Channel: Oddball Films

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Cinema Soiree with Kerry Laitala - Spectacle of Light and Sound - Thurs. July 9th - 8PM

June 28, 2015, 10:14 am

≫ Next: What the F(ilm)?!: All-American Cine-Insanity from the Archive - Fri. July 3rd - 8PM

≪ Previous: Strange Sinema 89: Visionaries of Time and Space - Thur. June 25 - 8PM

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 will be revealing the secrets of her direct film manipulation and experimental imaging techniques and presenting two works from her City LuminousSeries, celebrating the lighting pioneers that gathered a century ago at the fabulous Jewel City, a 635-acre monument to impermanence constructed, and soon after, demolished in San Francisco’s Marina district. These include The City Luminous: Spectacle of Light, which recently received an audience choice award at the 2015 Crossroads Film Festival presented by SF Cinematheque, and The City Luminous: Electric Salome, a brand-new work being world-premiered right here at Oddball Films. Both of these performances will feature live sound from Oakland’s experimental music duo extraordinaire Voicehandler, made up of Jacob Felix Heule and Danishta Rivero. In addition, Laitala will screen the slightly salacious The Kali of Technology, and Side Show Spectaclewith live sound by Brian Darr. Lastly, 3D manifestations will propel the audience into the screen and beyond the as their retinas get pushed and pulled through the taffy maker of prismatic chromadepth. These works include: Afterimage: A Flicker of Life, sound collaboration Between K. Laitala and Wobbly, Chromatic Frenzy and Nine Lives Measured in Mercury with original sound by Neal Johnson.

Date: Thursday, July 9th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

The City Luminous: Spectacle of Light (dual-16mm projector performance, 2015)

In 1915 Walter D'Arcy Ryan induced explosions of color over the night sky as part of the Pan-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), a presentation the likes of which had never been seen prior, and which became the model for light displays at future World's Fairs and illumination showcases. One hundred years later, Kerry Laitala pays tribute to this historical moment with a dual-projector performance involving archival images of silhouetted spectators of the 1939 New York World’s Fair sharing screen space with sinuous light shapes swirling, twinkling and bouncing across the frame like unbound forces of energy. The City Luminous: Spectacle of Light will be accompanied by a live soundtrack by Voicehandler (Jacob Felix Heule and Danishta Rivero), who manipulate sounds from various sources including a mechanical music box from Switzerland.

The City Luminous: Electric Salome. (dual-16mm projector performance, 2015 WORLD PREMIERE!)

Loie Fuller was a major innovator in fin-de-siècle dance, costuming and theatrical lighting design. Her Serpentine Dances became hugely popular, inspired dozens of imitators, and are best known today through the early films shot by the likes of W.K.L. Dickson, Alice Guy Blache, Segundo de Chomon, Georges Melies and others. Towards the end of her career Fuller brought her troupe to San Francisco’s PPIE, where they performed under the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts as a fundraiser to allow it to become the only major structure to be saved from destruction at the end of the fair. Laitala filmed San Francisco dancer Jenny Stulberg in the act of resurrecting Fuller’s fluttering aura through her own choreographed interpretations. Then she reproduced Stulberg’s image onto separate film strips which will rejoin together projected onto a phantom presence that brings a sculptural element into the proceedings. Voicehandler provides the sound.

The City Luminous series, which encompasses the realms of installation, performance and photographic works is funded by a third Special Projects Grant from the Princess Grace Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission Grant, California Historical Society, and Maurice Kanbar.

The Kali of Technology(multi-16mm projector performance, 2014)

This brief eye-scorcher involves a minimum of three lubricious loops of 16mm unspooling simultaneously. Named for the multi-armed Hindu deity of destruction, power and time, this Kali will have you hypnotized.

Side Show Spectacle (16mm, 2015)

Step right up, ladybugs and experimentalmen, and see with your very own eyes the unbelievable Kodachrome sensation that has delighted children of all ages! The thrills and spills of the big top, dangerous creatures tamed onto celluloid via colorful images captured while out on safari in exotic El Cerrito. Live musical accompaniment by electronic keyboardist Brian Darr.

Afterimage: A Flicker of Life(chromadepth 3D video, 2010)

Beginning with an animated wood-cut of a beating heart, Afterimage: A Flicker of Life traces a trajectory of Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne Jules Marey's 19^thCentury motion studies using iconic representations of artifacts that they left behind. It then takes the viewer into the 21st Century using three dimensional technology. Human beings are reduced to their gestures and movements in space, becoming forms of pure colored light. Afterimage: a Flicker of Lifeemploys graphic tracings to create kinesthetic inscriptions that speak to the physicality of working with the film medium. Just as Marey and Muybridge strove to make motion visible to the naked eye, this archival/live action 16mm-to-digital hybrid takes a whimsical approach to envisaging human and animal locomotion by illuminating the traces of their presence. Soundtrack by Kerry Laitala and Wobbly.

Chromatic Frenzy (chromadepth 3D video, 2009)

“A lapidary shower of kaleidoscope, Spirograph, and compound eye imagery”– Nick Pinkerton in Artforum.

“Chromatic Frenzy is a densely saturated freakout of solar streaks, kaleidoscopic magma globs, and seared disco vortices”…“incandescent images suggest an intergalactic mysticism from out of Harry Smith's sketchpad”…“Truthfully, the film is almost unbearably rapturous even without the effect of the glasses. But with them, there's an additional and unexpected charm that comes through, one that makes gains through the naiveté of the technology’s stunted range. Depth illusions are largely limited to only three planes—just off of, a bit back from, and flush up against the screen—letting all that is frantic become tempered by a sense of welcoming simplicity.”– Blake Williams in MUBI’s Notebook.

Nine Lives Measured in Mercury (chromadepth 3D video, 2013)

Follow the adventures of the Chroma-Cat as she moves through spectrum-splitting terrain on a quest for answers to the cosmic questions. Might her transmigration be a metaphor for media re-appropriation?

Soundtrack by Neal Johnson.

About Kerry Laitala:
Media archeologist Kerry Laitala is an award-winning moving image artist who uses analog, digital, and hybrid forms to investigate ways in which media influences culture at large. Laitala’s work resides at the intersection between science, technology, and her uncanny approach to evolving systems of belief through installation, photography, performance, kinetic sculpture, and single channel forms. She continues to explore expanded cinema territories to create cinematic sculptures that extend into the space. Laitala teaches film at the San Francisco Art Institute.

For more information:
www.kerrylaitala.net

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

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What the F(ilm)?!: All-American Cine-Insanity from the Archive - Fri. July 3rd - 8PM

June 28, 2015, 9:57 pm

≫ Next: Sexual Miseducation - Thur. July 2nd - 8PM

≪ Previous: Cinema Soiree with Kerry Laitala - Spectacle of Light and Sound - Thurs. July 9th - 8PM

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 (1975) for the country's bicentennial, and it will still blow your eyeballs out today. Kinestatic collage documentarian, Chuck Braverman tells the story of America in 3 minutes utilizing 1300 still images in American Time Capsule(1968). Woody Allen and Jonathan Winters chime in on the age old question How Do They Make Hot Dog Buns? (1970) fromHot Dog, a short-lived bizarro educational program. With two camptastic slices of American cheese, Jerry Fairbanks brings us patriotic talking animals with Speaking of Animals - In Current Events (1940s) and a gorgeous technicolor road trip on a Greyhound Bus full of love with America for Me (1952). Learn all about fireworks from a disturbing Krofftesque fire puppet in safety primer Fireworks (1970s). All American Meal (1976) is a little gem of an educational that warns of the dangers of processed food. And since everybody loves a parade, we will be double-projecting the hilariously weird homoerotic short Nude Marching Band (1970s) with Parade, Parade (1973)the kitschy document of a small-town parade. Plus, stripping for Uncle Sam with The Pretty Priorities and their patriotic burlesque soundie Take It Off (1942) and even more insane surprises!

Date: Friday, July 3rd, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Highlights Include:

200(Color, 1975)

Vince Collin’s supremely psychedelic animated celebration of our nation’s bicentennial, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. But then again, not as many LSD-inspired animators make it through the grant process.

American Time Capsule (Color/B+W, 1968)
Chuck Braverman presents the history of the United States up to 1968 in 3 minutes, utilizing a montage of 1300 images set to the music of Sandy Nelson’s Beat That Drum. Originally aired on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Speaking of Animals - In Current Events (B+W, 1940s)

From the hilarious anthropomorphic "Speaking of Animals" series produced by cheese-meister Jerry Fairbanks. We could've kept sweet little woodland creatures out of the conflict with the Axis powers, but why?! Live action critters with cleverly animated mouths crack wise while the narration compares them to the Axis leaders. Hey, is that Hirohito scampering up that tree? Cute, repellant and just plain strange, the takeaway message from this goofy bit of patriotism? Bacon fat helps keep our men fighting, so keep it coming, America!

How Do They Make Hot Dog Buns? (Color, 1971 Frank Buxton)
An apt topic for an edition of Hot Dog, NBC’s delightful mini documentary series. This time the mysteries of purpose-baked rolls are revealed on a trip to Fine's Bakery in Brooklyn. Jonathan Winters and Brooklynite Woody Allen offer surreal commentary.

Fireworks (Color, 1970’s)

Fireworks are great fun, until you blow off a finger! Learn the proper way to have sparkly fun, without exploding yourself with a bizarre Sid and Marty Krofft-style fire puppet and lots of cool vintage fireworks.

America for Me (Color, 1952, Jerry Fairbanks)

What happens when two women set out on a cross-country trip on a Greyhound bus? Filmed in beautiful Technicolor, this vacation across the U.S. features trips through national parks and every kind of American small town imaginable. Not only do the two young women discover America along the way, but they also discover true love! This cheesy but charming film was one of many short films produced to advertise Greyhound buses in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

All American Meal (Color, 1976)
Long before “Super Size Me” and the just-released “Food Inc.”, this little gem of an educational film warned of the dangers of the burger, fries and a coke diet that Americans are still hooked on.

Nude Marching Band (Color, 1970s)

This bizarre slice of homoerotica will be double projected with:

Parade, Parade (Color, 1973)

This footage of a small town celebration has all the standard parade components: floats, beauty queens, convertibles, and most importantly, a chorus of cops on motorcycles doing acrobatics! The synchronicity of marching bodies forms patterns that develop a hypnotizing rhythm throughout the film.

Take It Off- The Pretty Priorities (B+W, 1942)

A sexy, patriotic soundie about government priorities. Four girls sing about materials the government needs for the war effort. They strip off parts of their costumes and put them into a barrel marked “V” eventually they go behind screens that show their silhouettes and they take off the rest. Two men come to collect their donations and take the screen too. They're stripping for Uncle Sam!

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

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Sexual Miseducation - Thur. July 2nd - 8PM

June 28, 2015, 10:46 pm

≫ Next: Computerized - Yesterday's Technology for Tomorrow - Fri. July 10th - 8PM

≪ Previous: What the F(ilm)?!: All-American Cine-Insanity from the Archive - Fri. July 3rd - 8PM

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 board for what some say is America's first hardcore porn (and the only hardcore we will be screening this night), the notorious silent stag film A Free Ride AKA Grass Sandwich (1915). San Francisco co-stars in The Screening Room (1970s), an erotic tale of two lovers shooting a porno in Renaissance costumes, then seeing themselves on a North Beach screen. A buxom blonde marionette gets into burlesque with Doll Dance (1940s). Mrs. John Barrymore does the least enticing striptease you've never seen in the entirely unsexy How to Undress for your Husband (1937). San Francisco's own radical sexual-awareness ministry the Multi-Media Resource Centers brings us three super short-shorts on the lighter side of sex-ed: bean bag frogs get it on in a variety of human sexual positions in The Love Toad (1970), the all-too sensual act of peeling citrus in Orange (1970), and a hyper-speed sexual rendezvous in A Quickie (1969). Play with your toys in a non-XXX excerpt of bizarro porno Orgy of the Dolls (1970s). Plus, four unscreened 1940s nudie cuties: Busman's Holiday, a film for serious artists only, Fanny with Cheeks of Tan and Tantalizing Torso from Seaside Films, and the double vision of Stereoscopic Smut! Early birds will watch as a high school class makes a film about contraceptives in The Birth Control Movie (1982).

Date: Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Birds, Bees and Storks (Dir. John Halas, Color, 1965)

A father sets out to explain the facts of life to his son, but becomes increasingly embarrassed to the point where his explanations are so vague as to be incomprehensible. Inspired by Gerard Hoffnung's 1960 book of the same name, this is a delightful and all too familiar study of the embarrassed middle-aged British male, as a father attempts to explain the facts of life to his son but ends up delivering a monologue so packed with euphemisms about birds, bees and butterflies that it ends up being totally incoherent. Produced by the esteemed Halas & Batchelor Animation Studio, the visual style (inspired directly by Hoffnung's drawings) is simple in the extreme - for much of the film, we just watch the father squirming and blushing in his chair, which focuses our attention both on Peter Sellers' monologue and director John Halas' subtle visual characterization, all nervous tics and fidgeting.

