Oddball Film s presents Strange Sinema 81: Time, Space and Movement , a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints , Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 81st program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This eye-popping program explores the themes of Time, Space and Movement (the representational essence of film). By slowing and accelerating time, compressing and distorting space (and distance), arresting and suggesting movement, these filmmakers explode the boundaries of… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes Author and Musicologist Richie Unterberger for our Cinema Soiree Series , a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. To mark the publication of the expanded ebook version of his book Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators & Eccentric Visionaries of '60s Rock, Unterberger will present clips of a dozen or so of the artists featured in the book. Over the course of several years in the mid-to-late 1960s, rock music changed more quickly and unpredictably than it did in any other… Read more
The San Francisco Media Archive and Oddball Films would like to welcome you to Home Movie Day in conjunction with the 12th Annual Worldwide Home Movie Day. Members of the public are invited to submit their home movies. Bring your films: 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, and even Beta and VHS home movies to SFMA where they will be inspected and viewed by HMD projectionists. Following the clinic, we'll be having a free screening of Vintage Home Movies . Films include Welcome San Francisco Movie Makers (1960); Italian-American Families in San Francisco (from Cresci-Tarantino collection); Blackie the Wonder… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Christina Yglesias present Mixers, Moogs, and Modulars: a Night of Electronic Music . This synth-y show features live electronic music performance , educational films about now-vintage technologies, amazing synthy scores, and some weird animation. Things will start off with a live set by local electronic musicians, Dan Steffy and Nick Wang, that use both old and new technology. Come early for extra listening! Next, we turn to the film Discovering Electronic Music (1983) for an awesome eighties education in all things synth and otherwise. With its quirky mix of… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Animation's Early Days , an evening of animation from the 1910s through the early 1930s hand-picked from the collection, including several super-rarities you won't see anywhere else. From the kooky to the spooky, silly to the sexy with a little Rudolf Ising, Friz Freleng, Paul Terry, the Fleischer Brothers, Lotte Reiniger, Ladislas Starevich, Walt Di$ney and imitators, just to name a few. Our earliest film; Ladislas Starevich's Cameraman's Revenge (1912) was one of the very first puppet films and features a delightful insect story of love, sex… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson All-Stars: A Celebrity Shockucation, the 20th 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're featuring a Who's Who of celebrities from the 1970s and 1980s with educational cameos from OJ Simpson, Richard Dreyfuss, Bill Cosby, Ally Sheedy, Michael Jackson, Roberta Flack, Sonny Bono, Peter Fonda, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Zach Galligan, Michael Keaton, Billy Jean King, Beau Bridges, Ken Howard, Marlo… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes Ladyfest Bay Area for a filmic celebration of strong powerful women throughout history in the program Sisters are Doin' It for Themselves. From lady wrestlers to big band leaders, musical numbers and animated inspirations, this multi-faceted program of vintage 16mm films documents the shifting role of women over the last 70 years and those pioneers that paved the way for women's equality. Films include Faith Hubley's Women of the World (1975), a beautiful animation about the many shifts of women's importance through history; Lipstick and Dynamite (1949) with two furious… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Psychedelicatessen: A Feast For The Eyes, a super fun, crazy night of our very favorite vintage eye-poppers, mind-benders, jaw-droppers and head-scratchers. From hallucinatory dental hygiene to swingin' promotional films to surreal cartoons, this is one night your eyes will thank you for, if they don't fall out of your head! The madness includes Match Your Mood (1968), a mind-bending advertisement for psychedelic 60's refrigerator covers; Le Monde Du Schizophrene ( The World of the Schizophrenic, 1969) a super-surreal, Salvador Dali-like film… Read more
Oddball Films presents Aqua Frolics - Underwater Adventures, an evening of antique aquatic wonderment. From Jacques Cousteau to underwater capers, surfing pin-ups and visionary Czech mixed-media, cartoons and more. The oceanic oddities include a large excerpt of The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958), an awe-inspiring and surreal vision of Verne’s novel “Face au drapeau” (“Facing the Flag”) with hand-painted backdrops, puppet fish and even an attack from a giant octopus, directed by legendary Czech animator Karel Zeman. Dive into the deep for some synchronized swimming and a turkey dinner… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present The Cartoon Genius of Chuck Jones, a night of cartoon hilarity from the brilliant mind of 4-time Oscar-winning animator Chuck Jones with some of his greatest shorts from the 1930s-1970s. From iconic characters to esoteric flights of fancy to wartime propaganda, this program offers a mere sampling of Jones' prodigious career spanning 7 decades and over 250 films. Chuck's first Oscar was rewarded for the stinky love story of Pepe Le Pew and Penelope Pussycat, For Scent-imental Reasons (1949). His third winner The Dot and the Line: A Romance in… Read more
