy in an extra special evening.

Date: Thursday, September 10th, 2015 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com