When 'Half Nelson' co-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden started out, everyone was ripping off 'Pulp Fiction.' Arriving late to the party, the duo recycles that template with a weary pastiche set in the 1987 East Bay.
Following the studio hit "Captain Marvel," indie duo Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden blow a big, self-congratulatory kiss to the late '80s East Bay with the nostalgia-fueled "Freaky Tales." Berkeley-born Fleck was barely 10 years old at the beginning of 1987, when this overstuffed anthology film is set, which explains the dazzling way it romanticizes the era's defining subcultures (with Boden presumably doing her best to amplify the film's incredibly specific, "you had to be there" appeal).
Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Writers: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Stars: Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis
In four distinct but intertwined chapters—populated mostly by new faces, plus the grizzled but engaging Pedro Pascal—"Freaky Tales" merges radically different sectors of the city: there's the boisterous but respectful Gilman Street punk crowd; Oakland's revolutionary hip-hop scene (including Too $hort, whose edgy rap anthem gives the film its title); the Warriors' historic victory over the Lakers, in which local basketball legend Eric "Sleepy" Floyd scored a record-breaking 29 points in the fourth quarter; and a disturbing rise in neo-Nazi-related hate crimes, which oddly serves to tie everything else together.
If these disparate realms weren't enough, the co-directors also include plenty of references to classic film, fashion, and music; the most striking is the "cosmic green shit" that glitters everywhere, a la "Repo Man." That phosphorescent energy embodies the special charm Fleck and Boden associated with Oakland at the time. The filmmakers did something similar in "Captain Marvel," piling on nods to mid-'90s pop culture.
Here, they go back a decade in time, paying geeky homage to all that was cutting-edge and cool about Oakland in 1987. It's hard to say who Fleck and Boden imagine as the target audience for "Freaky Tales," beyond the obvious local crowd. With its spectacular soundtrack and profound allusions, the script pays homage to everyone from Bruce Lee to Tom Hanks (who once sold hot dogs at the Oakland Coliseum), while celebrating the impact local musicians had on the zeitgeist.
The first chapter focuses on the punk scene, which gave rise to bands like Operation Ivy and Green Day. Beneath their tough exterior, East Bay punks were far more tolerant than their counterparts in New York and London. “No racism. No sexism. No homophobia. No drugs. No alcohol. No violence,” reads a sign in Gilman, a club brutally attacked by a gang of skinheads. The next time the neo-Nazis appear, the punks are ready, unleashing a street brawl inspired by Walter Hill's "The Warriors."
Adorned with slow motion and blood spatter, the well-choreographed fight scene is rewarding to watch, but it violates a tenet of East Bay culture: that words are the best weapons. Fleck and Boden put that philosophy into practice in the next episode, where Too $hort (Symba) challenges the female duo Danger Zone (played by Dominique Thorne and Normani, in her acting debut) to an epic rap battle.
Each story ends abruptly, with flashbacks to wacky TV commercials for something called "Psyotics"—practically the only continuity to be found, as the oddly structured film shifts aspect ratios and visual styles with each segment. This isn't a Northern California "Short Cuts," as the filmmakers draw inspiration not from Altman, but from a wide range of cult directors, none more so than Quentin Tarantino (who wouldn't appear until five years later).
At first, "Freaky Tales" is a plodding, ponderous film, taking nearly 40 minutes to find its rhythm. But once it gets going, roughly an hour of grindhouse glory awaits (assuming the streaming audience makes it that far). Stick around for cameos from Sleepy Floyd, Too $hort, and a totally unexpected A-list star with Bay Area roots (who shows up behind the counter of an old-school video store), plus a spectacular finale featuring rising star Jay Ellis in what amounts to a "Kill Bill"-style reimagining of Sleepy's big night in an alternate universe: one in which the basketball star faces off against a bigoted cop (Ben Mendelsohn) far more corrupt than Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan.
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