SF Doc Fest is fully underway, and Oddball Films is making its mark! We provided footage to two opening night films, Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk and Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton, and our director Stephen Parr heads to the Roxie Theater next Wednesday, June 13th at 7:15 PM for another iteration of Sonic Oddities, a live cinema-sound collaboration featuring local musician bran(...)pos. Sonic Oddities Live Tuesday, June 13th 7:15 PM Sonic Oddities is Stephen Parr’s cinematic and auditory collision of film shorts, clips, fragments and reprocessed sounds. Drawn from… Read more
The 60s counterculture overturned American politics, but it also radically transformed the practice of religion in America. On Thursday, May 25th, at 8:00 PM, local author, cultural historian, and PhD Erik Davis will be showing choice selections from Oddball Films' vast archive of 60s and 70s era stock footage, amateur films, home movies, pro documentaries, and experimental films in order to explore the many facets of hippie religion. James Whitney's celebrated visionary short "Lapis" will get us in the mood for a spiritual carnival ranging from Dionysian Acid Tests to Alan Watts' Zen, Jesus… Read more
Next Thursday, March 16th, at 8:00 PM, Oddball Films invites you to an intimate evening with author and musicologist Richie Unterberger, inaugurating our new Cinema Soiree Series featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights, with a Q+A to follow. Unterberger will be here to present Pop Music Explosion: Film Footage Fantasia, featuring a plethora of footage and rock music film clips curated exclusively from the Oddball Films archives. Oddball Films, the largest archive in Northern California, is a major source of offbeat historical and contemporary… Read more
Oddball Films invites you to an intimate evening with author and musicologist Richie Unterberger, inaugurating our new Cinema Soiree Series featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights, with a Q+A to follow. Unterberger will be here to present Pop Music Explosion: Film Footage Fantasia, featuring a plethora of footage and rock music film clips curated exclusively from the Oddball Films archives. Oddball Films, the largest archive in Northern California, is a major source of offbeat historical and contemporary footage for feature films, television… Read more
Our 2017 events series begins tonight at 8:00 PM at the Swedish American Hall, where we will be co-presenting WHEN I LAY MY BURDEN DOWN with the Noise Pop Film Series. Join us for an evening of music films shot over six decades by the famed collector and researcher of folk music Alan Lomax. And speaking of music, we will once again be opening our doors for 2017's premiere Cinema Soiree next month. On March 16th, author and musicologist Richie Unterberger will join us in person at Oddball for Pop Music Explosion: Film Footage Fantasia. Expect more information from us about this program next… Read more
We’d like to thank everyone for attending our screenings, soirees, and seminars. Our weekly film series has come to a close. In 2017 we will be presenting select events: We will be continuing our seasonal seminars and cinema soirees featuring writers, directors, and curators. Our premiere event, Pop Music Explosion: Film Footage Fantasia on March 16, 2017, is a cinema soiree with Richie Unterberger, author and musicologist. Going forward, these newsletters will be sent out monthly to give you the latest on upcoming events. In presenting a new special events series, we are building on an… Read more
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). Trends (1967) is a quirky, animated futurist film by Hungary’s first animated feature film director. Westworld Production Short (1973) goes behind the scenes into a Michael Crichton film about futuristic amusement parks for the ultra-wealthy. Future Shock , a 1972 documentary narrated by Orson Welles, about speedy future technologies and our human inability to keep up with the times. Zip off into the future in space… Read more
Oddball Films is taking a little break and will not be having any screenings for the remainder of 2016, so you will have to wait until next year to get your fix of obscure and eclectic cinephemera. Here's hoping your holidays are painless and your feastings are plentiful!
