Oddball Films presents The Art of the Sixties: Manufactured Mediums, featuring films from an era of massive-scale manufacturing; a time when art converged with science and industry. Utilizing metal fabrication, industrial printing techniques and communication technologies artists became inventors and inventors became industrialists. The program features the rare documentary Art of the Sixties (1967), featuring the monumental soft sculptures of Claes Oldenberg, the metal works of Barnett Newman, kinetic artist Len Lye, Les Levine’s interactive environments, action painter Jackson Pollock and… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Kat Shuchter bring you Female Trouble: Shedding Light of the Plight of Women , a whole sleight of films designed to shock, alarm and educate the modern girl and woman about the dangers that constantly surround her. From the curse of every woman in films like D*sney’s Story of Menstruation (1945), a beautifully animated short of lovely ladies and their dreamy pituitary glands, to the woes of Teenage Pregnancy, a 1971 campy Canadian melodrama, to the sickness of Eating Disorders:The Slender Trap (1986 ) , the dangers of strangers like Hitchhiking: The Road to… Read more
Oddball Films and Emmy winning filmmaker Kate Schermerhorn present After Happily Ever After. Exploring questions about marriage in the 21st Century, Kate Schermerhorn's new documentary, asks why we marry , whether we should marry, and how some of us actually even make marriage work. Simon Winchester, New York Times best-selling author of “The Professor and the Madman” calls it: “Intelligent, sensitive, funny and tender.” F rom a couple who dress alike every day, to a pair of nudists and a newlywed pair of mothers, to a feisty English widow, t his 60 minute film features an eclectic mix of… Read more
Oddball Films presents Speed Demons. Fasten your seat-belts for an night filled with vintage shorts about classic cars, motorcycles, racing and, of course, speed!!! Featured films include Amanda Pope's The Incredible San Francisco Artists’ Soap Box Derby (1975) highlighting the whimsy and creativity of our fair city's artists; the origins of American car culture are unearthed in The Car of Your Dreams (1984); and Claude Lelouch's Rendezvous (1976) captures a high-speed drive through Paris in a Mercedes 450SEL all captured in a single unedited take! An evening such as this would not be… Read more
Saul Bass, Academy Award winner for "Why Man Creates" (1968) Oddball Films and guest curator Sterling Hedgpeth present Oddball Oscar Obscurities , a special two show evening showcasing the finest animated and live action shorts ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. The era of having a series of shorts precede a feature presentation at the theater may be a thing of the past, but the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences still recognize achievements in the live action and animated short fields, 80 years after these categories were introduced. While many often take issue with the… Read more
Guest curator Soumyaa Kapil Behrens and Oddball Films present an evening of films filled with passionate duels and screen gods and goddesses of years past. Cuddle up for an intriguing selection that will let you indulge in the visual nature of cinema and desire. Some highlights include coming of age shorts like the classic Skaterdater (1965) winner of the Palm d’Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1966 and The Magic Tree (1970) by Gerald McDermott that weaves an animated folktale of secrets and desire from the Congo. The Fable of He and She (1974) by animator Eliot Noyes Jr. sweetly re-tells the… Read more
Oddball Films is proud to present a film programming throwdown between New York’s Andrew Lampert of Anthology Film Archives and home towner, the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Jeff Lambert. Putting their decades of film preservation experience to use, these two cinema savants will raid the Oddball stacks to do battle in a blind curatorial showdown. With the cinematic theme still to be determined, even Lambert and Lampert have very little idea what to expect. Each of these celluloid gladiators will step into Oddball Stadium with the same specific programming theme and a pre-determined… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strangest Strange Sinema: A 4 Year Anniversary Extravaganza. In honor of the 48th installment of Oddball Films’ monthly legendary and award winning Strange Sinemaseries, Head Curator Stephen Parr has hand-picked, from his collection of over 50,000 films, a program of the most offbeat and unusual titles for your viewing pleasure. From the minds of infamous bad boys, to absurd animals and sinful delights, this show embodies the essence of Oddball Films. Highlights include: Two Men and A Wardrobe (1958), a darkly comic early film by famed director Roman Polanski; Thank You… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Kat Shuchter present The Dog and Pony Show! An evening of vintage 16mm films about man’s best friend and his greatest ally. Horses have been the ones to take us into battle and to far off lands, while dogs have been there to stand by our sides and cuddle us at night, so take a trip back in time with our favorite furry friends on film. E. Everett Horton plays a dandy in the 1928 silent slapstick Horse Shy. A pack of tiny dogs learn simple and not so simple commands in Teach Your Dog Tricks(1951). Watch the simple majesty of a herd of wild ponies frolicking in… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Antonella Bonfanti present Liquid Lunch . From vintage beer commercials to outrageous oddities, this evening dedicated to the delectable drink is filled to the brim with the Archive's finest films about beer, booze and the morning after shakes. Highlights include: The Three Stooges in Beer Barrel Polecats (1946); excerpts from the hilarious and particularly odd America On The Rocks (1973) narrated by Robert Mitchum; and an indulging parrot from the Universal Newsreel series Stranger Then Fiction (1943). The Glug (1981), a cautionary tale about adolescent… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Hannah