In San Francisco, we rejoice in our freaks and geeks; some of the city’s nerdiest events can also be the
hardest ones to get into (please see: Pop-up Magazine). That’s why it’s never made sense to us that the spectacular
weekly screenings at Oddball Films don’t get more hype.
Oddball is first and foremost a comprehensive archive of arcane cinema, maintaining a vast storehouse
of forgotten films to be mined for art projects and academic research. But on Thursdays, Fridays, and
Saturdays, the public is invited in for themed film screenings, expertly culled from their dusty old stacks.
Take, for instance, Oddball’s recent “Pop Goes the Classroom” screening. It was a compilation
of some of the trippiest educational films from the 1970s, including one clip on the “far-
out” possibilities of joining your school band, another on the perils of walking around barefoot, and
still another on the beauty of the majestic tin can. And as a bonus, that evening’s guest curator served
up gingerbread and other wholesome family snacks. Does it get any better?
The storehouse is vast, and films can include terrible art school film projects, racist Woody Woodpecker
cartoons, airplane disaster footage, and much more. Most of these movies aren’t available on Youtube,
and they’re shown with a good old-fashioned projector in Oddball’s chapel-like screening room. It’s a
perfect date night for our quirky San Franciscan sensibilities.
Thursday’s offering is the feline-themed “Crazy Cats!” but to keep up to date on future screenings, sign up for
Oddball’s weekly newsletter here.
Oddball Films = Oddly Amazing
Thursday, Jun. 14, 2012
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