Are You Ready for Sex? (Color, 1978)

Harvey Caplan, MD, a gentle, bearded man, guides teens through a discussion of sexuality. Featuring clips of scenarios between potential lovers with voice-over narration (should I? what will he think?), Caplan provides us all with a lot to think about before making the big leap.

The Screening Room (Color, 1970s)

A couple, man and woman, walk through San Francisco with great old vintage shots of Geary Street, Post Street, Union Square. They walk into the Screening Room theater, and see a porn film on the screen. They walk to a back room, and once through the door, are now on a hill, in the country, wearing Renaissance costumes. They roll around in the grass, removing their clothes, and making out. They walk back into the theater wearing their modern clothes, and see themselves, in costume, on the screen, then leave the theater.

Doll Dance (B+W, 1940s)

A 1940s Burlesque tit for tat dance number with Arlene and Rene. Both ladies are lovely, only Arlene has someone pulling her strings.

How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (B+W, 1937)

An exercise in exhibitionism and the least titillating striptease ever starring Elaine Barrie AKA Mrs. John Barrymore (!) wife of the famed Hollywood legend. It's a wonder she was his last wife!

Free Ride AKA Grass Sandwich (B+W, 1915)

This infamous stag short is touted as being the earliest example of American hardcore pornography, though its actual date of production is still hotly debated. A motorist stops to pick up a couple of lovely ladies from the side of the road and they embark on the ride of their lives! Silent with added soundtrack.

The Love Toad (1970, Color, Greg Von Buchau)

A comedic stop-motion animation featuring two amorous bean-bag toads that get it on and demonstrate a number of sexual positions, from missionary, to oral, to froggy style. From the sexually progressive Multi-Media Resource Center.

Orange (1970, Color, Karen Johnson)

A sensual rendering of the evocative act of peeling an orange. Extreme close-ups of hand peeling and gouging an orange and its flesh . Also from the Multi-Media Resource Center

A Quickie (1969, black and White, Dirk Kortz)

A couple meet for a quick sexual interlude, and when we say quick, we mean hyper-speed!

Busman's Holiday (B+W, 1940s)

"This motion picture is produced exclusively for study by artists" warns an intertitle, but something tells me this nudie cutie made its way to more than one stag party! The "story" centers around a lovely young lady who is not only a model, but a budding photographer as well. Thank goodness she's a bit of a klutz and ends up revealing a lot more of herself than her talent!

Stereoscopic Smut (B+W, 1940s)

Yes, you are seeing double! It's double trouble in this unique piece of vintage erotica. A lovely brunette undresses for the cameras. Originally made to be viewed in a specialized stereoscopic viewer, this lovely lady won't be in 3D, but she's still got twice the goods!

Nudie Cuties from Seaside Films (B+W, 1940s)

Fannie with Cheeks of Tan, Tantalizing Torso

Two titillating tales featuring bikini-clad women and an over-the-top narrator. Shot over 60 years ago these risque shorts always feature women doing things that expose themselves like applying suntan lotion, trying on clothes and “getting comfortable” in the hot sun. A sexy and sexist look at the lighter side of eroticism in the 1940s.

The Orgy of the Dolls (Color, 1970s, excerpt)

A truly bizarre piece of pornography (we will cut before it gets XXX) that brings new meaning to "playing with your toys." A woman goes into a doll shop after hours and brings to life a bunch of human-sized horny dolls.

For the Early Birds:

The Birth Control Movie (Color, 1982)

Uses the format of a high school filmmaking class project of making a film on reproduction and contraception to present information on physiological processes and contraceptive methods and devices. There are rap-sessions, jam-sessions, uncomfortable conversations with parents about diaphragms and the meta-moment when the students all sit down to watch their film on a 16mm projector!

About Oddball Films

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Computerized - Yesterday's Technology for Tomorrow - Fri. July 10th - 8PM

July 5, 2015, 11:25 am

≫ Next: An Animated History of Everything in 10 Minutes or Less - Fri. July 17th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Sexual Miseducation - Thur. July 2nd - 8PM

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 Educational brings us a cheesetastic overview of computer technology for elementary school students (and teachers) in Computers: The Truth of the Matter (1983). Arthur C. Clarke and John Whitney Sr. postulate on some of the exciting and terrifying ways technology effects humanity in Computers: Challenging Men's Supremacy (1976). Then, get a taste of some of the first computer-generated animation and motion graphics with Whitney's Catalog (1961) and his brother Michael's mesmerizing Binary Bit Patterns (1969). Gary Demos, the special-effects guru behind Tron and Futureworld creates a mesmerizing light show in I Had an Idea (1972). Plus, the first CG music video, Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now (1972) from animator John Wilson, and a couple of Top Secret Surprises, too juicy to publicize! Come early for Bell Labs' The Thinking Machines (1968) a camptastic animated explanation of various forms of computer intelligence, from the mathematic to the artistic.

Date: Friday, July 10th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

All the Troubles of the World (Color, 1978)
Multivac is tired of the world's problems and wants to die! A dramatization of the story of the same title by Isaac Asimov, about a civilization run by Multivac, an all-powerful computer that directs the society's economy, scientific progress and human psychology. Multivac's "life" is being threatened and young Ben Manner's father is the main suspect. Ben knows that his father is innocent, and in trying to save him, unwittingly becomes involved in a suicide plot from a world-weary computer. Directed by Dianne Haak.

Computers: Challenging Man's Supremacy (Color, 1976)
A fascinating documentary foretelling the coming invasion of computer-automation featuring interviews with Arthur C. Clarke, digital motion graphics visionary John Whitney demonstrating his early analog computer animation set up and Professor Edward Fredkin, an early pioneer of digital physics.

Computers: The Truth of the Matter (Color, 1983)
A goofy live-action intro to computers from Walt Di$ney Educational Services. Teacher is having a tough time with the new computer club that she's in charge of. Luckily two dopey guys - the saintly (and portly) Angelo and the no-good Luke who looks like a used car salesman - magically materialize to show her the good, the bad and the awkward in computing.

Careers in Computer Services (Color, 1983)
Find out if a career in computers is a good fit for you in this educational short from Encyclopedia Britannica. Follow a woman with a glorious head of hair and the best of early-80s corporate fashions as she loves her life of fixing circuit boards.

Binary Bit Patterns (Color, 1969, Michael Whitney)

In the early 1960s digital computers became available to selected artists for the first time. The output medium was usually a pen plotter, microfilm plotter line printer or an alphanumeric printout, which was then manually transferred into a visual medium. Computers were expensive-from $100,000 to several millions of dollars. It took a high degree of technical expertise and a fundamental understanding of systems to create art.

Decades before digital imaging became a part of our everyday lives, the Whitney brothers were exploring the potential of creating moving images using computers and interrogating the emerging relationship between artist and computer.

This seldom-seen film, programmed on a computer and then optically printed explores the graphic permutations of a Persian pattern. The spectacular, fast-paced film features quilt like tapestries of polyhedral and crystalline figures pulsating and multiplying with a kind of universal logic eliciting a hypnotic, trancelike effect from the viewer. This film echoes a preoccupation with the mandala image and the interest in Eastern meditative philosophy that is seen in the work of the whole Whitney family.

Catalog (Color, 1961)

Famed cinematic innovator John Whitney's demo reel of work created with his analog computer/film/camera machine he built from a WWII anti-aircraft gun sight. Whitney and the techniques he developed with this machine were what inspired special FX wizard Douglas Trumbull) to use the slit scan technique on 2001: A Space Odyssey. An eye-opening and inspiring work of early computer generated imagery.

Both Sides Now (Color, 1972)
Pioneering computer animation from John Wilson, whose career started in the late 1940’s (winning Oscars for Gerald McBoing-Boing and Toot, Whistle, Plunk, Boom). This short was the first computer generated music film and was produced for and aired on the Sonny and Cher TV show. The song is Both Sides Now by the great Canadian chanteuse Joni Mitchell.

I Had An Idea (Color, 1972)

Relic of a revolution? The swirling tubular patterns and bright, optimistic colors still evoke the freshness of the once-new medium. From Gary Demos, one of the pioneers in the field of computer-generated special effects, who was involved in four of the earliest movies to rely on computers to dazzle viewers: Futureworld, Looker, Tron, and The Last Starfighter.

For the Early Birds:

The Thinking Machines (Color, 1968, Henry Feinberg)
From Bell Laboratories comes a camptastic overview of early computers; describing what it means for a computer to "think" using animation and live-action. Reveals how computers are almost taught how to think so that they can perform tasks ranging from playing games to performing medical diagnosis. Can a computer think? Various definitions of the word “think” are analyzed in terms of computer capabilities in an effort to answer the question.

About Oddball Films

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An Animated History of Everything in 10 Minutes or Less - Fri. July 17th - 8PM

July 12, 2015, 12:29 pm

≫ Next: Lady Sings the Blues - Thur. July 16th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Computerized - Yesterday's Technology for Tomorrow - Fri. July 10th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents An Animated History of Everything in 10 Minutes or Less, a program of 16mm animation from around the world that offers an array of abridged histories on such varied subjects as art, cinema, leisure, communication, warfare, kitties and more! The Oscar-winning Australian short Leisure (1976) mixes cell-animation and pop-art collage to make you think differently about the way you spend those off hours. Ken Rudolph takes us through the history of art in 8 pulsing minutes in Gallery (1969). From England's Halas and Batchelor studio, there's the succinct and wryly witty The History of the Cinema (1957). From the NFB, discover Bretislav Pojar's tale of the escalation of aggression and the arms race leading to global annihilation: Boom (1979). Revel in the Technicolor mermaids of the Phillips-sponsored Pan-Tele-Tron (1957), a survey of communication through the ages. 6,5,4,3,2,1 (1967) combines cell-animation and collage to create a vision on human progress from the dawn of man to the future of rocketeering. The Story of Time (1949) is a beautiful and surreal stop-motion film about the telling of time from the stone age to the "modern" stop-watch; sponsored by Rolex. Di$ney brings us Of Cats and Men (1977), the historical journey of the domestic cat from Egyptian times to his current seat atop the hearts of men and crazy cat ladies alike. Plus, Pickles (1973) legendary Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto's brilliant animated montage featuring satirical and comical treatments of some of the world’s great preoccupations: advertising, drugs, television, hunger and more. Why waste time learning when you've got Oddball to infotain you with concise cartoons!

Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

The History of the Cinema (Color, 1957)
The History of the Cinema is an undeniable classic of animation, very British in its humor and very tied in with its period. With an irrepressibly optimistic narrator and great wit it takes us from the cavemen daubing on the rock, the pinhole camera, through the early silent movie era, and eventually to the rise of television. John Halas' 1957 movie also manages to convey facts in an amusing way. Thus we learn why Hollywood was so good for film-making (sun, dependable sun) and the vital role the censor paid in movie history - essentially he snipped away all the good bits of film and left the audience with the rest - and even the fads designed to withstand the impact of the little box in the home.

Leisure (Color, 1976)
Oscar-winning, fast-paced, humorous and thought-provoking film using animation by Australian newspaper cartoonist Bruce Petty. Utilizing a pop-art sensibility, the film emphasizes the use of leisure time as an important aspect of life in our society today, tracing its history and possible future.

Gallery (Color, 1971)

Watch the history of Western Art in 8 minutes! Ken Rudolph’s fast-paced stream of consciousness montage of art takes us from the caving paintings of the ancients, through the Renaissance to the surrealism of Dali and the pop art of Warhol. With electronic music by music by Walter (now Wendy) Carlos, creator of the soundscore for “A Clockwork Orange”.

The Story of Time (Color, 1949)

Sponsored by the Rolex watch company this truly unique Technicolor short pulls out all the stops in its history of time telling from prehistory through the modern age. With music from the London Philharmonic Symphony in the background The Story of Time utilizes surreal stop motion claymation, optical printing and over-the-top narration to give us a dazzling perspective on time through the ages.

Boom (Color, 1979)

The global arms race as animated by the legendary Bretislav Pojar (Balablok). Takes a look at the history of aggression and the theory that might makes right. By extension, it carries us into the atomic and missile age, postulating various scenarios for planetary self-destruction, both planned and accidental. Without narration, using only sound effects and music, the film asks the question: is this THE END? Awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 1979.

Pan-tele-tron (Technicolor, 1957)

Animated promotional film made for the Phillips Corporation stunningly illustrates the history of telecommunications with humor and panache in glorious Technicolor. Produced by Pearl and Dean (with animation from the great Vera Linnecar), this won the BAFTA award in 1957.

