Oddball Films presents Computerized - Yesterday's Technology for Tomorrow, a program of vintage films about the rise of computer technology and the early predictions for an automated future. From Isaac Asimov Sci-Fi to early computer generated animation, outdated educational films and more, take a look at the future of technology through the eyes of the past. Look into employment opportunities and find out if Careers in Computer Services (1983) are for you. Isaac Asimov's All The Troubles of the World (1978) details a computercide plot in a world run by the omnipotent Multivac. Di$ney… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes moving image artist Kerry Laitala to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Kerry Laitala is a media archaeologist who uses analog, digital, and hybrid forms to present traces of forgotten technologies from the distant and recent past. Laitala's work resides at the crossroads of science, art, history, and her uncanny approach to evolving systems of belief through installation, photography, para-cinema, performance, kinetic sculpture, and single-channel forms. Laitala… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present What the F(ilm)?!: All-American Cine-insanity from the Archive, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. This month we're featuring a cornucopia of insane-Americana with Di$ney war-propaganda, fire puppets, psychedelic animation, atomic scare films and even a naked marching band. Walt Di$ney and Donald Duck help out in the war effort in The Spirit of '43 (1943), a bit of good old fashioned cartoon propaganda. Psychedelic animator Vince Collins produced the mind-bending animation 200 (… Read more
Oddball Films presents Sexual Miseducation, a night of vintage 16mm sex ed shorts, burlesque, smut and stag films from the 1910s-1970s. This sinful program features tons of new discoveries from the archive, including one of the very first pornos, stop-motion bean bags getting it on, homegrown local erotica, and even stereoscopic nudies. Peter Sellers voices a bumbling father explaining sex to his child in the hilarious Halas and Batchelor cartoon Birds, Bees and Storks (1965). Find out Are You Ready For Sex? (1978) with the help of a bearded doctor and several melodramatizations. Hop on… Read more
Oddball Films presents All-American Eccentrics, an evening of portrait documentaries and short films about outlandish, endearing and out-there characters from a selection of notable and award-winning filmmakers. Head out for a beer, with a bull in the hilarious and horrifying documentary Manimals (1978), about people who keep exotic pets in their New York City apartments from Oscar-winner Robin Lehman. Meet Emperor Norton (1948), the famed 19th century SF resident and self-proclaimed "Emperor of these United States". In Jerry’s Restaurant (1976), famed filmmaker Tom Palazzolo portrays a… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Christina Yglesias present How to be an Artist. This mix of never before screened gems and oddball classics will include instructional art films, experimental weirdness, sexy sculptors, and meditations on the meaning of art itself. First, see if you have what it takes for a career in the arts with Art Talent Test (1950s) feauturing Michael Kent, "world-renowned talent scout". If you pass the test, move on to Sculpture: Process of Discovery (1975). Rock sculptor Norm Hines will wow you with his thoughtful process and his rock hard abs in this accidentally erotic… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema, 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 89th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 89: Visionaries of Time and Space, explores artists working with speed and light, time and space. By slowing and accelerating time, compressing and distorting space (and distance), arresting and suggesting movement, these filmmakers explode the… Read more
Incredible Machine (Color, 1968) The crew from Bell Laboratories demonstrates novel uses of the computer in audio-visual communication research: computer generated graphics; computer-assisted design of an electronic circuit drawn with a light-pen on a cathode-ray tube; simulation of human speech and singing; and composition of music and of abstract or figurative color pictures and animation films. Experiments in Motion Graphics (Color, 1968, John Whitney) One of the pioneers of computer graphics and filmmaking, John Whitney, muses on the graphic and art making potential of the computer. The… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes award-winning video pioneer Denise Gallant to our Cinema Soiree, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. This show represents 40 years of video effects by Denise Gallant, continually using the Synopsis Video Synthesizer, an early analog synth, designed by Rob Schafer and built by Denise Gallant. The core concept of the Synopsis Video Synth was to be completely interactive with music, which was unique among early video synthesizers. It was also one of the first video synths to make use of the… Read more
Oddball Films presents OBEY: Brainwashing, Thought-Control and Shock Therapy, a program of 16mm films from the archive that explore the malleable nature of the human mind and those that would seek to manipulate that nature into obedience and conformity. From psychology to psychiatry, cults to cartoons; this one-of-a kind program will leave you wondering who is really in control of your brain. Behold the marvels of "modern" psychiatry in the 1950s, including an unabashed look at shock therapy as one method of mental conditioning in What's on your Mind? (1956). From one shock, to another; view… Read more
