Oddball Films kicks off its week of Halloween Haunts with Baby Jane and the Child Star's Revenge, featuring the creepy classic Whatever Happened to B@by Jane (1962). Starring two of the grandest of dames from classic Hollywood, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Robert Aldrich's macabre masterpiece was made with a prayer and a song, with no major studio willing to finance a picture with "those old broads". The film went on to be a box-office smash, was nominated for 5 Academy Awards and propelled both aging actresses back into the spotlight. Set in a decaying Hollywood mansion, two sisters tear… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes the A/V Geeks' Skip Elsheimer all the way from North Carolina for Good Cop, Bad Cop, an evening of 16mm films featuring one of his favorite genres - police training films. Handpicked from the A/V Geeks archive of over 20,000 films, these films offer a glimpse into one of the hardest jobs out there - one that deals with people at their absolute worst. To prepare officers with the harsh realties of their job, police training films are often gritty - filled with profanity, blood and violence, as well as unintended hilarity. Films include Civil Liability: Failure To Protect… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes original Cockettes member Rumi Missabu with a screening and DVD re-release party for the 1972 cult classic Elevator Girls in Bondage. This audacious piece of madness and nostalgia was directed by Michael Kalmen and stars Rumi as well as other fellow Cockettes Pristine Condition, Hibiscus and Miss Harlow. The underpaid staff of a seedy hotel rises up in revolt and by the time head elevator girl Maxine (the fabulous Rumi) starts spouting a surreal mix of folk songs and Marxist maxisms, followed by an uproariously explicit sex scene, you'll be ready to join the cause.… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 69: Strange Sex!, Oddities From the Archives, an evening of offbeat discoveries and choice rarities from the stacks of Oddball Films’ 50,000 reel film archive. This installment of Strange Sinema: Strange Sex! is an eye-popping program of perverse pleasures featuring films too way-out and weird to be called Sex. It's a carnal cornupcopia of animated sex, alien sex puppets, kinky drag and steamy smut. Who knows; after this screening you might have a new concept of what sex is really about. We begin with a preshow Bra Barrage with (“ I Can’t Believe It’s a… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present Monster Mash-up featuring Winter of the Witch. The classic creatures of Universal horror and the cackling brides of Satan are the focus of this year’s Halloween spectacle. Everyone’s favorite monster appears in highlights of both the spare Son of Frankenstein (1939) and the broadly comic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) . Doom of Dracula (1944) features an elegantly turned out Boris Karloff as the Count’s protector. Some people can find a teachable moment in any holiday, as the cheese-heavy Halloween Safety (1969) attests.… Read more
Oddball Films has the rare opportunity to present the fifth annual installment in the innovative interview-based series MESS (Media Ecology Soul Salon) featuring punk innovator and collage artist Winston Smith. Los Angeles media artist and curator Gerry Fialka will interview Smith in person on the Oddball Cine Stage. A Punk Art Surrealist and master of “hand-carved” collage, Winston Smith has crafting thought-provoking art since the 1970’s. Smith first became known (and later beloved) for his collaborations with punk legends Dead Kennedys and his numerous album covers, inserts and… Read more
The San Francisco Media Archive and Oddball Films present Home Movie Day in conjunction with the 11th 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 by HMD projectionists. Following the clinic, we'll be having a free screening of Vintage San Francisco Home Movies. These homegrown rarities include The Innocent Fair (1915, Excerpt); a Halloween treasure The Witches' Sabbath (1961); Farewell to the Fox Theatre (1963); Ken Kesey's Further… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...To Death - A Horrifying Shockucation, the eighth in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic shockucational films and TV specials of the collection. This month, we're getting a little morbid for the month of Halloween with a deadly collection of shocking shorts and cartoons. Officers learn about using deadly force in the police training film Shoot, Don’t Shoot II (1972) and adorable cartoon bunny rabbits teach us about the Death Penalty and racial inequality in the justice system in The… Read more
Oddball Films presents Hungarian Rhapsody - The Stunning Cinema of Hungary, a program of breathtaking short films and animation from the 1960s-1980s. Oscar winner Istvan Szabo's You... (1963) is a new wave love letter to a beautiful girl and the city of Budapest. Animator Marcell Jankovics brings us two thought-provoking and stunning pieces Trends (1967) and Sisyphus (1974). The hauntingly beautiful poetic short Elegy (1968) captures the often stark realities of Hungarian life. The kooky Academy Award winner The Fly (1980) gives us an inside glimpse into the life and death of one fly. The… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Landon Bates bring you Pure Cool, a screening swinging with a heady and hip sound called Jazz. This program highlights jazz music from the '50's and '60's, roughly ranging from the lush minimalism of Cool Jazz to the feverish dissonance of the Post-Bob era. Two of the films are slight but sweet digressions, included for their notable jazz scores, but the majority touch upon the cultural image of jazz--the "cool" aesthetic with its hipster lingo, the underground jam sessions held in after hours exclusivity. We kick off our set with a classic of jazz cinema,… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Cults, Sects