Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro, present Unstoppable: The Many Moods of Momentum, a relentless exploration of the forces of physics and emotion with filmmakers like Chuck Jones, Claude Lelouch, Arthur Lipsett, and Halas and Batchelor. Classic cartoons, crash test footage, experimental cinema, silent Wonder Dogs and a school film or two tell tales of inertia spun out of control! Wheels, Wheels, Wheels (1970) is an exciting thrills and spills look the very symbol of go, go, go! From Britain's Halas and Batchelor studio, the endearingly animated Hoffnung’s Palm Court Orchestra (1965) are the very model of perseverance as they play on in the face of absurd disasters. Is the stuff of life piling up or collapsing in the brilliant Arthur Lipsett’s dream-like, experimental Free Fall (1964)? When a silent era wonder dog gets in on the chase in Teddy at the Throttle (1917), he’s a true star and action hero. Two furious views of Paris: Claude Lelouch’s Rendezvous (1977) puts you in the driver’s seat for a wild ride through the City of Lights while Allegro Ma Troppo (1963) is a mesmerizing nuit dans Paris at a dizzying 2 frames a second. Wile E. Coyote just won’t quit, as we will see yet again in two zippy and zany cartoons from the legendary Chuck Jones; Hopalong Casualty (1960) and Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958). See the quirky, squeaky Rube Goldberg contraption of Mouse Activated Candle Lighter (1973). Plus, more speedy surprises! And from the Kurator’s Kitchen: complimentary home-baked treats for all attendees!
Date: Friday, August 22nd, 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/2014/08/unstoppable-many-moods-of-mome…
Highlights Include:
Teddy at the Throttle (B+W, 1917, Clarence Badger)
As early as 1917, the serial genre was already ripe for spoofing. Mack Sennett had just the folks to do it: Gloria Swanson needs a hero to save her from her villainous guardian Wallace Beery! Keystone Teddy, one of the early Wonder Dogs of Hollywood, comes to the rescue, his $350 per week star quality blazing in an action-packed chase.
Free Fall . . . (B+W, 1964, Arthur Lipsett)
Manipulation of the found footage, images and sounds, at times still and quiet, at times frantic and jarring, suggest a surrealist dream of man's fall from grace. The filmmaker himself called it an “attempt to express in filmic terms an intensive flow of life – a vision of a world in the throes of creativity – the transformation of physical phenomena into psychological ones.”
Rendezvous (Color, 1977 Claude Lelouch)
A high-speed drive through the empty streets of Paris. No dialogue, no script, no plot, no special effects and no editing… just a chance to show off a new stabilized camera with a single shot of an eight-minute drive through a city dawn. From Porte Dauphine to the Sacré Coeur, the unseen Mercedes-Benz 450SEL (driven by Lelouch himself) varooms across broad boulevards and swerves around tight corners, other cars and une grandmere ou deux, reportedly reaching speeds of 150 mph.
Allegro Ma Troppo (Color, 1963 Paul Roubaix)
A Parisian evening, conveyed through imaginative cinematography of the life of Paris between 6PM and 6AM shot at two frames per second utilizing automatic cameras. From strippers to car crashes, Roubaix’s Allegro Ma Troppo evokes the intensity and variety of nocturnal life in the City of Light through speeded-up action, freeze-frame, and virtuoso editing.
Beep, Beep (1952), Whoa, Be-Gone! (1958) (Chuck Jones, Color)
Two kinds of unstoppable in one frantic cartoon pairing! Roadrunner has the speed, but when it comes to out-of-control determination, no one beats Wile E. Coyote. Anvils, explosives, tornado seed, giant rubber bands and dynamite-rigged bird feeders Wile E. has tried it all and then tried it all over again, peppering the Southwestern landscape with coyote-shaped holes. Two of Chuck Jones's epics of desert mayhem will be featured in tonight’s program.
The Mouse Activated Candle Lighter (Color, 1973)
Watch this fascinating Rube Goldberg device consisting of a mouse trap, fishing pole, alarm clock, ice pack, train motor, rubber band, match and candle illustrates various forms of kinetic energy.
Wheels , Wheels , Wheels (Color, 1969)
Why have some dry narrator explain the physical properties of wheels when this action-packed montage of motion is the perfect excuse for a smoking soundtrack? The brass fueled score complements the big, the fast and the industrial, but some very tiny wheels are here too. If it goes round, round, round it’s where it’s at for these groovy filmmakers.
Hoffnung Palm Court Orchestra (Color, 1965, John Halas)
No matter what the calamity, from fire to shipwreck and beyond, this blissful trio plays on in sweet, sweet oblivion. A colorful cartoon take on the veddy, veddy British idea of keeping calm and carrying on, from the makers of Oddball fave Birds, Bees and Storks.
And even more Speedy Surprises!
Plus! For the Early Arrivals!
Love, Honor and Oh Boy!
A Pathe newsreel featuring a dance marathon wedding as well as other novelty nuptials, and other surprises.
About the Curator
Over the past two decades, Lynn Cursaro has worked in research and administrative positions a variety of Bay Area film organizations. On September 21st she will be presenting the 1953 feature film LITTLE FUGITIVE as a guest curator at Yerba Buena Center of the Arts’ Invasion of the Cinemaniacs series.
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, educationals, 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.