Boswell's Bon Voyage Color 1966 Boswell, a shaggy DOG, stows away on the S.S. France (ship) for a wondrous trip through Europe and North Africa. His escapades abroad are a delight for all children who love DOGs and adventures in far away places. Shots include Paris, Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Seine, windmill, donkey, Venice, gondola, DOG chases pigeons, DOG runs through the grass, walks on the beach, plays in the surf, Egypt, pyramids, camel, DOG on boat in the Mediterranean, DOG runs along road in Rome, coins in fountain - DOG goes after them, wet DOG, DOG on boat back to USA, sees Statue… Read more
Oddball Films is letting you in on some of our most recent stock footage projects in film, television, commercials and more. Recent highlights include providing offbeat footage for the credits for the Emmy nominated series Transparent, The New York Times, Ray Donovan as well as the documentary series OJ: Made in America and We've Been Around about transgender trailblazers. We also did research for Jim Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop documentary Gimme Danger , retro-tech for Danny Boyle’s Academy Award nominated Steve Jobs. And wouldn’t you know it? They came to us when they wanted some 70s smut for The… Read more
People love to talk about us! From the Huffington Post to the SF Weekly, our massive collection and unique screenings have impressed, baffled, and inspired folks all over the world. Read what they're saying about the country's strangest film archive. From the Huffington Post: The Archivist's Dilemma: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-nirenberg/the-archivists-dilemma-… An Oddball in Youtube's World from Priceonomics: http://priceonomics.com/an-oddball-in-youtubes-world/ A Reel Less Ordinary from the SF Weekly: https://www.sfweekly.com/film/a-reel-less-ordinary-kat-shuchter-and-the… Stephen… Read more
Oddball Films presents Boozers, Users, and Losers - Vintage Drug and Alcohol Scare Films, a program of mind-expanding, terror-intending and hilarity-inducing short 16mm educational films about the dangers of drugs. These classroom classics from the 1950s through the 1980s were meant to scare the pants off the junior-high set but probably encouraged as many to experiment with drugs and alcohol as it discouraged. Watch mice get drunk and drunks flip cars in the teen drunk-driving scare film None for the Road (1957). Real teens talk about their dalliances with substance abuse in the classroom… Read more
Oddball Films presents Surrealism in Animation, a night of 16mm animated shorts from the 1940s-1980s that delve into the non-narrative world of surrealism and dream logic. Realism is overrated and this program explores the magnitude of creative expression when freed from the constraints of rational and linear structures. Get looney with the Salvador Dali-inspired cartoon Dough For the Do-Do (1949), a tribute to surrealism starring Porky Pig. Porky also visits a house haunted with leprechauns and is transported to another Dali-esque landscape in Chuck Jones' The Wearing of the Grin (1951).… Read more
Oddball Films presents The Spectre of Fascism - Echoes from Totalitarianism, a program of international 16mm short films, documentaries and animation reflecting on the 20th century's history of fascism and it's repercussions both artistic and humanitarian. With subversive stop-motion animation from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia, dark allegories of political conformity and rebellion, Alain Resnais' definitive Holocaust documentary short, and even Don@ld Duck as a Nazi, it is a powerful night giving testament to the power of the indomitable human spirit in the face of fascism. Alain… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes moving image artist Kerry Laitala to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Laitala will be returning to the cinestage to present Celluloid Scopophilia: The Sensual Dimensions of the Human Body, a film program that examines the fetishization of the human body through rare medical and first aid films as well as vintage fetish shorts, Laitala's own handmade films, and live musical accompaniment from Wobbly. Celluloid Scopophilia is a program that treads the line… Read more
Oddball Films will be closed this week for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We hope you have a delicious time with your friends and family and will come see us in December for more eclectic and entertaining programming.
Oddball Films presents Baby Animal Bonanza , a night of 16mm short nature films from the 1930s-1970s all starring the cutest baby monkeys, kittens, bears, foxes, skunks, bunnies, otters, puppies and more. After a grim week in American politics and morale, we here at Oddball know you could use a little distraction with an onslaught of adorable baby animals from yesteryear. Two Black Bear Twins (1952) snack on bacon hung off trees and make a mess of a campsite in this misinformed nature film. The depression-era Tiffany Chimps try to sneak their baby into various hotel rooms with a wide array of… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema , a monthly evening of old finds, rare gems and newly discovered films from the stacks of the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints-the largest archive in Northern California, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 106th program of offbeat, quirky, experimental outtakes and unusual films. Strange Sinema 106: Computeresque: Experiments With Light + Technology , a program of films examining the early use of light and computers in cinema featuring pioneers of computer-generated art. The centerpiece of the program is… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Pre-Code Betty Boopathon!, a program of 16mm cartoons from 1930-1934 from the Fleischer Brothers starring the original cartoon sexpot and the most popular female cartoon character of all time: Betty Boop. Dave and Max Fleischer were true animation pioneers; the first to introduce sound in animation and creators of rotoscoping (tracing human movement from film) as well as the originators of Popeye, the first Superman cartoons and more. They also introduced the world to one of its sexiest and most beloved cartoon heroines ever. The Betty Boop… Read more
In honor of Veteran's Day, Oddball Films presents Hey Sailor! Antique Naval VD, Training, and Ephemeral Films, a program of short films and cartoons from the 1930s-1950s centered on those brave fighting seamen who sailed the seas of yesteryear. We've got VD scare films, awkward enema lessons, Popeye cartoons, sailor chimps, musical numbers, and naked sailors galore, all on original 16mm film from our massive stock footage archive. We're declassifying two homoerotic rarities from the US Navy: dozens of naked sailors go full frontal for their medical exam and a hands on posture lesson in… Read more