and Mind-Control, a program of vintage films, trailers, original news footage and TV specials about the extremities of beliefs that can lead to brainwashing, violence and even murder. It's October, and that means it's time to examine the darker reaches of our souls, beginning with the tenuous grasp we each have on our own self-will. This program will investigate many of the most famous, most destructive cults of the 20th century, many of whom had their roots in San Francisco. We will begin with two outrageous long-form trailers, one… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Homoneurotica: Sublimating Sexuality, a program of films that explores veiled and closeted homosexuality and the homophobia of yesteryear with 6 decades worth of vintage navy training films, mental hygiene primers, incendiary cartoons, homo-erotica, experimental works and more. Films include Scorpio Rising (1964), Kenneth Anger's experimental masterpiece of homoeroticism, bikers and rock n' roll; a wonderful U.S. Navy training film, Swim and Live! (1943), starring many shirtless men, helping other shirtless men who will swim their way to winning… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Lynn Cursaro present Money Manners and Capital Games: Asset-kicking Edu-tainment. Money, moolah, cabbage, readies, dough. It wouldn’t have so many names if it wasn’t so important! From the most basic history and functions of money in grade-school gem Money, Money, Money (1972) to a savvy car dealer’s wild sales methods in Charles Braverman’s brilliant Trader Vic’s Used Cars (1975), money is one subject that can always generate interest. Painless penny-watching is the aim of both the anarchic consumer education work of Marshall Efron Brand Names and Labeling… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Animation Infatuation, an evening of rare and incredible international animation from the 1950s-1970s. From quirky to dark, cell-animation to silhouette artistry, it is sure to be a gorgeous night. The inspiring DIY film Frame by Frame (1973) will open your mind to the endless possibilities of experimental animation that lay at your fingertips. The Thieving Magpie (1967), an Italian animation by Emmanuel Luzzati, set to Rossini’s famous overture, shows what happens when birds revolt against their hunters. The little mole gets into an adorably… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 6 8: Whacked!, Oddities From the Archives, an evening of offbeat discoveries and choice rarities from the stacks of Oddball Films’ 50,000 reel film archive. This installment, Strange Sinema:Whacked! is an eye-popping program of perverse pleasures featuring films too weird or way-out for their genres. With a drunk cat, a stoned dog, a claymation rock opera, talking chimps and other far-out oddities, this is one night too bizarre to miss. The cine-madness includes The Cat Who Drank and Used Too Much ( 1987), an Oddball favorite and wacky film from the anti-… Read more
Oddball Films and Ladyfest Bay Area present Settle Down and Image This, a program curated by Christine Kwon. What is the code of conduct for women at home and abroad? And how are these rules of behavior imagined on film? Settle Down and Image This is a tongue-in-cheek program that seeks to shift viewers uncomfortably in their seats. Ambiguous, funny and at times precariously satirical, the program prods at the contradictions and complications of how we understand a woman's place and space. What values are assigned as strength, what do we consider antiquated behavior, and how does class,… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...About Smoking: Puff Puff Pass the Shockucation, the seventh in a series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic shockucational films and TV specials of the collection. This month, we are taking on smoking, from tobacco, to marijuana, to banana skins with a triple helping of preachy cartoons! Master of the educational shock film, Sid Davis brings us the hilarious tale of a young "weedhead" in Keep Off the Grass (1970). Behold the wild go-go frenzy of the psychedelically animated The Drag (1965). This… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Scotty Slade bring you Aligning the Trance Particles, a program of physical and metaphysical forms of trance exploration that examines ancient traditions alongside experimental film practices. In tandem with the ongoing Trance Cinema film series , this program begins under the microscope, so that we might start to imagine the molecular alignment of our own inner beings, in Crystallization (1975). Once aligned on a molecular scale, it will be time to climb up the particulate ladder with Norman McLaren’s A Phantasy (1952), a space-borne surrealist film of dance… Read more
Oddball Films and guest Curator Taylor Morales bring you, Sex, Censorship and Betty Boop: The Ladies of Pre-Code Hollywood, a collection of films exploring Hollywood’s fascination with female sexuality in the years before 1934, when the industry adopted the Motion Picture Production Code, a set of moral censorship standards that governed the US motion pictures industry between 1934 and 1968 . The Code, which banned all forms of overt sexuality and “immorality”, forced Betty Boop to lengthen her skirt and cover her garter. This collection of films and cartoon shorts captures the good, the bad… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Totally Strange 80's - Sex, Drugs and Roller Skates. This bizarre and over-the-top evening features the oddest shorts of the 1980s, a decade known for its over-indulgence, bright colors, big hair and roller skates...roller skates! The 80's insanity includes Dear Diary, a film about female puberty (1981) in which one incredibly awkward pubescent girl must deal with her changing body, sneaky friends and making out with pillows. We'll all learn to Roller Skate Safely (1981) with our matching neon spandex. Watch out for killer computers in Signal… Read more