6,5,4,3,2,1 (Color, 1967, Krzysztof Debowski)
Imaginative animation and an unusual musical score combine to create a journey through time from 25,000 B.C. to the age of space exploration. Satirizes human history, explores relationships between man and his ideas and inventions, and raises questions about man's future. Very cool blend of cell and collage animation.

Of Cats and Men (Color, 1968)

Ever wonder how the cat got his place at the top of the domesticated animal food chain? This Walt Di$ney animation takes us through the history of the fickle feline from his early days with the Egyptians, overpopulation, mythical fear and the eventual rise to greatness in the world of people.

Pickles (Color, 1973)

Another eye-popper from the brilliant Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto (Allegro Non Troppo). In twelve animated vignettes, Bozzetto creates brilliant visual, satirical and comical treatments of some of man's great preoccupations: war, omnipotence, religion, democracy, advertising, drugs, television, hunger, "conquest" of nature.

About Oddball Films

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Lady Sings the Blues - Thur. July 16th - 8PM

July 12, 2015, 8:11 pm

≫ Next: Learn your Lesson about Puberty - A Hormonal Shockucation - Fri. July 24th - 8PM

≪ Previous: An Animated History of Everything in 10 Minutes or Less - Fri. July 17th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Lady Sings the Blues, an evening of film rarities of female blues and jazz musicians from the archive (including several not to be found or seen elsewhere) featuring works with Bessie Smith, Lena Horne, Nellie Lutcher, Alberta Hunter, Elizabeth Cotten, Keely Smith and Ivie Anderson. From mini-musicals to personal and in-depth portrait documentaries to rare performances and Soundies; this is more than just a night of incredible music. One of the most haunting and important films of the collection, view Bessie Smith's only film appearance in the moody musical melodrama St. Louis Blues (1929). In Alberta Hunter: Blues at the Cookery (1982), see Hunter's triumphant return to the stage in her 80s after decades working as a nurse. Rediscover the influential child prodigy, turned housekeeper, turned folk hero Elizabeth Cotten and her favorite upside-down guitar in Me and Stella (1976), an ultra rare and moving piece featuring intimate conversations with the octogenarian blues and folk singer-songwriter. Lena Horne dreams her way out of cleaning and into a singing contract in the mini-musical Lena Horne's Boogie Woogie Dream (1943). Plus, rare musical performances and soundies including Ivie Anderson singing Stormy Weather with Duke Ellington and his band, Nellie Lutcher's cheeky hit Real Gone Guy, Keely Smith belting out Birth of the Blues with Louis Prima, Sam Butera and the Witnesses and more surprises!

Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

St. Louis Blues (1929, Dudley Murphy, B+W)

The only existing film footage of Bessie Smith will send chills down your spine. She does so much for her good-for-nuthin’ honey, only to be swindled and abused time and again. Iconic Blues songstress Bessie Smith shows how to throw it down in the seedy settings of this unique short with a rare track sung by our tragic heroine. W.C. Handy conceived and produced this gritty melodrama based on his 12 bar blues ballad of betrayal. Luckily for posterity, he had the foresight to ask Miss Smith to reprise her “role” as the ill-used love from her 1925 hit. An ambitious early sound film, Murphy pushed the technology of the day to its limits with surprisingly lush results. The Hall Johnson Choir do double duty as the singing speakeasy patrons and Jimmy Mordecai takes a turn as the tap dancing ne’er-do-well pimp.

Alberta Hunter: Blues at the Cookery (Color, 1982)

A portrait of 87-year-old blues artist, Alberta Hunter, who has played with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Sidney Bechet. Between her renditions of "I got rhythm,""Sweet Georgia Brown," and the other numbers she performs at New York's The Cookery, Hunter reveals the story of her life. Giving up music for twenty years to work as a hospital nurse, Hunter began to sing again professionally at the age of 82.

Me and Stella (Color, 1976)

An incredibly intimate portrait of (then) octogenarian Blues and Folk guitarist and songwriter Elizabeth Cotten and her beloved guitar Stella. Cotten taught herself how to play the guitar as a young girl, writing her first (and most well-known) song "Freight Train" at age 12 . Being left-handed with a family of right-handed brothers all sharing the same guitar, Elizabeth learned to play the guitar upside-down (a technique now referred to as "Cotten-picking"). She put down the guitar for 40 years until a chance encounter at a department store led to her employment in Mike Seeger's household, where she picked up the guitar again from scratch and began to record and tour the country on the Folk revival circuit in the 1960s. In the film, Cotten is candid and engaging as she plays her guitar in her own modest bedroom and cheerfully recounts her relationship to music throughout her life. An audience favorite at its Oddball debut, this extraordinary film demands a re-screening!

Lena Horne’s Boogie Woogie Dream (B+W, 1943)

Lena Horne plays a cleaning lady at a night club who daydreams her way into an evening gown and a raucous boogie woogie jam with the other hired help. The record company bigwig who stumbles into the dream has such a good time that he gives her a record contract!

Ivie Anderson in A Bundle of Blues (B+W, 1933, excerpt)

The Duke Ellington Orchestra swing in this stylish soundie gem, providing the musical accompaniment to Ivie Anderson's bluesy and possibly most moving rendition rendition of "Stormy

Weather" ever recorded.

Nellie Lutcher in Ina Ray Hutton's Girl Time (B+W, 1947, excerpt)

The entertaining and unique jazz singer and pianist Nellie Lutcher sings one her biggest hits "Real Gone Guy," accompanying herself on the piano. Her signature style includes a fascinating staccato rhythm to her overly-dictioned phrases and cheeky asides. Nina Simone credits Lutcher as being one of her primary influences.

Keely Smith in The Wildest (B+W, 1958, excerpt)

Filmed on the South Sore at Lake Tahoe, this super rare short features Louis Prima with Keely Smith and Sam Butera and the Witnesses. Keely performs "Birth of the Blues"with the high-energy band.

About Oddball Films

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Learn your Lesson about Puberty - A Hormonal Shockucation - Fri. July 24th - 8PM

July 19, 2015, 8:46 pm

≫ Next: The Toys are Alive! - Thurs. July 23rd - 8PM

≪ Previous: Lady Sings the Blues - Thur. July 16th - 8PM

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn Your Lesson...About Puberty: A Hormonal Shockucation, the 28th 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 finally devoting a whole night to the horrible onslaught of puberty and all the awkward terror it encompasses! To start the evening, there's nothing better than Kotex and Di$ney's dreamily animated Story of Menstruation (1945). For the first time ever, we will be distributing copies of the companion pamphlet that originally accompanied the film - Very Personally Yours (while supplies last, so show up early!) so the whole class can follow along. Then, we'll be screening two sets of companion films that would have been originally shown in separate rooms for the boys and girls - two will be screened individually back to back and two will be screened simultaneously, side by side with live-sound mixing. Learn all about your first period and making out with smiley-faced pillows with the most awkward pubescent heroine of the 80s in Dear Diary: A Film about Female Puberty (1981). Then, for the gents; find out more about wet dreams and unexpected hard-ons than you ever wanted to know in the companion piece Am I Normal? A Film about Male Puberty (1979). Celebrity hosts Marlo Thomas and Ken Howard (and the pubescent kids they're spending the night with) will battle for your attention as we double project the uncomfortable camping trip and weenie roast of The Body Human: The Facts for Boys (1981) and the slumber party of young girls gabbing about their changing bodies, lip-syncing terribly and other girlie stuff in The Body Human: The Facts for Girls (1980). Snicker at the similarities, mock the differences, and finally get a glimpse into the other half of the class. Plus, a couple of secret surprises and more menstrutainment for the early birds, it's a great night to learn your lesson.

Date: Friday, July 24th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Dear Diary, a film about female puberty (Color, 1981)
The Welcome to the Dollhouse of puberty primers! The exaggerated characterizations and embarrassing situations experienced by the film's incredibly awkward thirteen-year-old protagonist are humorously combined to provide answers to female adolescents' questions about their changing bodies. The young girl encounters peer pressure from her boy-crazy friends, changing sex roles, and a pillow with smiley face. Keep your eyes peeled for the animated menstruation cycle.

Am I Normal? A Film about Male Puberty (Color, 1979)
"In this job I see a lot of penises"
It's the companion piece to Oddball favorite "Dear Diary: A Film about Female Puberty", but this one if all for the boys! Is it normal to think about sex all the time? Are these inexplicable hard-ons and nocturnal emissions just part of puberty, or are you some kind of freak? Are the other boys going through these same kinds of changes? Can you learn anything important from a book titled "Great Moments in Sex"? Find out all that and more when one pubescent boy dares ask every adult he knows "Am I Normal?" Well, Billy, the answer is yes and no...

The Body Human - The Facts for Girls (Color, 1980)
"Being a girl is very special. I know... I remember"
TV's That Girl Marlo Thomas, the mastermind behind Free to be...You and Me, gabs with three young girls about the facts of life, their changing bodies and more awkward topics. With a jammin' slumber party, crowd surfing, chats about Billy Jean King's period and a soundtrack that includes The Bee-Gees, Donna Summer and the Righteous Brothers, The Facts for Girls really delivers!

Double Projected With:

The Body Human - The Facts for Boys (Color, 1980)
“Changing from a boy to a man is a one way trip. I’m Ken Howard and I’ve been through it all and I’d like to share the experience with you.” Actor Ken Howard, in the middle of his stint as the White Shadow, decided to take three young boys, Li’l Billy Warner, Shane Hankins and Kade Lyons on an unsupervised camping trip to shoot the shit about wet dreams and unwanted pregnancies over wiener roasting and s’mores. With a dynamite soundtrack that includes hits by Rod Stewart, Blondie, The Eagles and Willie Nelson.

The Story of Menstruation (Color, 1945)

A Walt D*sney Production, The Story of Menstruation is an animated short film produced for American schools detailing the menstrual cycle. Rumored to be the first film with the word “vagina” in it’s screenplay, this vintage gem is both matter of fact and dreamily flowery. A large-headed girl takes you through the dos and don’ts of menses while helpful diagrams guide us all to better understanding. And for the first time ever, follow along with the recommendations in Kotex's companion pamphlet Very Personally Yours, recently discovered at an estate sale by the curator. Copies will be limited, so arrive early enough to take home a fascinating piece of replicated Di$ney ephemera!

Curator’s Biography

Kat Shuchter is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, artist and esoteric film hoarder. She has helped program shows at the PFA, The Nuart and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater and was crowned “Found Footage Queen” of Los Angeles, 2009. She has programmed over 150 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

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The Toys are Alive! - Thurs. July 23rd - 8PM

July 19, 2015, 9:55 pm

≫ Next: Strange Sinema 90: Psychosexual with Austin filmmaker Scott Stark - Fri. July 31st - 8PM

≪ Previous: Learn your Lesson about Puberty - A Hormonal Shockucation - Fri. July 24th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Toys are Alive!, an imaginative, inspiring, and slightly creepy program of 16mm short films and animation full of antique playthings come to life. From the miniature circus of Alexander Calder to stop-motion animation and bizarre educational films, rediscover your early obsession with sentient toys. Marvel at the childlike wonder instilled in legendary artist Alexander Calder as he plays with his miniature kinetic sculptures in Calder’s Circus (1963). Grant Munro's anti-war short Toys (1966) brings to life your GI Joes, but as it turns out, that's not a good thing. Everyone's favorite little green buddy, Gumby gets into shenanigans with toy trucks in the original 1957 short Toy Fun. Fall in love with Ivo Caprino's enchanting stop-motion interpretation of Hans Christian Anderson's Steadfast Tin Soldier (1955) in gorgeous Technicolor. The whole attic comes alive with discarded dolls and tchotchkes having a grand old time in the Friz Freleng cartoon The Miller's Daughter (1934). Watch out for that creepy clown puppet, because he might turn you invisible to answer the question Parents: Who Needs Them? (1973), a bizarro mental hygiene primer with terrible dubbing. Plus, two of Lajos Szabo's hilarious Lego Sports Shorts; Figure Skating (1986) featuring a rowdy ensemble of dancing penguins and the skiing bear of Downhill Skiing (1986) and a smattering of snippets and secret surprises all highlighting re-animated antique toys, dolls and playthings.

Date: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Highlights Include:

Calder’s Circus (Color, 1963)

Before his rise to fame as the artist to popularize the mobile, kinetic sculptor Alexander Calder created and travelled with a miniature moving circus out of wire, wood and cloth. In 1963, filmmaker Carlos Vilardebo filmed the icon performing his circus. As Calder exhibits the piece, we watch as Calder blurs the line between presentation and play. This remarkable circus comes to life, sometimes on it’s own, sometimes in conjunction with other elements and always in an astonishing manner.