Airriess present Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Disappearing Acts, Optical Illusions, and Mad Science. This program focuses on our fascination with illusion, and the accompanying desire to reveal the mechanics of such tricks. A magician’s performance, whether on a vaudeville stage or celluloid, centers on the pleasure an audience receives upon being deceived; in the awe of wondering, “How did they do that?” The short documentary Houdini Never Died (1978) showcases archival footage of many of Harry Houdini’s great escapes and illusions, along with other… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Emily Schleiner present What On Earth, It Came From Outer Space? An evening of sci-fi thrillers and campy science documentaries, this program answers all the questions you might have about the origins of life and who or what might be lurking in the outer reaches of the universe. Featuring excerpts from Jack Arnold’s It Came from Outer Space (1953), a classic telling the tale of an alien spaceship that crash-lands on Earth and takes humans hostage; Son of Frankenstein (1939) starring Bela Lugosi, Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff, sheds light on the dark mystery… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Joe Garrity present I’m Me, And You?: Exploring Identities of Self and Other. Get comfortable before the mirror in a program that probes life’s greatest mystery: ourselves. From educational films to the avant-garde, animation to documentary, we examine the complexities of identity in the interpersonal world of you and me. This screening includes the groovy after school special Me: A Self Awareness Film (1975), along with a chapter from the feel-good cartoon series The Most Important Person, I’m The Only Me! (1972). Take issue with conformity in Dan Bessie’s… Read more
Oddball Films presents Altered States: American Surrealist, Ritual and Trance Cinema . Featuring seminal works from Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Margaret Mead and John Whitney this program explores ritual and trance through a range of cinematic styles and s howcases the brilliance and innovation of American ethnographic and experimental filmmakers . Highlights include: Invocation of my Demon Brother (1969) by Kenneth Anger, A Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945) and Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren, Trance and Dance in Bali by Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, John Whitney‘s… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Carl Elsaesser present Freedom From Flight: Cinema of Seclusion. From the allegorical purity of an art cinema masterpiece to educational shorts that explore psychological effects of isolation, this breathtaking and expansive program examines solitude through a range of genres. Highlights include: Academy Award winner The Red Balloon (1956), by acclaimed filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, follows a child rejected from society who finds joy in being alone while making friends with a seemingly sentient balloon; Discovering Insects: Solitary Wasps (1950s) looks at this… Read more
Oddball Films presents Soul Music Spectacular! The Godfather, Queen and origins of soul, this evening of rare films of 1960s and 1970s is filled with outstanding footage of iconic soul and jazz artists. Highlights include: electrifying and rare documentaries about James Brown: The Man and Aretha Franklin: Soul Singer ; and Eddie Kendricks in a Motown promotional film for his 1973 LP Keep On Truckin’. Black Music in America: From Then Till Now , traces the roots of soul; Blind Gary Davis, a beautiful musical portrait of the great blues man; and Buck Dancer , an Alan Lomax-produced film of an… Read more
Oddball Films presents Nomads in the Ozone: Gypsies, Hobos and Wandering Souls, a screening examining nomadic life around the world. From gypsies in Eastern Europe to traveling traders of Tibet to the legendary hobos and comedic vagabonds of North America, this genre-bending program explores global and pop collective concepts of nomadic life. Showcasing ethnographic films such as Tibetan Traders (1958) portraying the life of a semi-nomadic Himalayan tribe traveling through Tibet and India; documentaries like Circus Nomads (1975) capturing the colorful and hardship-laced culture of the… Read more
Oddball Films and guest curator Christine Kwon present Bad Boys: White Men Can Jump. Who needs colonialism when the coming-of-age of the white man is so much more hilarious? Boxing babies, women-shaking ranchers, and paratrooping snipers were just some of the media-loving models of both good and bad white boys. Spanning the ‘40s to the ‘80s, this program boasts guilty pleasures including a trailer of Chinatown Squad (1935), featuring matinee idol Lyle Talbot, an excerpt from the awe-inducing Bing Crosby Show (‘60s) with special guests the “Young Americans” (think Children of the Corn in choir… Read more
Oddball Films and Guest Curator Soumyaa Kapil Behrens present One In A Million, an evening of retro films that look at money and all it could do. An oft-used plot line, greed, money, promises of gold and a better life have inspired many cinematic ventures. This group of films looks at traditional ways of spending, glamorizing and literally making money. Classic shorts like Trader Vic’s Used Cars (1976) show us the fast paced life inside the world of Victor Snyder, a Southern California car salesman peddling the American dream. Million Dollar Bowling (1950’s) is a creepy and hilarious look at… Read more
Oddball Films presents Trailer Trash Trivia Night ! Come test your knowledge of rare B-Movie, “Art Film”, and vintage XXX spanning form the 1930’s to the 1970’s. 90% of these films sank without a trace, but their garish promotional trailers live on in the massive archives of Oddball Films. Ranging from 30 seconds to several minutes in length, these promotional shorts for coming attractions were often much more entertaining than the features they promote. Plus, a short educational film from 1959 entitled We Live in a Trailer . To participate in the Trivia contest all you need to do is… Read more
