The Psychotronix Film Festival has been producing movie events in various venues since 1992 - and shall return to the Orinda Theatre at 2 Orinda Theatre Square (Moraga Way and Brookwood Road) with an improvised, sometimes ragtag, all over the map but highly entertaining lineup of films this Saturday night.
These films include 1950's commercials and "educational" films, the most bizarre obscure classic cartoons, trailers from the worst movies, the campiest musical shorts and TV programs that aired once or should never have aired.
The gang that produces these extravaganzas on glorious 16mm film started as DIY archivists/curators/showmen way back in the 1980's and worked on film presentations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento for several years prior to producing the first Psychotronix Film Festival at Foothill College, benefitting KFJC, in December 1992.
Rather amazingly, 32 years later, the Psychotronix gang keeps schlepping 16mm Kodak Pageants and reels in the service of big screen fun, featuring a different mix at every show, which is never repeated - and a new celluloid configuration will be hitting the big screen at the Orinda Theatre.
Said mix includes. . . TV ads!
Vintage car commercials!
Cheesy TV show openings!
Toy commercials!
Trailers from bad movies!
Musical short subjects!
And, invariably, Incredibly Strange Cartoons.
Again, the Psychotronix Film Festival, featuring "16MM Film, The Vinyl of Visuals," returns to bring its highly distinctive variant of big screen fun to the Orinda Theatre at 2 Orinda Theatre Square (Moraga Way and Brookwood Road) Saturday night, September 28, 2024 at 8:30 P.M.
Thanks, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon and Robert Emmett for your good work over these past three decades - and thanks to the Orinda Theatre.
A week from today, April 6, the Psychotronix Film Festival returns to the Orinda Theater for a scintillating springtime extravaganza.
We celebrate April Fool's Day a few days late and the birthday of movie comedian Grady Sutton a day early!
Time to celebrate Easter retroactively and the right way - the Psychotronic way, starting with Bugs Bunny!
The Psychotronix Film Festival is baaaaaaaaaaaack - with yet another devastatingly delirious deluge drawn from Our Celluloid Past!
The April 6 program will be as refreshing as springtime!
And, indeed, what would spring be without pickles?
Our overstocked 16mm archive is bursting at the acetate seams yet again with some of the coolest odd-ball films you are likely to see.
What would a Psychotronix Film Festival be without classic TV ads and Soundies?
And kidvid gone wrong, terribly wrong?
The place: Orinda Theater 2 Orinda Theatre Square, Orinda, CA 94563 The time: 8:30 p.m. PST
Orinda Theater Movieline: (925) 254-9060
Attendees at the Orinda Theater show note: a few weeks after kicking off April with a cool Psychotronix show there, we shall get the merry month of May off to a roaring start with a KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival at Foothill College in the Los Altos Hills.
Yes, Virginia Mayo and Virginia Weidler, there will be a "Mayday" KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival - 31 years, 5 months after our first show - at Room 5015 on Foothill College on May 4.
There is a treasure trove of vintage comedy and animation screenings going on right now in New York City, with very cool shows across the country from The Empire State in Orinda, California from my friends from the Psychotronix Film Festival happening on April 6.
Tomorrow night, classic comedy expert Nelson Hughes celebrates the tenth anniversary of his series That Slapstick Show with TEN hilarious Pre-Code 2-reelers, some featuring the poet laureate of "the slow burn," character actor/comedian/director Edgar Livingston Kennedy, at QED Astoria in Queens.
Prints are courtesy of the Library of Congress! Tickets are available for That Slapstick Show: Pre-Code Comedieshere. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Classic comedy films begin at 7:00.
If you happen to be the most intrepid and physically hardy of film buffs, reside in NYC and have the time free, you could attend the two matinee shows of sheer animated splendor from the Max Fleischer Cartoons: The Art & Inventions Of Max Fleischer retrospective at MoMA and then head for QED Astoria for big laughs courtesy of Edgar Kennedy and his world-class comedian pals!
Say hello to intrepid curators Thad Komorowoski and Nelson Hughes if you have a chance - and dig those excellent Hal Roach comedies and Fleischer cartoons!
Cartoons by Fleischer Studios are, peg boards down, the all-time favorites of the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
When it comes to classic cartoon goodness, Uncle Max delivers!
Saturday, April 6 the Psychotronix Film Festival crew, led by Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon and Robert Emmett from KFJC, shall rock the house with an evening of big screen fun at the Orinda Theatre.
Yours truly, who unfortunately lacks a working Star Trek teleportation device or an unlimited travel budget, will, much to his chagrin, not be there for the psychotronic festivities at Orinda or the April 10-14 shows by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, but shall be on hand (with 16mm reels) - trains, planes and automobiles willing - for the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival at Foothill College on May 4.
And, if current cinema floats the glass bottom boat for San Francisco Bay Area cineastes, South Bay residents can check out San Jose's Cinequest film festival this weekend. The 2024 edition of Cinequest extends through St. Patrick's Day.
Started this blog WAY back in 2006 primarily to promote screenings and a good one's coming right up in the San Francisco Bay Area at the Orinda Theater.
Much of the crew that produces the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival returns to Orinda to present a Saturday matinee. OOZ-O-RAMA's essential criteria: does it ooze and, if the answer is yes, just how viscous is it. Would the 1958 version of The Blob, plus any trailers and promotional films related to it - as well as cheap Blob knockoffs - be viscous enough? Yes, definitely!
Before and after the ooze will be the usual suspects: trailers from B-movies, Soundies, well-meaning but now ridiculous 1950's educational films, cheesy "snack bar" ads, Scopitones, cartoon rarities, commercials, bizarro comedy shorts, "thunder lizards", kidvid, silent movie clips, serial chapters, puppet animation, and whatever not-exactly-cinematic drek we can dredge up for the occasion.
Psychotronix Film Festival presents Ooz-O-Rama Saturday September 23, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. PST Orinda Theater
2 Orinda Theatre Square
Orinda, CA 94563
Movieline: (925) 254-9060
Yours truly will not be there, and that means rest assured there will be no commercials for the 1956 Rambler in the show!
The Psychotronix bunch shall return to the Orinda Theatre on Saturday, October 14 for a Halloween show.
Does this blogger and co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Fest wishes he had a Star Trek teleportation device handy so it would be possible to attend these two Orinda Theatre shows? Heck, yeah!
There shall also be a Foothill College KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, which this blogmeister will be involved in - do not know just yet if the playdate's in November or December 2023, or in January 2024. Awaiting that news!