Oddball Films presents Sex, Death and Cartoons, a program of strange, sexy, dark, sinful and unsettling animation from around the world. From the pornographic to the educational, this program offers the sometimes surreal and always imaginative animated interpretations of two of the most important aspects of life, Sex and Death . The devilish delights of this program include a pencil-drawn version of a 19th century British folk song Widdecombe Fair (1948) about an ill-fated trip to the fair on an old grey mare for Tom Pierce and a dozen of his closest friends. Tex Avery brings us a sexy… Read more
Oddball Films presents Scientific Psychedelia, a program of eye-popping short science and nature films from the 1920s-1980s that capture nature's most surreal, kaleidoscopic and magnificent moments. From microscopic creatures and processes to a space landscape in 3D, to the intricacies of animal movement, these films will open your eyes to the natural wonders that lay within and beyond our own eyesight. Join Homer Groening (Matt's father) as he recontextualizes water and creates a Study in Wet (1964). Behold the ghostly landscapes of our closest planet in Mars in 3D: Images from the Viking… Read more
Oddball Films is kicking off pride month with Underground Queer Cinema , a program of vintage 16mm low-budget, high-concept films from the 1950's through the 1970's that defied the boundaries of sexuality, narrative and (at times) good taste; featuring campy drag fairy-tales, homoerotic experimental works, the transgender superstars of Warhol's factory, and more. Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1964), is an experimental masterpiece of homoeroticism, bikers, occultism and groovy girl groups. The camptastic Sinderella (1962) retells an age-old fairy tale with a dragnificent twist for a new… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...About Safety: A Dangerous Shockucation, the 27th in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, we are getting safe with exploding dolls, stop-motion creeps, google-eyed punching bags, broken bones, eyeball surgery, monkey children, choking babies and more! Playground Safety: The Peepercorns (1975) warns you to not have too much fun on the playground, unless you want to end up like the peepercorns,… Read more
Oddball Films presents Guitar Stories, a trio of documentary portraits of legendary guitarists Les Paul, Blind Gary Davis and Elizabeth Cotten. This musical and historical program will allow you uncover the captivating people behind the strings and the experiences that shaped their sound. Discover the endless accomplishments and the endearing nature of the man, the myth, the machine: Les Paul in the funny and fascinating The Wizard of Waukesha (1979). With engaging and candid interviews and archival footage, Paul takes us from his early days in radio, jazz and big band up through his guitar… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you (Un) Feminist Flashback - Sexist Absurdities from Yesteryear, a program of 16mm short films from the 1940s-1980s exemplifying the patronizing, sexist and misogynistic tones and themes designed to keep women in their place and make their progress seem quaint and precious. By scoffing and laughing at these offensively antiquated and cringe-worthy newsreels, educational films, commercials and other ephemera, we can see what progress we've made in the fight for equality, but also the steps that still need to be taken. L earn how to make-up your… Read more
Accent on Beauty (B+W, 1930s) A beautiful young lady demonstrates her makeup routine, while the audience gets a behind the scenes look at how makeup is made, or rather, how it was made in the early '30s. Those bottles and jars filled with the promise of loveliness are a serious business, requiring both big scary machines and delicate hands. Exotic ingredients, precise manufacturing methods and skilled technicians come together to make de luxe miracles for milady's dressing table. Beauty for a Career (Color, 1962) Cindy is sad, she's all alone now that her best girlfriends have all left town… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 88: Groundbreakers of the Avant Garde - a once monthly evening of newly discovered and avant-garde rarities from the stacks of the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 88th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This program features a wide array of films focused on groundbreaking, avant-garde and experimental filmmakers and artists that have shocked, thrilled, mesmerized, bored and disrupted conventional cinematic aesthetics. Additionally, selected shorts… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes Bay Area artist, filmmaker and archivist tooth to our Cinema Soirée , a monthly soirée featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. This month, we bring you Quadratura Circuli: a program incorporating a recent film cycle of performative and single channel 16mm and super 8mm works by Bay Area filmmaker tooth screened with a collection of pieces by other artists chosen for a filmic conversation that looks at the recurrent cyclic forms of the circle, sphere, and spiral throughout cultural and natural histories as a… Read more
Oddball Films presents The Future is Fuzzy - Science Fiction Strangeness with a whole star fleet of science fiction weirdness on 16mm film with works by heavy-hitters Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. A ship full of cat-faced and wookie-esque aliens attempt to save the people of Earth before the sun explodes, but maybe it's them that need the saving in the utterly ridiculous Clarke adaptation Rescue Party (1978). In the future, technology can bring forward a neanderthal boy, but just because it can, does that mean it should? Find out in Isaac Asimov's Ugly Little Boy (1977).… Read more
