"Oddball's Greatest Hits" December 18, 2009

Event: “Oddball’s Greatest Hits”. Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the most popular short films recently screened here at the archive. There are always one or two films at each screening that stand out from the rest and demand a replay; tonight’s program will feature the cream of the crop and surprise hits culled from the last six months of screenings. Films include: Ersatz (Substitute), brilliant and funny Oscar-winning animation; One-Eyed Men Are Kings, brow-beaten Parisian becomes bon vivant when he pretends to be blind; Doubletalk, what people really say; The Dave Clark 5, stunning Technicolor promo for the band; Hunger, creepy early computer animation; Match Your Mood, refrigerator decoration a-go-go; Black Sabbath Parade, one-of-a-kind footage of 1970 SF tranny/heavy metal parade; The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra, classic silent film shows not much has changed in old tinsel town; and Very Nice, Very Nice, avant-garde anti-consumerist short from Arthur Lipsett.
Date: Friday, December 18, 2009 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/Greatest_Hits_2_PR.pdf
"Oddball’s Greatest Hits”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, December 18, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the most popular short films screened over the last six months here at the archive. A sampling of the best, most entertaining, and occasional surprise “hits” from the broad range of programs, from Lost Animation to Dog Days of Summer, Rock ‘N’ Roll Rarities to Weirdsville. Missed a program? Now’s your chance to see the best of show! Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

Ersatz (Substitute) (Color, 1961)
Winner of the Academy Award for best animated short, this beautifully animated mid-century piece is something else! The first non-US animated short to win the Oscar, this Croatian film by Dusan Vukotic took the States by storm and influenced many artists. Cute little guy goes to the beach and inflates everything he needs (and doesn’t need), from a raft, to a girl, a shark and so on…

One-Eyed Men Are Kings (Color, 1974)
Oscar winning short about a Parisian man who lives with his mother and is forced to walk her mean little Terrier. He finds that the dog gets him in trouble, is not allowed in the park and is a general nuisance. Until, however, he puts on some dark sunglasses and pretends to be blind. Suddenly, everyone wants to help him, the park is his oyster, and walking the dog is the highlight of his day.

Doubletalk (Color, 1975)
Hilarious short! A boy picks up his date at her home and meets the parents- and we hear what everyone is really thinking over the niceties and conversation. Originally broadcast on Saturday Night Live, this forgotten gem plays like a distilled Meet The Parents and is also notable as the film debut of Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager).

The Dave Clark 5 (Color, 1964)
Following the success of their special Beatles short, Warner- Pathé jumped on the Tottenham-based Dave Clark 5 as their main rival (hard to believe today). More sumptuous color and fan pandemonium as the 5 perform “Bits and Pieces” and “Glad All Over”. Great stuff, but Tottenham and the DC5 didn’t stand a chance against Liverpool and the Fab Four.

Hunger (Color, 1974)
Brilliant, disturbing, landmark early computer animation by Peter Foldes. Characters morph and cannibalize in this mesmerizing Pop Art short, with a super cool soundtrack by Pierre Brault. A must see.
Match Your Mood (Color, 1968)
Wild, amazing promotional film by Westinghouse touts the latest fad: decorative pop art/psychedelic refrigerator covers. Transforms any kitchen into a swinging go-go party!!

Black Sabbath Parade (Color, 1970)
One-of-a-kind footage of a pre-gay pride parade welcoming Black Sabbath to San Francisco. Full freak flags were flying for this Embarcadero parade- trannies, hippy busses, weird floats- all in honor of future reality TV show star Ozzy Osborne and the Sabbath.
It's every British band's dream to play the States. When we got there finally, we fucked as many groupies as we could. In San Francisco, they even had a Black Sabbath parade! Coming from Birmingham, England, where the fuckin' sun never shines, it was magic to us. – Ozzy Osbourne

The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (B+W, 1928)
Brilliant silent classic directed by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich is strongly influenced by German Expressionism and French avant-garde cinema. Reportedly made for a mere $96.00, the film makes excellent use of cutout miniatures in lieu of large, expensive sets and was photographed by the great Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane). The story concerns the everyman John Jones who longs to be a movie star- only to be numbered, dehumanized and rejected. He never regains his humanity on earth- only in heaven.

Very Nice, Very Nice (B+W, 1961)
From the brilliant avant-garde filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, this film is not animation per se, although the rapid juxtaposition of still images does create a strong sense of movement. In Very Nice, Very Nice, Lipsett disrupts the representational value of documentary image and sound, moving beyond the genre's aesthetic codes of truth and reliability. The result is a sardonic re-reading of 1950s consumerism, mass media and popular culture.

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://www.flarerecord.com/?p=423