Gumby in Toy Fun (B&W, 1957)

Everybody’s favorite little green shape shifter, Gumby and his B.F.F. Pokey head into the toy box in this rare original short by Claymation Master, Art Clokey.

Toys (Color, 1966)

Grant Munro, frequent Norman McLaren collaborator, directed this clever anti-war toy short using the stop-motion technique. It all starts innocently enough with kids coveting the toys in a store window with a groovy soundtrack. But then the war toys come to life and the ensuing violence is quite less than playful.

Looney Tunes: The Miller’s Daughter (B+W, 1934 Friz Freleng)

A little shepherdess figurine is broken and forced to the attic for repair. Her shepherd goes to her aid, and three "hear-no-evil" etc. monkeys in the attic imitate the Three Stooges. Soon the whole attic is the site of a musical, with dancing and singing when the shepherdess is repaired. Directed by Isadore "Friz" Freleng and animated by a young Chuck Jones!

Parents: Who Needs Them? (Color, 1971)

One for the schlock history books, this bizarro educational primer features one of the most disturbing and creepy puppets we've ever found within these walls. Little Jimmy is a careless, sloppy and ungrateful boy who can't see all that his long-suffering parents do for him. That is, until his disgusting clown puppet comes to life, waves his magic wand over the young boy's face as he sleeps (not creepy at all), and turns little Jimmy invisible until he learns a valuable lesson in gratitude.

Two Lego Sports Shorts!

Figure Skating (Color, 1986, Lajos Szabo)
A hilarious new find from Hungary and part of a series of olympic sports acted out by Legos. The couple on the ice are at the top of their game as they disintegrate into separate blocks, rebuild in different costumes, let out a swarm of penguins and skate out legos hearts, but is it enough showmanship to win the gold?

Downhill Skiing (Color, 1986, Lajos Szabo)

Another Lego sports short! It's time for the downhill skiing competition and one bear is determined to make the grade. Both shorts are in beautiful color and win the gold in comedy!

Steadfast Tin Soldier (Technicolor, 1955, Ivo Caprino)

A gorgeous print of an even more enchanting story from Hans Christian Anderson. A beautiful and delightful mix of live action and stop-motion animation that brings to life the tale of a little tin soldier who is in love with a ballerina doll. Even as the soldier is mistreated, lost, broken and ultimately burned, his love continues and is met with the ultimate sacrifice. A Norwegian production made for the 150th anniversary of the original story in Denmark.

The Ball That Wanted To Play (1971, Color)

It’s really very simple: the ball wants to play! As he bounces around a quiet English village, he tries to coax the toys he encounters to come out and have some fun. All prove to be completely uninterested, even a frisky pup! Is there any relief for this frustrated orange sphere?

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Strange Sinema 90: Psychosexual with Austin filmmaker Scott Stark - Fri. July 31st - 8PM

July 26, 2015, 8:55 pm

≫ Next: Futurama - A Visit to the 1964-1965 World's Fair - Thur. July 30th - 8PM

≪ Previous: The Toys are Alive! - Thurs. July 23rd - 8PM

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 90th program of classic, strange, and unusual films. For Strange Sinema 90: Psychosexual, Parr is collaborating with Austin filmmaker and archivist Scott Stark to curate explicit psychosexual rarities examining the underbelly of the sexual subconscious. From found films featuring subliminal messages like Fuck, Horray (sp.) to Stark’s stunning genre-breaking erotic film Noema (1998) which explores the blank, unerotic moments in pornographic films, this program promises to be a pulsating panorama of all things strange, sexual and at times stupefying! Featured films include Orange (1971) experimental filmmaker Karen Johnson’s abstract and erotic short consisting of extreme close-up shots of an orange being peeled and eaten, Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974) Gerard Damiano’s psycho-hillbilly porn trailer for a movie one critic described as being "rich with intimations of 'Psycho' and Faulkner” (!), Dragzilla (1966) featuring a trickster hot-to-trot drag queen and a beefy stove repair-man, Ego (1970), Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto unleashes this memorable psychedelic nightmare of chaos and desire as experienced through the subconscious dream state of a married man, early stag film On the Beach aka Getting His Goat (1923) where a man peeps through a knot-hole on a group of girls and they turn the tables on him-big time! Starring Creighton Hale (from D.W. Griffith’s “Way Down East”). Other oddities and hand-crafted films include Fuck Horray (1970) a anonymous highly-edited slice of subliminal sex, Feet (1970) a found roll of foot fetishism, Escalation (1968) an animated anti-war short from Academy Award-winning Di$ney animator Ward Kimball jam-packed with erotic metaphors, Friendless Faceless (1970) campy and poignant San Francisco soft-core gay film features a lovelorn young man who opts for a face change to embark on a new romantic life, and finally Speechless (2008, also by Stark) a mysterious, hallucinatory poem to the female genitals composed of 3D photographs of human vulvae animated and interwoven with surfaces and textures from natural and human-made environments. Plus preshow anomalies!

Date: Friday, July 31st, 2015 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Noema (Color, 1998, Scott Stark)

NOEMA is philosopher Husserl's term for "the meaning of an object that is formed in the domain of consciousness." Pornographic videos are mined for the unerotic moments between moments, when the actors are engaging in an awkward change of position or when the camera pans meaningfully away from the urgent mechanisms of sex up to a cheap painting on the wall or the distant embers of a crackling fire. A piercing musical score loops endlessly throughout, and the repetitive and curious iterations of movement become furtive searches for meaning within their own blandness.

"Noema is neither Boogie Nights nor the nights of Scheherezade, but more a Decameron-like tournament of missing links and coitus interuptus. A dizzy daisy chain of synchronized decouplings and eager hesitations where bodies never merge. Porno unplugged… Stark's analytical insistence pits his passionate acuity against dispassionate executions while giving the found material a sporting chance towards atomized immortality and ritual replay. A splayed adagio infects the scenes with a polar melancholy." -- Mark McElhatten, New York Film Festival

"Scott Stark's Noema... deconstruct[s] a swatch of hard core pornography involving several couples. But instead of finding a hidden psychological subtext, he finds a psychological and erotic blankness in couplings that are never completed." -- Stephen Holden, New York Times.

Orange (Color, 1971)

Experimental filmmaker Karen Johnson’s erotic short consists solely of music accompanying extreme close-up shots of an orange being peeled and eaten. A metaphor for the body erotic, the texture of the fruit’s flesh, the sensuous color and the physicality of the action make this film one of the most erotic shorts ever made.

Memories Within Miss Aggie (Color, 1974)

Psycho-hillbilly porn trailer for a movie that one critic has described as being "rich with intimations of 'Psycho,' and 'Images' and Faulkner," and whose director, Gerard Damiano, a former hairdresser and X-ray, technician, has been called the Ingmar Bergman of porn.

For further details of this “corn and porn” flick read Vincent Canby’s damming review in the 1974 edition of the NY times here: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0DE4DA113BE53ABC4B51DFB066838F669EDE

Dragzilla (B+W, 1966)
A hot-to-trot drag queen calls in a beefy repair-man to fix her stove. The service man gets far more than he bargained for!

Ego (Color, 1970)
In his stunning animated short, Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto unleashes from the subconscious of the domesticated man a psychedelic nightmare of chaos and desire. Beginning in conventional cartoon, the story descends into inferno through dazzling watercolor, optical printing, and pop imagery. Wild soundtrack by the ultra-lounge master Franco Godi!

On the Beach aka Getting His Goat (B+W, 1923)
“Idylwild Beach where the men are idle and the women are wild”
From 1923, here’s one of the earliest stag films ever made starring Creighton Hale (from D.W. Griffith’s “Way Down East”). A man peeps through a knot-hole on a group of girls and gets more than he bargained for.

Fuck Horray (B+W, 1970)
This anonymous hand-made slice of subliminal sex, found in a collection of beefcake erotica features a semi nude male with highly edited subliminal messages flashing by.

Feet (Color, 1970s?)
Scott’s Stark’s found roll of 16mm film made by what appears to be a foot fetishist. (Nothing sexual here, just strange, very strange.)

Escalation (Color, 1968)

An animated anti-war short from Academy Award-winning Di$ney animator Ward Kimball (1914 –2002). The film protests then-president Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam war using violence, montage and sexuality.

Friendless Faceless (not the real title, which is unknown)
(Color, circa 1970) Shot in San Francisco, this soft-core gay film features a lovelorn young homosexual who opts for a face change operation to embark on a new romantic life. Campy and poignant.

Speechless (Color, 2008)

Film by Scott Stark. Sound by Greg Headley. 3D photographs of human vulvae are animated and interwoven with surfaces and textures from natural and human-made environments. The genital images were taken from a set of ViewMaster 3D reels that accompanied a textbook entitled The Clitoris, published in 1976 by two medical professionals.

Grand prize winner: Black Maria Film Festival (2009)
First prize (experimental): Chicago Underground Film Festival (2009)
First prize: Milwaukee Underground Film Festival (2009)

"Speechless is gorgeous, mysterious, hallucinatory.... This is a magnificent work, equal to, or even better than, Brakhage's sexual meditations." -- Gene Youngblood, author of Expanded Cinema.

"...the landscape textures, composition, and rhythm of the landscape layer really merged and created a meditative space for the power of the body, a part of the body that in all of its mystery has been sadly, sadly misunderstood and under acknowledged." -- Kerry Laitala

"...an ecstatic poem to the female genitals as the awe-inspiring, mythic symbol of the fertile, generative force in the universe." -- David Finkelstein, FilmThreat.com

http://scottstark.com/speechless.html

Scott Stark:

Scott Stark has made over 80 films and videos since the early 1980s, and has created numerous moving image installations, live performances and photo-collages. He received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and served on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Cinematheque from 1984-1991. His work has shown nationally and internationally in venues as diverse as New York‚s Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Cinematheque, the Film Festival Rotterdam, the Tokyo Image Forum, and many others. His 16mm film Angel Beach was invited into the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and in 2007 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. His 2013 film The Realist showed at numerous worldwide film festivals and was on several year-end "best" lists. His work has garnered numerous awards. He is the webmaster for Flicker (www.hi-beam.net), the web resource for experimental film and video since 1995. Scott divides his time between San Francisco, CA and Austin, Texas where he is co-director of Experimental Response Cinema (www.ercatx.org ).

Stephen Parr:
San Francisco archivist, imagemaker and curator Stephen Parr, founder of Oddball Film+Video has a long history of presenting and archiving the unusual. Since the 1970s Parr has produced and documented live performances of John Cage, Christian Marclay and The Ramones, screened his signature pop culture montages from the Danceteria in New York to the Moscow Cinematheque. He’s created found footage based films such as “Historical/Hysterical?’, “The Subject is Sex” and “Eurphoria!” which have screened worldwide in venues such as The Anthology Film Archive, Jaaga in Bangalore, South India and the Leeds International Film Festival. He curates an eclectic weekly film series-Oddball Films at his archive and is a frequent presenter at film and media seminars and symposiums. He is an active member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.

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Futurama - A Visit to the 1964-1965 World's Fair - Thur. July 30th - 8PM

July 26, 2015, 8:56 pm

≫ Next: Cinema Soiree - Meet Mr. Product - Thur. Aug. 20th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Strange Sinema 90: Psychosexual with Austin filmmaker Scott Stark - Fri. July 31st - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Futurama - A Visit to the 1964-1965 World's Fair, a program of vintage films about and commissioned for the New York World's Fair of 1964-1965.  This international spectacle of architecture, commerce, culture, religion and art attracted millions of visitors from around the world. Countries, religions and corporations alike sought to dazzle visitors with glorifications of the past and promises of a brighter future. Tour the fair and witness all the exciting sights and sounds of the 1964 New York World's Fair in campy travelogue To the Fair (1964) including visits to the Uni-sphere (the centerpiece of the fair), the Futurama exhibit, The Vatican pavilion, presentations from exotic countries and more in gorgeous color! From the commercial sector, Ship n' Shore Fashions wants you to see the future of machine-washable clothing with two giggling girls at the fair in Fashion Fair (1964). In Magic Skyway (1965), Ford motorcars commissioned the animatronix team from Di$neyland to create an interactive ride full of dinosaurs, neanderthals and a brief trip back in time to show the past and future of cars. The legendary Saul Bass creates a kaleidoscopic vision of air travel for United Airlines in From Here to There (1964). From the religious sector, we bring you the LDS film that was watched my millions and plays out much like a mental hygiene short, warning viewers of a life of idle and harkening them to the Mormon faith: Man's Search for Happiness (1964). View the controversial film from the Lutheran Council and visionary filmmaker Rolf Forsberg depicting Jesus as a circus clown: Parable (1964).  Early birds will get the inside scoop on the planning of the fair in World's Fair Report with Lowell Thomas (1961) which includes an interview with fair planner Robert Moses and miniature models of many of the pavilions and buildings of the fair. Plus dancing dolphins, Mel Brooks's 2,000 Year Old Man talks about the very first World's Fair and more surprises. Everything screened on 16mm film from the Oddball archive.


