Oddball Films Media
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Sep 30, 2012
Oddball Films presents Seuss on the Loose! a night of curious creatures, surreal landscapes and imagination gone wild, all from the mind of the inimitable Dr. Seuss. Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist widely known for his legendary children's books written under the pen name Dr. Seuss. Geisel also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns and was a political cartoonist for a New York City newspaper. During World War II, he worked in an animation department of the U.S. Army, where he co-authored Design for Death, a film that later won the 1947 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Highlights include: The Cat in the Hat (1972), The Cat in the Hat appears to bored kids and things get way out of hand; The Lorax (1972), in which a boy meets a mustached defender of nature and learns about danger of mankind’s greed; Green Eggs and Ham (1974), are constantly offered to a unnamed character who refuses to try them up until his last straw; The Sneetches (1974) a tale about star-belly Sneetches and plain-belly Sneetches who waste all their money on trying to segregate themselves from one another. The Zax (1974), a story exploring the idea of pride where two Zaxes run into each other while trying to get somewhere and refuse to move out of the way to let the other one pass. Horton Hatches the Egg (1957), watch an elephant help hatch a bird’s egg while she relocates to Palm Beach. Plus clips from the only feature film ever written by Theodor Seuss Geisel, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) an inventive musical fantasy where a little boy dreams 500 children being forced to master a concert piece for 5,000 fingers! Also the US Army’s propaganda short Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (1944) written by Geisel. The quirky animated film shows Snafu (Situation Normal All F*cked Up) learning the hard way about the consequences of not protecting himself from malaria infection.
Date: Friday, October 5th, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.comor (415) 558-8117
Featuring
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Two children are bored to death at home on a rainy day until a lanky feline, stylishly dressed in a candy-striped stovepipe hat and oversized bow tie makes one of the most unforgettable entrances in children’s literature and creates a whirlwind of misbehavior that the kids are at first powerless to halt.
The Lorax (Color, 1972)
The greedy Once-ler opens a factory that starts to destroy the environment and so the Lorax, who speaks for all of nature, protests. As the Once-ler and the Lorax argue about progress and profits versus preservation and pristine air, land, and water, their world becomes increasingly more polluted, and it seems as if it's almost too late to save the living things the Lorax speaks for.
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The incredibly determined Sam I Am tries to get the unnamed character to eat green eggs and ham. He refuses to try the dish in every location it is offered to him in until Sam will leave him alone.
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The Sneetches features the starbelly Sneetches and the plain belly Sneetches. The Star Belly Sneetches have successfully segregated themselves from the plain belly Sneetches until a scam artist comes in and creates the star belly on and star belly off machines. Weird!
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A North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax run into each other and both refuse to budge when they meet at the intersection of their journeys. Neither will move out of the way to let the other one pass.
Horton Hatches the Egg (Color, 1957)
Horton (an elephant) is convinced by Mayzie (a bird) to sit on her egg while she takes a short "break", which in actuality ends up being Mayzie's permanent relocation to Palm Beach.
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Reprimanded for neglecting his piano practice, a nine-year-old boy dreams his piano teacher has kidnapped 500 children and is holding them in an enchanted castle where they must practice together on one enormous piano every day until they master a concert piece for 5,000 fingers.
Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (B+W, 1944)
A mosquito named Malaria Mike attempts many times to figure out ways to get at private Snafu’s flesh. Mike is seen in his living room with his son on one knee as he tells the story.
Stephen Parr’s previous programs have explored the erotic underbelly of sex-in-cinema (The Subject is Sex), the offbeat and bizarre (Oddities Beyond Belief), the pervasive effects of propaganda (Historical/Hysterical?) and oddities from his archives (Strange Sinema). He is the director of Oddball Film+Video and the San Francisco Media Archive (www.sfm.org), a nonprofit archive that preserves culturally significant films. He is a member of the Association of Moving Archivists (AMIA) where he is a frequent presenter.
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