Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...about your Feelings: An Emotional Shockucation, the fifteenth 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're dealing with our emotions; those mighty forces of rage, pain, fear and love! A white-coater explains the basic emotions and uses the tale of angry young Jeff to explain how anger can ruin everybody's day in the mental-hygiene classic Control Your Emotions (1950). Can young Kristy McNichol change her feelings of anger to love when her new step-mother takes over her class and she's determined to take the new teacher down in the abridged ABC Afterschool Special Me and Dad's New Wife (1976). We've got a double-dose of musicalamities when Larry Klingman and the Feelings gang get little kids to sing about their icky emotions with the fearful I'm Feeling Scared (1974) and the rage-filled I'm Mad at Me (1974). Former NFL-star turned needle-point enthusiast, Rosey Grier tells you that It's Alright to Cry from that quintessential hippy-parenting guide Free to Be You and Me (1974). Kindergarteners hand-draw the story of John and his search for an escape from his pain through drugs and alcohol in A Story About Feelings (1981). And we'll examine whether those enthralling pangs of early love will lead to a happy marriage or devastation in Is This Love? (1957). Plus emotional excerpts from Help Me!: The Story of a Teenage Suicide (1970s), The Fears of Children (1951) and an interpretive dance about the metaphysical walls we construct from Walls and Walls (1973).
Date: Friday, May 16th, 2014 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Highlights Include:
Me and Dad's New Wife (Color, 1976)
Kristy McNichol heads the teen-star studded cast of this emotional Afterschool Special about a young girl coming to terms with her father's remarriage. When Nina's new step-mother ends up being her new teacher, she raises a classroom rebellion that leads to her step-mother's resignation. Will Nina learn her lesson and learn to like and maybe even love her new step-mother? Co-starring Leif Garrett, Jimmy McNichol, Lance Kerwin and the ill-fated Alexa Kenin and directed by Larry Elikan.
Control Your Emotions (B+W, 1950)
In this classic mental-hygiene primer from Coronet Films, A white coat scientist introduces the range of emotions in relation to a burning fire. Then, we visit with angry Jeff who gets upset at school and loses his cool (and his sh*t) all over town.
I’m Feeling Scared (Color, 1974)
Come on out and learn the ‘feelings song’ tonight! That’s right, there’s a song for kids and the kid in all of us about how to deal with the feelings and emotions that come up when faced with events like jumping off a diving board, being called to the principal’s office, meeting new people, and having a dog bark at you. Don’t be frightened, it’s ok!
It’s Alright To Cry from Free to be...You and Me (Color, 1974)
Rosey Grier was an NFL star turned Renaissance Man, presidential bodyguard, singer, actor, needlepoint enthusiast, and Christian Minister. In this comforting ballad, “The Gentle Giant” teaches girls and boys alike that a little tearfest never hurt anyone, and even one of the Fearsome Foursome can be “sad and grumpy, down in the dumpy.”
I'm Mad at Me (Color, 1974)
Did you ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Did it effect the way you treated those people around you? Didn't you just want to punch somebody? Did you then commence to sing a high-pitched song about it all day? Well both Jimmy and Suzy are having a day like that. I hope they can find out who they're really mad at!
A Story About Feelings (Color, 1981)
This should really be called "A Story about Chemical Dependence as Drawn by 5-year-olds". A handful of tots illustrate the tale of John, a guy that's after feeling good. When living straight isn't enough for John, he turns first to alcohol and then to drugs to feel good.
Curator’s Biography
Kat Shuchter is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, artist and esoteric film hoarder. She has helped program shows at the PFA, The Nuart and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater and was crowned “Found Footage Queen” of Los Angeles, 2009.
About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.