Date: Thursday, July 30th, 2015 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

To the Fair (Pristine Color, 1964)

“Practically everyone in the world is coming to the fair!”

Tour the fair with the Wilson family from San Francisco, Troop 295 from the Bronx, the Chandras from India, traveling teachers from Kansas and a couple of gorgeous gals and horny young men (one who looks an awful lot like RFK) in this delightfully campy travelogue of the fair.

Get glimpses at the symbol of the Fair, the great Uni-sphere and its fountains, the Wonderful World of Chevrolet, a show where the audience revolves around the theater, The History of Communications by Bell Communications, countries’ pavilions including Spain, India, Venezuela, Korea, Japan, and Indonesia, The Pieta of The Vatican City (marking the first time a major Michelangelo sculpture traveled to the US), an area for “Parking Children,” the Futurama exhibit, carousels, gondolas, monorails and evening fireworks!

The boy scout troop loses some of its members and the lost ones try frantically to find the troop by attempting to spot the troop from heights and then dizzy chases on amusement park rides. The two college men are attracted to two women and track them down through the various attractions of the fair. Our out of town teachers view exhibits to learn how to teach children some new ideas. And everybody has a great time!

Magic Skyway (Color, 1964)
Ride and product exhibits for the Ford Motor Company’s New York World’s Fair Pavilion The Wide World of Ford. Ford cars drive through a live action diorama with cavemen writing on walls, dinosaurs and automated animals. Animatronic cavemen - made by the folks over at Di$neyland (where some of the dinosaurs still live on today) - hunt fake animals, paint on walls, and discover the wheel which takes us into "modern day" and beyond with tons of gorgeous futuristic cars on display.

Fashion Fair (Color, 1964, excerpt)
New York-native Jo-Ann shows her Iowa-native cousin Linda around New York for the World’s Fair. The two are excited to go up escalators and explore lavish hotels. They enjoy rides on monorails and have a tea party in the design pavilion. When they stumble into the Ship n' Shore Fashions tent, they are blown away by all the amazing machine washable clothes that keep them looking sharp. The factory then gives us a demonstration of the many dedicated sets of hands it takes to make the perfect ruffled shirt from the sewing machine to the model.

From Here to There (Color, 1964)
Without narration and using quick cuts and odd angles, Saul Bass creates a fast-paced and visually enticing collage of the golden age of air travel. From the airports to the passengers; stunning aerial shots and minute details, this short will take you back in time and across the country like the 1960s jet-setter we all wish we were. Commissioned by United Airlines for their tent.

All in Fun (B+W, 1964, excerpt)
A visit to the New York World's Fair featuring the friendly porpoises starring in the water show at the Florida Pavilion. These intelligent marine mammals perform a variety of tricks for the camera--leaping several times their length above the water, tailwalking, playing basketball, and putting out fires. Flashbacks show how these performers were captured from Florida waters and then schooled by the Miami Seaquarium for their crowd pleasing show at the biggest of all shows.

Parable (Color, 1964, Rolf Forsberg)
This highly controversial film was commissioned by the Lutheran Council for screening at the 1964 World's Fair. The depiction of Jesus as a pantomime circus clown was met with floods of protestors, but it also garnered the film numerous awards and recognitions, as well as inspiring the musical Godspell. In 2012, Parable was added to the National Film Registry.

Man's Search for Happiness (Color, 1964)
Do you ever wonder "Who am I?""Where did I come from?" or "Where am I going?" Well, make a stop at the Mormon Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair and learn the LDS path towards happiness. And make sure you get to greet your dead loved ones in Heaven in a bathrobe!

Two-Thousand Year Old Man (B+W, c. 1964)
Little wonder 1964 World's Fair organizer Robert Moses called on Mel Brooks's Two Thousand Year Old Man. After all, he worked with the original Moses on the first World's Fair. Carl Reiner gets the scoop on the primitive fun at the 0026 World's Fair in Morty's cave, when people paid good money to drop off cliffs! Oy, that was a good time!

Curator’s Biography

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Cinema Soiree - Meet Mr. Product - Thur. Aug. 20th - 8PM

August 2, 2015, 9:31 pm

≫ Next: Antique Animal Antics! - Fri. Aug. 7th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Futurama - A Visit to the 1964-1965 World's Fair - Thur. July 30th - 8PM

Oddball Films welcomes authors, historians and collectors Masud Husain and Warren Dotz to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Husain and Dotz will be in person discussing their two recent collaborations: Meet Mr. Product: Volumes 1 and 2, a smart compendium of the art of the advertising character. With smiling faces and helpful slogans, the Jolly Green Giant, Chiquita Banana, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and countless other advertising characters have been helping us navigate the grocery aisles and choose our products for years. Husain will offer up fascinating tidbits on tons of iconic spokes-characters and little known advertising mascots, including their evolution and most interesting trivia that will surprise even the most avid collectors of advertising ephemera. Warren Dotz recently had a six month long exhibition at SFO, A World of Characters: Advertising icons from the Warren Dotz Collection; one of the most popular exhibitions at the airport ever. We'll be screening filmmaker Jan Stuhrmann's short documentary highlighting the expansive and colorful exhibit. Oddball will be also screening dozens of Vintage Commercials from the archive, illustrating some of the characters that entice us to purchase cereal, mufflers, tuna and more!

from Mr. Product © Warren Dotz 2015

Date: Thursday, August 20th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

About the Authors:

Warren Dotz is a collector of pop culture ephemera and the author of thirteen books on advertising, design, and commercial label art. His commentary has appeared in Advertising Age, Adweek and the New York Times Magazine.

from Mr. Product © Warren Dotz 2015

Masud Husain is a graphic designer, branding specialist, and avid collector of American advertising ephemera. He designed and coauthored the award-winning books Meet Mr. Product and Ad Boy as well as Dog Food for Thought and Cat Food for Thought, with Warren Dotz.

About the Filmmaker:

Jan Stürmann is a South African-born photographer and multimedia producer based in Berkeley, CA. He studied photography at Pretoria Technicon. Publishing credits include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Time, Newsweek and Marie Claire. Most of his work is focused on harnessing the story-telling potential of multimedia for editorial, corporate and NGO clients. Web: www.albinocrow.com

from Mr. Product © Warren Dotz 2015

About Oddball Films:

from Mr. Product © Warren Dotz 2015

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Antique Animal Antics! - Fri. Aug. 7th - 8PM

August 2, 2015, 9:31 pm

≫ Next: London Calling: A Vintage Cinetour - Thur. Aug 6th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Cinema Soiree - Meet Mr. Product - Thur. Aug. 20th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Antique Animal Antics!, a program of vintage films full of adorable, hilarious and anthropomorphic animals from the 1930s-1970s. Decades before youtube, CGI, and the Buddies franchise, these furry film stars were doing tricks, solving crimes, talking, singing and drinking at the local pub! A crime-solving, canoeing pooch tracks down a thief in the Yukon in highlights from The Test (1935) starring wondermutt Rin Tin Tin Jr. Fall in love with Squeak the Squirrel (1957), a little ground squirrel in search of a nut and willing to perform any number of tricks for those sweet nutty treats. Then, the Kodachrome tale of a rescued woodchuck who is forced to wear doll clothes for her dinner in Chucky Lou: Story of a Woodchuck (1948). 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. Hammy the Hamster is back in a new adventure; when a boot makes its way down the river, Hammy and his friends turn it into a tiny house for the fluffy talking rodent in The Boot House (1961). One randy pooch dreams of a lovely harem of singing bitches in the Jerry Fairbanks Speaking of Animals short In a Harem (1951). Hollywood primate Zippy the Chimp almost has his birthday party ruined by a bully, until quits monkeying around and gets revenge in Zippy's Birthday Party (1940s). From Oscar-winning Dutch director Bert Haanstra comes the docu-comedy Zoo (1962) that examines the unique behaviors of exotic wildlife (human visitors included) in a zoo. With even more surprises in store and everything screened on 16mm film from the archive!

Date: Friday, August 7th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Manimals (Color, 1978)

Directed by multi-Oscar winner Robin Lehman, this intriguing personality documentary centers around New York City inhabitants who keep exotic pets. Alternating between humor and horror, the film explores the people who humanize wild animals, revealing some interesting characters and the semi-wild monkeys, goats, cows and birds that accompany them in their New York apartments and even out on the town. The film features a cow that goes to the local bar to get a bucket of beer and a woman who dresses her exotic birds in Yankees uniforms. You can catch a clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8dLIwRZDjs

Chucky Lou: Story of a Woodchuck (Color, 1948)

One of the most baffling nature films of the collection, in stunning Kodachrome! Chucky Lou was just a little woodchuck in the woods, until some tummy trouble and a well-meaning woman with a picnic basket lands the funny little rodent in some kind of animal reserve. Then, it gets really weird when they sit Chucky Lou on a stool and encourage children to dress her up in doll clothes! Nature! Isn't it wonderful?!

Hammy the Hamster in The Boot House (B+W, 1961)

Another chapter of talking rodents from Tales of the Riverbank, otherwise known as Hammy the Hamster, a British children’s television show of talking animals that originated in Canada; created by David Ellison and Paul Sutherland. One day, Hammy the Hamster is told of a strange craft seen moving down the river. On inspection it turns out to be an old boot and Hammy decides that it would make an ideal home for him. He and his critter friends pull it ashore and up the hill and start work on converting it into a house. As darkness falls, Hammy moves in and finds that his friends have prepared a house-warming party for him.

Squeak the Squirrel (Color, 1957)

You've heard of lab rats, well how about an adorable lab squirrel? No, he's not being tested with make-up or medication; scientists are testing his intelligence by setting up a series of obstacles on his way to his sweet nutty rewards. Will he learn to use a step stool and a pulley? Will he ever get that nut he's after?

Zippy's Birthday Party (B+W, 1940s)

It's primate powerhouse Zippy the Chimp's birthday and he wants nothing more than a party with his friends. Everyone's having a grand old time, in their pretty party dresses, watching zippy roller skate in a white tuxedo and open his presents; until the town bully comes to the party with a jack in the box and a bad attitude. When the bully steals Zippy's cake, the birthday boy is done monkeying around and plots a sinister (especially for a children's film) revenge on the human child. Not necessarily the best lesson we've learned, but revenge by bodily harm certainly is sweet when administered by a chimpanzee.

In A Harem (B+W, 1941)
Who doesn't love a talking animal short? Especially one from the cheese-master himself Jerry Fairbanks! This barktacular is an all-dog, “talking” short from Paramount’s “Speaking of Animals” series. A little pooch falls asleep and dreams he has his own exotic harem of singing bitches (they are dogs, after all).

Zoo (B+W, 1962)
Hilarious docu-comedy by the brilliant Dutch filmmaker Bert Haanstra. Many exotic creatures can be observed going through life's daily rituals in this swinging little documentary: the inhabitants of the zoo and its equally fascinating human visitors. Director of the 1959 Oscar-winning short Glass, Haanstra must have spent many days shooting to capture these amazing shots. Utilizing a hidden camera and brilliant editing , “natural” animal and human behavior/interaction is cleverly exposed.

"Observing people and animals when they don't know you're there is
fascinating: I bonded with them"– Bert Haanstra

The Test (B+W, 1935, condensed version)

A condensed highlight reel from the short feature starring wondermutt German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin Jr. Rinty is on the case when a thief has been stealing furs from the local fur trappers. Watch him flex his poochy prowess as he tracks down the thief and saves the day! Co-starring Grant Withers and Grace Ford and directed by Bernard B. Ray.

Curator’s Biography

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London Calling: A Vintage Cinetour - Thur. Aug 6th - 8PM

August 2, 2015, 9:32 pm

≫ Next: Learn your Lesson from Herk Harvey - 1950s Mental Hygiene Master - Fri. August 14th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Antique Animal Antics! - Fri. Aug. 7th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents London Calling: A Vintage Cinetour, a program of 16mm films shot in mid-century London. From wartime propaganda, to art, documentary, music, ephemera and more, this is a one of a kind trip to another time and place. See the determination of Londoners in the face of the destruction of their historic city during the Blitzkrieg in London Can Take It! (1940) the propaganda short that helped change American sentiment towards entering WWII. Get a look at the art scene with A Lichtenstein in London (1968), a tour de force on site doc of the American pop artist’s famous Tate Modern show produced by Bruce Beresford featuring commentary by Lichtenstein, gallery views and shots of some of his most well known paintings and sculptures. The audacious Ken Russell (Tommy, Altered States) shows us his softer side with one of his very first short films, Amelia and the Angel (1957) about a little girl's quest for redemption through the streets of Post-War London. Black Cap Drag (1969) takes an in-depth look at two British drag performers in 1960s Camden as they discuss their lives and careers and sing a few Barbra and Marlene numbers in the historic gay bar that recently closed its doors. Zip around with Twiggy and other mod models in excerpts of Opus (1967) a fascinating tour-de-force montage of British art, architecture, theater and swingin’ fashions-all that was shocking in 1967; directed by experimental cinema legend Don Levy. And for a Technicolor taste of the British Invasion coming home, visit Tottenham and hear a few groovy tunes from The Dave Clark Five (1965). Plus, get a glimpse of the city pre-war in Castle Films newsreel London (1938) and early birds can tour the city with Vintage Travelogues.

