“Booze! 80 Proof Cinema” at Oddball Films July 16, 2010

Event: “Booze! 80 Proof Cinema”. Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of gin-soaked celluloid. Featuring the Robert Mitchum narrated documentary America On the Rocks, with a buncha drunks getting loaded on a (symbolic?) merry-go-round; Scott Baio in the Henry Winkler directed All The Kids Do It, featuring a great 80s soundtrack; The Hangover, poor workin’ stiff has got the “bottle flu”; Alco-Beat, see what happens when folks purposely get tanked and go for a drive- great mid-sixties mayhem!; The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933), with Mr. Gin Blossoms himself- W.C. Fields; plus amazing prohibition-era evangelists, teetotalers and temperance crusaders, vintage beer and booze commercials and more!
Date: Friday, July 16, 2010 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110

Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Booze2_PR.pdf

"Booze! 80 Proof Cinema”
Booze and Boozie Boozers on Film

On Friday, July 16, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of short films “focused” on blotto boozers, teen tipplers, drunk drivers and the haplessly hungover. Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Featuring:

America On The Rocks (Color, 1973)
Hilarious but ultimately (alas) sobering documentary on America’s favorite pastime- getting loaded. Narrated by Robert Mitchum (a rather legendary drinker himself), the film starts off on a merry-go-round filled with drunks, and then explores the history, the nightlife and the perils of Boozelandia.

All The Kids Do It (color, 1984)
Scott Baio makes a return engagement at Oddball after his masterful appearance in “Stoned” from the Scared Straight program. This time he’s a bit too old to be a teenage boozer who misses the diving competition after he wrecks his bitchin’ vintage ride. Directed by Henry “The Fonz” Winkler, “All The Kids Do It” is above average for a “CBS Schoolbreak Special” was and the killer soundtrack features The Plimsoles (Lie, Beg, Borrow and Steal) and Peter Gabriel (Shock The Monkey).

The Hangover (color, 1977)
Follow our hapless fellow as he tries to get on with his day with a horrendous hangover.
No, never been there…

Alco Beat (Color, 1965)
See what happens when test subjects are loaded up on booze and let loose behind the wheel on a test course!

The Fatal Glass of Beer (B+W, 1933)
Set in the frozen north of the Yukon territories, where a prospector, Mr. Snavely (Fields), prepares to return home. Before Snavely is able to depart, he receives a visit from an officer of the Mounties, who requests that the prospector sing him a morally instructional song that Snavely has written about his son Chester. Mr. Snavely obliges the officer with a temperance ballad detailing how drinking a single glass of beer led to Chester’s downfall and eventual imprisonment. The plot of The Fatal Glass of Beer (what little there is of one) hardly matters, because all of the humor lies on the surface. Field’s artificial, mannered line readings and off-key warbling of the temperance song are hilarious. Even funnier are the many jabs the film takes at studio moviemaking, including Field’s attempts to interact with bad back-projection, cheap props, and the obviously artificial snow that is thrown in his puss each time he declares, “It ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast.” Ironically, although The Fatal Glass of Beer poked fun at temperance sermonizing and wooden theater of past decades, the short turned out to be ahead of its time. The audiences and critics of the day complained about the poor production values of the short, not understanding the self-referential humor.

Luckily, the film has survived for new audiences to appreciate, and many today consider it the funniest short subject ever made. -Via “Booze Movies: The 100 Proof Film Guide”

PLUS! Amazing prohibition-era evangelists, teetotalers and temperance crusaders, vintage beer and liquor commercials from the 1950’s – 1970’s and more!

Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

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, educationals, 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.

Official Website: http://mim.io/764b4