Oddball Films presents Cine-Collage - Remixing the Moving Image, a program of collage films and animations all made decades before digital editing and youtube with works by Bruce Conner, Chuck Braverman, Arthur Lipsett, Frank Mouris, Animal Charm, Martin Arnold and even Tex Avery. Collage film began with the clever and brilliant Bruce Conner in the 1950s, recontextualizing bits of found footage and other film into a new, and completely unique message. While today, video mash-ups are plentiful and relatively easy to produce with the advent of digital editing, in the 1950s and 1960s, these… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes Ladyfest Bay Area for a filmic celebration of strong powerful women throughout history in the program. Seraphic Dialogue (Color, 1969) Pioneering modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham brings her unique artistry to the tale of Joan of Arc. This powerful and beautiful piece features dynamic sets by Isamu Noguchi. Women Of the World (WOW) (Color, 1975) Wife and partner of animator John Hubley (sharing several Oscars), Faith Hubley began work on Women of the World as her first solo project (with help from other women in her circle, including daughter Georgia (… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema , a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints , Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 80 th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema: Trance Cinema is an exploration into the cinematic documentation of altered states. Drawing on rare ethnographic and experimental acquisitions from the archives, this program showcases powerful healing ceremonies, ceremonial dances and ritualized trance states from… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes Author and Film Historian Jim Morton for our Cinema Soiree Series , a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. Film historian and editor of ReSearch’s Incredibly Strange Films, Morton has turned his attention to the films of East Germany and discovered that they are every bit as odd as anything from the West. He will be at Oddball Films for one night only to discuss the films of the former German Democratic Republic, with clips from some of his favorites. Some of these films have not yet been released in… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...from the 1980s - A Radical Shockucation, the nineteenth 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 are diving straight into the decade of decadence with an entire program of Oddball Premieres including Rapping Nutritional Primers, Christian Sex-Ed, Talking Fire Alarms, Cartoon Drug-Trips and so much more from the totally terrible 80s! Get rappin' about fast food and vegetables in the gut-busting… Read more
Oddball Films and curators Lynn Cursaro and Kat Shuchter present Condensed Cream of Chuck Braverman , a program celebrating the work of groundbreaking and Oscar-nominated documentarian Charles Braverman, from back in his heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. Braverman pioneered a kinestatic style that merged documentary with experimental film, creating a unique and dazzling montage of still imagery, animation and short snippets of live-action film. With this revolutionary and oversensory style of hyperkinetic rapid-fire montage he tackled both the socio-political climate of the age but also the… Read more
Oddball Films presents Mae West, Young Man! a night dedicated to the beauty, brains and belly laughs of one of the most entertaining comediennes in history. Mae West was more than a beautiful buxom blonde, she was a quick-witted and gifted comedienne that often wrote her own snappy dialogue including some of the best one-liners of all time. The centerpiece of the evening, I'm No Angel (1933) is a racy romantic musical comedy starring West and Cary Grant. Mae West sizzles as Tira, a down-on-her-luck circus performer who must face death by putting her head in a lion's mouth to find fame, and… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present What the F(ilm)?! 9: 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 going back to completely random programming with Drunk Dogs, Circus Soundies, Gun Safety, Jam Handy, Hammy the Hamster, and Beatnik Oddities just to name a few! When Patches, the St. Bernard, gets drunk at a wedding, it's up to one junior high school science class to find out the best hangover cure in Route One (1976). Come on down to the Swingeroo Circus (1943), a bizarre… Read more
Oddball Films presents The Dawn of the Planet of the Computers, a program of vintage films about the rise of computer technology and the early predictions for an automated future. From Ray Bradbury Sci-Fi to William Shatner explaining microprocessors, animation and more, take a look at the future of technology through the eyes of the past. Science Fiction's perennial Captain, William Shatner gets trippy with silica and microprocessors in the psychedelic AT&T sponsored Microworld (1976). Ray Bradbury's The Veldt (1982) features a nuclear family in a computerized home that leads to deadly… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Christina Yglesias present Beauties, Babes, and Burlesque, a sampling of sexy short films. There will be bikini babes, pretty pin-ups, dancing ladies, and steamy stripteases, all from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. The night will progress from innocent to not-so-innocent as we take a look into the sexy (and by today's standards, sexist) world of films created to showcase beautiful women and titillate the midcentury man. The night will start off innocently enough with The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (1950's). The athletes of the all-female gymnastic… Read more