Date: Friday, August 7th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

London Can Take It! (B+W, 1940)

"These are not Hollywood sound effects. This is the music that plays every night in London; the symphony of war."

An effectively didactic wartime newsreel touting London's strength in the face of nightly Nazi blitz attacks. A sobering (but oddly humorous) account of the destruction of hundreds of buildings in the historic city, but never the spirit of Londoners. Produced by the GPO Film Unit, this little slice of British propaganda was distributed in America to sway public sentiment towards entering the war in Europe and to prove to the world that with a stiff upper lip, London can take it!

"There is no panic, no fear, no despair in Londontown. There is nothing but determination, confidence, and high courage among the people on Churchill's Island."

Lichtenstein in London (1968, Color, Bruce Beresford)

A British Film Institute/Bruce Beresford directed film shot at the Tate Modern show in London in 1968. This film records the impact of American artist Roy Lichtenstein's work on the public and their reactions to it in the context of a retrospective exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, which attracted unprecedented attention and proved one of the most popular ever held there. Shows his early paintings based on magazine ads and comic strip cartoons, such as "Stove" (1962) and "Whaam!" (1963) as well as his sculptures and landscape. The soundtrack juxtaposes remarks by the public approving, questioning, and often rejecting the work (to hilarious effect), with extracts from previously recorded interviews with the artist made by the critics Alan Solomon for WNET, New York, and David Sylvester for the BBC.

Amelia and the Angel (B+W, 1957, Ken Russell)

An utterly charming early short from one of Britain's most iconoclastic directors, the late great Ken Russell (Tommy, Altered States, The Devils). The almost too adorable Amelia (played by Argentinian moppet Mercedes Quadros) is getting ready for her stage debut as an angel with her dance class. Against the teacher's advice, she borrows her wings to take home to show her mother. But as her brother is a "horrible little beast", he absconds with the wings and destroys them summarily. Amelia must run all over the city to find a new pair of wings before her performance. As she runs through the streets of post-war London, she runs into obstacles and colorful characters aplenty (including an equally adorable circus dog) in her quest to redeem herself. While markedly more tame than Russell's work from the 70s and 80s, it is clearly his own with echoes of the themes of the absurdities of faith and a theatricality that would persist through most of his work. Ethereal, entertaining and inspiring, it's a rare treat from a Master.

Opus (Color, 1967, excerpt)

Produced for world-wide distribution for the British Government (Central Office of Information) and for continuous showing in the British Pavilion of Expo ’67, Montreal was directed by famed experimental filmmaker Don Levy. This film is a fascinating tour-de-force montage of British art, architecture, theater and fashions-all that was shocking in 1967. Opus is a whirlwind of music and montage of modern British machine sculptors and swingin’ British fashions, cars and lifestyles!

Black Cap Drag (Color, 1969)
It's London, 1969 and the world is in full groovy swing. At the New Black Cap in Camden, two performers steal the show, and reveal themselves and their stories to the viewer. Full of heart as well as humor, fun and fabulousness, Black Cap Drag is a remarkable and rare document of two men who can't wait to get dressed like Barbra Streisand and Marlene Dietrich. One of the first queer safe spaces in England - at a time when homosexuality was still illegal - the Black Cap recently closed its doors after five decades, as its building is sleighted for development, prompting protestors to rally for the iconic venue. A tribute to the dearly departed night club will be held in August at a BFI retrospective featuring a screening of this film, digitally transferred and provided by Oddball Films (we will be watching the original 16mm print)

The Dave Clark Five (Technicolor, 1965)

After conquering America with their stomping beat, the DC5 make a triumphant return to the London borough of Tottenham and it’s all related in breathless Pathe Newsreel style voiceover! Plenty of sumptuous color, fan pandemonium, and "attending to their hair-dos" as the 5 perform “Bits and Pieces” and “Glad All Over”.

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Learn your Lesson from Herk Harvey - 1950s Mental Hygiene Master - Fri. August 14th - 8PM

August 8, 2015, 8:33 am

≫ Next: The Untrained Eye - Primitive, Folk and Outsider Artists - Thur. Aug. 13th - 8PM

≪ Previous: London Calling: A Vintage Cinetour - Thur. Aug 6th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Learn your Lesson from Herk Harvey - 1950s Mental Hygiene Master, the 29th 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 salute Harold "Herk" Harvey (1924-1996), a director of over 400 mental hygiene and educational films and one feature; the cult horror film Carnival of Souls. This program will delve into his early work of 1950s social guidance films on sex, drinking and driving, snobbery, griping, prejudice, good manners and more! These films, mostly produced as part of the Young America series - and all by Centron Films in Kansas - represent some of the favorites of the collection as well as a few brand new finds we've never screened. Watch mice get drunk and drunks flip cars in the teen drunk-driving scare film None for the Road (1957). In Oddball sex ed favorite The Innocent Party (1959), watch out for loose girls; they probably all have syphilis that they're anxious to spread to you and your unsuspecting girlfriend. In What About Prejudice? (1959) everybody in class has it out for the faceless minority student for a variety of terrible reasons, until he steps up and saves a classmate's life and ends up in the hospital. Several of the mental hygiene films feature misunderstood outcasts that dare to be different, and end up alone or giving in to the pressure to be friendly, cheerful, and in line with gender norms. George Foster's got a chip on his shoulder, a negative opinion about everything, and a superimposed "conscience" that is tired of trying to keep in-line The Griper (1954). In The Snob (1958), Sarah thinks she's better than all the popular kids and would rather study than party; but that doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings. Barbara is pushy, rude, and loud - and she wonders why she doesn't have any friends - hopefully the library has a book to teach her all about Manners in Public (1958). Plus, a trip to the farm and the slaughterhouse with a later nutritional primer Pork: a Meal with a Squeal (1963), pre-show surprises and we'll be raffling off a DVD of Harvey's feature film Carnival of Souls.

Date: Friday, August 14th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

None for the Road (B+W, 1957)
"Jerry Landon is one of the types that experiments with drinking... The all-out type"
A good old-fashioned drunk driving scare film replete with a white-coater injecting lab rats with alcohol and making them do acrobatics! The story centers around 3 couples at a sock-hop; the girls are all drinking ginger ale, Keith has had a couple of beers and Jerry has been "holding down the fort" all night and gotten himself blotto. When he gets in a fight with his gal Eydie, Jerry storms off for his car. Can Keith catch up to him and make sure he makes it home alive, or will Keith's couple of beers mean the end for him and his passengers? See who makes it out alive!

The Snob (B+W, 1958)
"All these people you don't like; aren't they happier than you are?"
Why are some girls snobs? This campy mental hygiene primer seeks to answer the question and to illustrate the effects such snobbery has on the perpetrator and those around them. Sarah's got a terrible attitude and thinks she's so much better than everyone, but her hatred of other people just leaves her bitter and alone. Now, if only she could shape up and join the happy people enjoying themselves at a swingin' shindig, but she "just can't help being a snob". Starring Vera Stough as the snob.

Manners in Public (B+W, 1958)
Barbara is new in town and desperately wants to make a friend, although she's never had much luck in the past. The neighbors have a daughter around her age, maybe if they go to the movies, they will be fast friends. But when Barbara pushes some ladies, is too raucous on the bus and talks through the whole movie, the neighbor girl is not interested in a rude friend and shuns Barbara until she goes to the library and brushes up on her good manners. Barbara learns about good manners in public- on the sidewalk, on the bus, in the theater, in the store , and in the elevator. Now Barbara is a quiet, well-behaved girl, just like the system wants her to be.

The Innocent Party (1959, Color)

Oddball's all-time favorite VD film: the guilt-tripped noir-like shocker about a “dirty” girl and her hidden secret- syphilis! A young man goes out on the town with his friend and they park with a couple of loose women. Later, when he feels something happening downstairs, he's got to face it; he's got the syph. After a visit to his doctor and some grotesque imagery, he must face the insufferable task of telling his girlfriend - who is already super ashamed at her own deflowering a mere days after his dirty encounter. A cool beatnik-jazz soundtrack highlights this sordid tale produced by the Kansas State Board of Health!

What About Prejudice? (B+W, 1959)
"I'm sure glad Bruce didn't come tonight; he's not like us and he never will be"

All the kids in the class hate the new kid (who is some "other" of unnamed ethnicity) and have a bunch of misconceptions about his character, until he sacrifices his own safety to help out a classmate. When the truth is revealed, will this group of bigots see the error of their ways?

The Griper (B+W, 1954)
“Why do you keep trying to impress everyone with how stupid you think everything is?”
George Foster's conscience is tired, since George is such a little shit. He gripes at everything, from his alarm clock to his father. It doesn't help that everyone in his family is also a griper. Now, Betty Ann has a much better attitude about life and tons more friends. Will George learn that disapproving of everything the popular kids like isn't in line with social guidance standards of the 1950s? "Does George remind you of anyone you know?"

Pork: The Meal With the Squeal (Color, 1963)

Is pork really going to be what’s for dinner after your get the low down on the other white meat? You bet your buck it will, what with all the hams bobbling in brine, hot dog strands miles long, and juicy chops sizzling away! Don’t forget to bring your pigskin wallet, hog’s hair paint brush, and other pig-based by products to round out the experience.

Curator’s Biography

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The Untrained Eye - Primitive, Folk and Outsider Artists - Thur. Aug. 13th - 8PM

August 8, 2015, 8:33 am

≫ Next: Learn Your Lesson...About Safety: A Dangerous Shockucation - Fri. June 5th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Learn your Lesson from Herk Harvey - 1950s Mental Hygiene Master - Fri. August 14th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents The Untrained Eye - Primitive, Folk and Outsider Artists. This unique program of 16mm documentaries from the 1950s-1980s features untrained artists that simply create out of a love for the creation and without formal schooling possess an innocence and uniquee perspective not found in trained artists. Visit the Mojave Desert and the "Bird Cage Theater" of life-sized dolls made by Calvin Black in Possum Trot (1977). At 80 years old, Harry Lieberman found his true calling: painting; and at 102 with several one man gallery shows behind him, he credits art with saving his life in 102 Mature: The Art of Harry Lieberman (1980). And head down to the farm with America's most famous folk artist, Grandma Moses (1950) to see a Technicolor "portrait of the artist as an old lady". Plus, A Boy Creates (1971), a non-narrative film that follows a young boy through the abandoned ruins of San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach and tracks him tending to his army of found art swamp statues in the long gone Emeryville Mud Flats.

Date: Thursday, August 13th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Possum Trot (Color, 1977)

The Life and Work of Calvin Black 1903-1972

Calvin Black was a folk artist who lived in California's Mojave Desert and created more than 80 life-size female dolls, each with its own personality, function, and costume. He also built the "Bird Cage Theater," where the dolls perform and sing in voices recorded by the artist. The film works on two levels. One is the documentation of the artist's legacy and commentary on women: grotesque female figures moving in the desert wind and the theater with its frozen "actresses," protected by his widow from a world she views as hostile. The other is the re-creation of the artist's vision through the magic of film, as the camera enables the dolls to move and sing and brings theater to life as the artist imagined it. Produced and directed by award-winning SF filmmakers Allie Light and Irving Saraf.

102 Mature: The Art of Harry Lieberman (Color, 1980)

A look at the remarkable life of Harry Lieberman, a primitive artist who picked up painting at 80 and credits it with adding several extra decades to his life. His artworks are deeply routed in childhood memories as well as Judaic teachings and scripture and resemble a more childlike Marc Chagall.

His work was featured at several New York Galleries incuding one man shows. In this amusing and inspirational documentary, we travel with Harry as he speaks to a Hebrew school class, visits the "youngsters" of 80 and 90 at the Golden Age Home where he began his art career, and extolls 102 years worth of wisdom, humor, and creativity.

Grandma Moses (Technicolor, 1950)

An oddly patronizing and staged documentary on Grandma Moses; this certainly is not cinema verite, but an interesting and beautiful film nonetheless. Easily the most recognizable of American folk artists, this farmer's wife from Vermont was discovered at age 80 and became an international success for the rest of her life (she lived to be 101). Her happy, primitive paintings with a rejection of perspective celebrate the joys of living a simple and joyful existence and have sold for as much up to $1.2 million. The film begins with a condescending sequence of Moses cleaning house, bringing water to her grandchildren in the field, and making lunch for everyone on the farm (at 90 mind you), just to remind everyone that she's just a little farm wife at heart. Then, we visit her studio and examine the memories of childhood that influence her paintings. The film ends with a lovely montage of dancing closeups of her work, set to classical music. Directed by Jerome Hill and shot in beautiful Technicolor!

A Boy Creates (Color, 1971)

This non-narrated film - made by the masterful, prolific educational filmmaker Bert Van Bork - follows a young boy as he creates a sculpture of found art, tracing his creative process from imaginative fantasy through to the actual construction of a work of art. It also could be described as a cautionary tale that follows a young boy as he wanders unsupervised around an abandoned amusement park –Playland at the Beach in San Francisco (closed and leveled in 1972), before tending to his army of found art swamp statues once located in the Emeryville Mudflats East of San Francisco.

For more info about the famed (and sadly long gone) Emeryville Mudflats and its artists:http://www.spacesarchives.org/explore/collection/environment/emeryville-mud-flats-aka-driftwood-sculptures--tidal-flats/

For the Early Birds:

Art in America - Folk Art (Color, 1979)

Explores the production of art which was and is created by self-taught people in both rural and urban America. From colonial times, the folk artist is shown as one who made everything from paintings and sculpture to tavern signs as a means of earning his living. Due to mass production and mechanical devices, many of the folk expressions have almost died out. Part of the “Americana” series made by the Handel Corporation.

Curator’s Biography

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Learn Your Lesson...About Safety: A Dangerous Shockucation - Fri. June 5th - 8PM

June 1, 2015, 9:52 am

≫ Next: Underground Queer Cinema - Thur. June 4th - 8PM and Fri. June 5th - 10PM

≪ Previous: The Untrained Eye - Primitive, Folk and Outsider Artists - Thur. Aug. 13th - 8PM

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, a stop-motion gaggle of spherical children with terrible luck on the monkey bars. Much like the peepercorns, the punching-bag shaped Schmoadles have a similar problem with riding the school bus in another head-scratcher from Crocus Productions, School Bus Safety: A Schmoadle Nightmare (1975). Let's set your dolls on fire and explode that mannequin with Chemical Booby Traps (1959), an extra-explosive short from General Electric. Discover the history of CPR and what to do when your baby chokes on plastic or traps itself inside a refrigerator, in the shocking That They May Live (1959). Keep on those shop glasses, or you may end up in eyeball surgery, in the vaguely experimental Don't Push Your Luck (1966). For all the housewives out there, learn how to not make brainless mistakes like the silly woman you are with Cooking: Kitchen Safety (1949). Watch out for the "red light" people in the half- pedestrian safety/ half predator scare film Meeting Strangers: Red Light, Green Light (1969). Early birds can set out on an ill-fated bike ride with ten monkey-headed children in the notorious One Got Fat (1963). Plus, shocking excerpts from shop-safety film It Didn't Have to Happen (1951), door prizes and more special surprises! If you don't learn your lesson tonight, you might not make it until your next field trip!

Date: Friday, June 5th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Playground Safety - The Peepercorns(Color, 1975)

From Crocus Films, the studio that brought you The Munchers, comes a delightful stop-motion look at the dangers of the playground for the creepy little creatures known as Peepercorns. Yes, you read that right... Peepercorns! Grandpa Peepercorn teaches us all how to play safe by recalling the tragic tales of Peepercorns that didn't fair so well.

School Bus Safety: A Schmoadle Nightmare (Color, 1975)
Reason number 27 not to take acid when you drive a school bus: you’ll be beset by huge, inflated, paramecium-shaped truants who want to make your life a living hell! See a school bus driver fend off a gaggle of Schmoadles, badly behaved little bastards who don’t know how sit still and can’t ride a bus without getting the cops involved. No one else can see them, but the bus driver knows they’re still there… Another bonkers production from Crocus Films and Art Pierson!

Chemical Booby Traps (Color, 1959)
Let's set sh*t on fire! This GE (General Electric - We Bring good things to life) industrial safety film shows you how NOT to store explosive chemicals - and what happens when you do! There are burning dolls, exploding sinks, mannequins and fridges and fires galore!

That They May Live (Color, 1959)
From (of all places) the Saskatchewan College of Medicine comes this look at every conceivable scare story about loss of life. Babies choke on plastic, kids lock themselves into refrigerators and dinner guests choke. All this can be prevented by YOU!

Meeting Strangers: Red Light, Green Light (Color, 1969)
Watch out for the "red light" people! Learn how to cross the street and how avoid the countless molesters that are constantly following you and your crew of tots in this ridiculous shock film for the grade-school set. A group of kids are just out for a stroll to see a movie, when they are beset by predator after predator, until each child has learned their lesson. Even includes a rare scene with a female pedophile.

Don’t Push Your Luck (Color, 1967)

This 1967 work safety film, with psychedelic effects and a deeply subjective perspective will get you to see the truth about the need for safety goggles and the horrifying aftermath of those who refuse to shield their peepers. You might need to close your eyes for the brief eyeball surgery shot.

Dining Room Safety (Color, 1969)

How does Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People’ relate to a training film for restaurant staff? I...don’t know, but this film seems to think that if we don’t learn how to be safe on the job (by going through the appropriate In/Out door, by not pouring hot coffee into cups when people aren’t looking), then staff or customers might wind up as one of the dead on the barricade. Come see a metaphor stretched beyond reason, along with dozens of broken dishes.

Cooking: Kitchen Safety (B+W, 1949)
Poor Eleanor; she slipped off her ladder in the kitchen and ended up in the hospital. What a careless woman! Don't you too be just another dumb injured housewife, learn how to cut things without cutting off a finger and other important lessons for us simple women.

For the Early Birds:

One Got Fat (Color, 1963)

Bizarre/legendary bike safety film- 10 young cyclists acting like monkeys (wearing masks and tails!) head to a city park for a picnic. 9 out of 10 makes a bonehead mistake and suffers a major accident- all but one, who reaches the park and... Here’s how a few of the characters meet their demise:

1.Tinkerbell ("Tink") McDillinfiddy forgets to watch out for a stop sign, and is hit by a large truck.

2. Phillip ("Floog") Floogle rides on the left...POW!

3. Mossby Pomegranate’s bike is stolen, police can’t find it because it wasn't registered, as a result of running between one and nine blocks, his feet arches collapse.

4. Slim Jim ("Slim") Maguffny and Trigby Phipps ride double, due to Trigby's lack of vision because of Slim blocking his head, he steers right into an open manhole covering. Find out Friday the fate of the others!

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Underground Queer Cinema - Thur. June 4th - 8PM and Fri. June 5th - 10PM

June 1, 2015, 9:52 am

≫ Next: Scientific Psychedelia - Thur. June 11th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Learn Your Lesson...About Safety: A Dangerous Shockucation - Fri. June 5th - 8PM

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 generation. Academy Award winning filmmakers Frank and Caroline Mouris give us Screentest (1975) a compelling and kaleidoscopic portrait of a gender bending acting troop (print courtesy of the Jenni Olson Queer Archive). Get a glimpse inside The Factory with an excerpt from the documentary Andy Warhol (1973) featuring clips of some of Warhol and director Paul Morrissey's audacious early works as well as interviews from superstars. Behind Every Good Man (1966), a rare and understated portrait of an African American transgender woman shopping, cruising and musing in 1960s Los Angeles. Plus! The first openly gay cartoons, The Goofy Gophers (featuring the voice of recently departed comic genius Stan Freberg) in the uncensored Lumber Jerks (1955); a number from legendary San Francisco drag queen Charles Pierce from The Charles Pierce Review (1969), and more surprises.

Date: Thursday, June 4th, 2015 at 8:00pm SOLD OUT!
NEW SHOW ADDED: Friday, June 5th at 10:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Scorpio Rising (Color, 1964, Kenneth Anger)
One of the most important films in Kenneth Anger’s body of work, Scorpio Rising employs the sounds of teen pop and the iconography of 50s and 60s motorcycle culture to create a shrine to teenage rebellion. It is part pop promo, part homo-erotic home movie and is packed with ironic symbolism and style – from his references to the occult to the partially naked, leather-clad bikers riding their bikes recklessly until they crash. Considered by many as the precursor of the pop promos of today - with its angular shots and contemporary soundtrack - the force and poetry of Anger's work has greatly influenced generations of filmmakers, designers and fashion photographers. Anger pioneered the use of the pop music in narrative film by filling the soundtrack entirely with Elvis, girl groups, and top 50 chart hits.

Screentest (Color, 1975, Frank and Caroline Mouris)

"A brilliant film, almost beyond description...existences led at twice the speed, and images/identities transformed without notice." - Roger Ebert.

A kaleidoscopic documentary of nine queer actors as they give free rein to their fantasies. They dress up, strip down, cross-dress; paint their faces, paint their nails, paint the set and generally camp it up while, on the densely layered soundtrack, they dish each other’s performances, the film as a whole, and film documentaries in general. Print courtesy of the Jenni Olson Queer Archive.

Sinderella (B+W & Color, 1962)

This amateur film produced by "Lorelei" is a faithful reenactment of the Brother's Grimm Cinderella... except with a handful of lovely drag queens playing all the parts. A rare document of the San Francisco drag scene in the early 60s, this gem is like a long-lost step sister to Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures. Don't miss the amazingly cheezy production values, awesome wigs, and high-handed bitch slapping that blows Di$ney right out of the water. Poor Sinderella's hair gets a fabulous makeover when she's transformed! In B+W and color.

Andy Warhol (1973, Color, excerpt)

This seldom-seen film features astute commentary by Warhol Factory superstars Viva and Bridgit Polk. Directors Paul Morrissey (“Trash”, “Women in Revolt”) and Emile de Antonio (“Point of Order”, “Painters Painting”) offer some keen insights into the man behind the factory, and the effect of popularizing homosexual and transgendered stars.

The free wheeling style of the documentary gives it a loose, edgy feel and showcases Warhol in action craftily playing to the camera. Excerpts from Bike Boy, Chelsea Girls, Women in Revolt, Trash, Lonesome Cowboys and I, A Man give us a deeper sense of the range and raw cinematic and self-absorbed style Warhol pioneered.

Behind Every Good Man… (B+W, 1966)

Decades before Laverne Cox became a household name and before the Stonewall riots that launched the gay rights movement, this documentary short features an African American transgender woman pushing the envelope in a society barely out of the repressive 1950s. This very rare film directed by Nikolai Ursin, then a film student at UCLA records our subject’s meditations on love, gay life in the early 1960s, and gender transgression. The film and its subject avoid period cliches about homosexuality and gender and point to hopeful possibilities. “I’d like to live a happy life, that’s for sure,” she says, and one not only wants her to, but believes that it really could happen.

Lumber Jerks (Color, 1955)
Featuring the “Goofy Gophers”, who have been called the first openly gay gophers in Hollywood. Aside from the intimation of behind-closed-doors cross-dressing, a scene where gas is siphoned from a truck was censored in later versions of this cartoon. The Gophers are voiced by Mel Blanc and the recently departed Stan Freberg.

Plus! A number from legendary San Francisco drag queen Charles Pierce from The Charles Pierce Review (1969).

About Oddball Films

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Scientific Psychedelia - Thur. June 11th - 8PM

June 7, 2015, 10:23 pm

≫ Next: Sex, Death and Cartoons - Fri. June 12th - 8PM

≪ Previous: Underground Queer Cinema - Thur. June 4th - 8PM and Fri. June 5th - 10PM

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 Mission (1983). Award-wining filmmaker Carroll Ballard’s (The Black Stallion) abstract film Crystallization (1975) explores the intricate and dazzling formation of crystals in liquids all set to an innovative electronic sound score. Tiny alien creatures abound in the microscopic slides of photographer-biologist Roman Vishniac, in The Big Little World of Roman Vishniac (1980's), whose wondrously amorphous images come to resemble avant-garde cinema. Go inside one of the world's most controversial flowers and see the life cycle of the heroin poppy using time-lapse photography in the eerie and breathtaking Dream Flowers (1935). Basic physical principles are the focus of Invisible Forces (1920s),and the visuals of capillary action in sugarcubes will tantalize and mesmerize. Bell Laboratories brings us Laser (1979), another stunner all about harnessing the power of light for medical and scientific purposes. Watch the surreal movements of rays in French medical film Eagle Ray Experiment (1935). Plus, synthed out close-ups of exotic fish in Aquarium (1978) and another trip through space with NASA in Spaceborne (1977) for the early birds. All films screened in 16mm from the archive.

Date: Thursday, June 11th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Study in Wet (Color, 1964)
A short, semi-experimental piece from Matt Groening's father, Homer Groening. As a title card informs us in the beginning, everything in this film is wet; from mesmerizing reflections on the ocean to groovy 60s surfer chicks to the melodic drip drip dripping of the soundtrack (which is a recording of water droplets falling into a bathtub). The trippy visuals will make you think that optical effects were used, but it's simply the magic of science, nature and Groening's eye that bring us such incredible and otherworldly imagery.

Mars in 3-D: Images from the Viking Mission (Color, 1983)

Eery images of the planet Mars from the Viking space mission. Shows overhead views of geological features, spooky landscapes and the Viking operating all in old-fashioned red and blue 3D.

Crystallization (Color, 1975)

Directed by award-wining filmmaker Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion) this hypnotic non-narrative film explores the formation of crystals in liquids through the electron microscope under polarized light all set to an early 70s electronic sound score. Screened at the SF International Film Festival and winner of the Golden Gate Award in 1975.

Dream Flowers(1930s, B+W)

Beautiful time-lapse photography is used illustrate the opium poppy’s life cycle, from eager bud to the gracefully shedding of its bounty of seeds. Watch as these innocent flowers are processed into “the scourge of the East”, all deliciously narrated in crisp BBC English.

Invisible Forces(1920s, B+W)

In Invisible Forces, surface tension and capillary action are demonstrated using sugarcubes, soap bubbles and a couple of genuine ordinary people of the 1920s, whose film careers ended here, we’re pretty sure.

The Big Little World of Roman Vishniac (Color, 1980’s)

Photographer, biologist, and art historian, Roman Vishniac is most widely remembered for his photographic documentation of pre-Holocaust Jewish culture in Central and Eastern Europe. Vishniac also contributed to the development of photo microscopy (photographs taken through microscopic lens) and time-lapse photography. In this film, showcasing various marine specimens, the gentle Vishniac discusses his love of the natural world and the abundance of life found on the seashore.

Laser (Color, 1979 Robert Deubel)

A lush and mesmerizing visual depiction of lasers and their various uses from medical to industrial. From gorgeous vintage laboratory interiors to an optical kaleidoscope of the many uses of this magical harnessed light beam, with a great moogy soundtrack.

Eagle Ray Experiment (B+W, 1935, silent with added sound)
Soaring and diving in hypnotic concentric circles, the eagle rays in this French medical film form almost abstract patterns while swimming in their tanks. Ray flesh seen in extreme close up jitters and recoils across the entire screen, recognizable only as living, resisting tissue. This is definitely the most beautiful medical film in the archive, and as long as you can’t read the French inter titles, you won’t find out why the good docteur is so keen on these poor creatures.

Aquarium (Color, 1978)
A close-up look at colorful and exotic sea creatures set to a synthesizer sound score.

For the Early Birds:

Spaceborne (1977, Color)

Take a ‘trip’ through the cosmos through the eyes of NASA. This film floats through local and deep space with a visually stunning array of images gathered from a decade plus of space exploration and investigation. Footage from manned flights, telescopes, and observatories come together in this mind-blowing compilation set to futuristic electronic music. Leave the world behind and delve into the realm of galaxies, stars, and planets.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

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Sex, Death and Cartoons - Fri. June 12th - 8PM

June 12, 2015, 12:32 am

≫ Next: OBEY: Brainwashing, Thought-Control and Shock Therapy - Fri. June 19 - 8PM

≪ Previous: Scientific Psychedelia - Thur. June 11th - 8PM

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 adaptation of an old fairy-tale in Red Hot Red Riding Hood (1943). Comic strip Krazy Kat comes back to the big screen to fight off ghosts and other haunts, while his puppy fights with a skeleton in the silly romp Krazy Kat in Krazy Spooks (1933). It might be in Spanish but you won't miss the meaning behind the hilarious cartoon Sex, Booze, Blues and those Pills You Use (1982). Sandy Sunrise may be animated, but she's still got needs as we see in the bizarre pornographic short Sandy Sunrise in The Babysitter (1971). The Czechs bring us the morbidly clever cutout animation The Sword (1967). Peter Foldes and the National Film Board of Canada create a nightmarish vision of excess in the early computer animated stunner Hunger (1974). Betty Boop heads down to Hell and melts the king of the underworld with her icy stares in the jazzy Fleischer Brothers' cartoon Red Hot Mamma (1934). Plus, two of our favorites Bruno Bozzetto's dark and sexy examination of the working man's Freudian subconscious, Ego (1970) and the original pornographic cartoon Buried Treasure (1928) starring Eveready Harton.

Date: Friday, June 12th at 8:00PM.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00, Limited Seating, RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or RSVP@oddballfilm.com

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Red Hot Riding Hood (Color, 1943)
Tex Avery's sensual adaptation of the age-old fairy-tale liberates its characters from their Di$ney-style forest and slaps them in the middle of swanky Manhattan. Grandma's a nymphomaniac swinger, and her rustic cottage home a hip penthouse pad. Little Red has become a red-hot singer-stripper; the Wolf is a model of lupine lechery; and the forest is supplanted by a big-city nightclub as the enchanted place of forbidden sexuality. The Wolf tries to pull the old Red Riding Hood gag in order to meet up with Little Red, but Grandma has other ideas.

Sex, Booze, Blues and Those Pills You Use (Color, 1982)
A particularly unusual, and gut-splitting, animation about alcohol and sexual disfunction reminds the audience that one or two drinks might turn you into casanova, but too much many might leave your lover something to be desired.

Sandy Sunrise in The Baby Sitter (Color, 1971)Bizarro animated adult XXX explores the adventures of a babysitter and vegetables! Produced by Warped Imaginations (A Cum Stained Cartoon) featuring music from the classic Beach Boys Smiley Smile album!

Ego (Color, 1970)
Brilliant animation by Italy’s Bruno Bozzetto (Allegro Non Troppo)- starts with traditional comic-style animation until the factory-working family man goes to sleep and unleashes his subconscious thoughts sending him into a psychedelic battleground of chaos and erotic desire. Utilizes a number of animation styles including optical printing and pop art imagery. Wild soundtrack by the ultra-lounge master Franco Godi!

Betty Boop in Red Hot Mamma (B+W, 1934)

It is a cold and snowy night and Betty is freezing cold in her skimpy nighty, but when she blazes a fire in the fireplace, she dreams herself into a cartoon inferno, face to face with the Devil himself, but you know no man is a match for Betty Boop!

Widdecombe Fair (B+W, 1948)

Based on the Devon folk song, first published circa 1889, this pencil-drawn tale tells of Tom Pierce, who borrows his neighbor's old grey mare to take to the fair, only to load the poor creature with "Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all," eventually killing the horse and all it's many passengers.

Krazy Kat in Krazy Spooks (B+W, 1933)

Krazy Kat jumps back to the screen from the comic strip, (looking a lot like one Mr. M. Mouse) to battle ghosts, skeletons and gorillas in this silly short. Krazy Kat and his sweetheart (with a curiously tiny puppy in tow), head into a haunted house and squeal at everything! The puppy tangles with a skeleton to adorable and hilarious effect, but when the danger becomes real, will they be able to fight off a Poe-esque twist?

The Sword (Color, 1967)
This clever Czech cutout animation is short and er… to the point, The Sword is an allegory on the ignorance of people who enjoy their life to those who are suffering or dying at the very same instant.

Hunger/La Faim (Color, 1973)At an extremely rapid pace, images dissolve, move, morph and/or reappear into things or objects that become more and more exaggerated and absurd in this witty and disturbing cartoon by Hungarian director Peter Foldes. One of the first computer-generated films, this Jury Prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival and Academy Award Nominee is a satire focusing on the self-indulgence that plagues our ‘hungry’ world, and depicts a man as he continues to eat, and eat, and eat!

Buried Treasure (B+W, 1928)

The Granddaddy of pornographic cartoons, persistent rumors suggest that Max Fleischer (Betty Boop and others), Paul Terry (of Terry Toons) and Budd Fisher (Mutt & Jeff) were responsible for this bawdy masterpiece. The legendary porno cartoon with a boogie woogie piano soundtrack depicting the unlikely adventures of the perpetually aroused title character (Eveready Hardon) with, among others, a man, a woman, and a cow. You’ll laugh and the guys may even scream!

About Oddball Films

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OBEY: Brainwashing, Thought-Control and Shock Therapy - Fri. June 19 - 8PM

June 14, 2015, 12:16 pm

≫ Next: Cinema Soiree: Video Synthesizer Works with Denise Gallant of Synopsis Video - Thur. June 18 - 8PM

≪ Previous: Sex, Death and Cartoons - Fri. June 12th - 8PM

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 excerpts from one of the most notorious experiments in the world of psychology in Stanley Milgram's Obedience (1963) featuring the original Milgram Experiment where participants were asked to shock another participant to explore the boundaries of morality in the face of authority. In De Overkant (1966), Belgian filmmaker Herman Wuyts brings us a bleak interpretation of a totalitarian society in which independence equates to death. Woody Woodpecker gets into the mind-control business in Hypnotic Hick (1953). The dark animated adaptation of Maurice Ogden's The Hangman (1967) is a chilling vision of the dangers of conformity. And one young man tells his own story of life in the Moonie church, and the deprogramming that it took to get him out of it, in the rare TV special Moonchild (1983). Early birds will be treated to 1984: Revisited (1983) featuring Walter Cronkite recounting how close society is coming to an Orwellian dystopia of thought police and perennial surveillance (and this was 32 years ago; it's even more pervasive now!).

Date: Friday, June 19th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

What's on your Mind? (B+W, 1956)

A shocking early short from the National Film Board of Canada about psychiatry. See the mind of a deranged schizophrenic and follow scores of mal-adjusted people discover the plentiful ways in which 1950s psychiatry offered as help in re-normalizing the human mind, including group therapy and a disturbing and unapologetic shock therapy sequence.

Obedience (B+W, 1963, excerpt)
A stunning look at the way people can so easily coerced into harming others; the all-important Milgram Experiment demonstrates people's willingness to comply with authority figures that led to such regimes as the Nazis and Fascists. Watch as subjects are given instructions to shock another participant when they answer a question incorrectly. Although some people refuse to give an increasingly higher voltage to the unseen participant (an actor) in the next room - as that person begins to yell out in pain - there are just as many who have no problem shocking away. This film was made by Stanley Milgram himself and will send a chill down your spine as you consider the ramifications.

De Overkant (B+W, 1966)
This Belgian short made by Herman Wuyts is a bleak and shocking look at an imaginary, but terrifying totalitarian civilization. All people are forced to walk along the walls of the street, never looking at each other or the world beyond the walls. As the hordes shuffle down the street - their hands brushing along the walls but never touching one another - one man dares to run into the middle of the street, where he is promptly gunned down. As more men give their lives for the freedom of choice, the people attempt an uprising, that is quickly and bloodily dispensed with before the masses run back to the relative safety of acquiescence.

Hypnotic Hick (Color, 1953)
After learning the art of mind control from some old books, Woody Woodpecker goes and has some un-permitted fun at an ol’ Buzzard’s expense!

The Hangman (Color, 1964)

Paul Julian, previously known as an animator for Warner Bros' Looney Tunes, directs this haunting adaptation of Maurice Ogden's poem of the same name. A mysterious hangman comes to a small town, taking upon himself the responsibilities of town judge, jury, and executioner, but rather than questioning the stranger's arbitrary sentencing, the town's residents stay satisfied with their own well being, and look idly on as their community dwindles and their neighbors, one-by-one, face the noose-but might they too be beckoned by the hangman? Surreal in its visual style with long shadows and sharp color contrasts, and made all the more unsettling by an eerie jazzy sort of score. Is it about the Holocaust, playground bullies, McCarthyism? Discussion when the lights go up.

Moonchild (Color, 1983)

"I've been here for a week and I never knew you guys were Moonies" 

A rare made-for-TV special. A reenactment of real life deprogrammers and ex-Moonies re-create the story of young man's journey through the Unification Church. Chris Carlson stars as himself to reveal how he unexpectedly got sucked into a cult, and it all started in San Francisco! Youth recruiting tactics and high pressure indoctrination are exposed. This film attempts to show how the effects of cult brainwashing can be reversed by simulating the painstaking process of deprogramming. Get a taste for it now with this opening clip...

For the Early Birds:

1984: Revisited (Color, 1983)

This startling documentary describes modern-day methods of thought control, selective manipulation of news and information source, emotional manipulation at mass rallies and hate sessions... and when all else fails-- torture. A serious thought-provoker and call to action to everyone concerned with protecting the future of our country. Host Walter Cronkite compares George Orwell's novel 1984 to "present-day" society. He describes modern day uses of technology and methods of thought control, manipulation of the news and information sources, and other likenesses to the author's book in order to Alert viewers to the dangers to our freedom.

About Oddball Films

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