Movies are meant to take you to a particular time and place, real or fake, past or future, anywhere you want. How about Oakland, California on the week of May 10th, 1987?
After premiering their first short film twenty years ago, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden return to Sundance with their genre-blending anthology film FREAKY TALES.
United by a mysterious, glowing green force, four stories of “underdogs” weave in and out of each other. Passing by in diners, leaving the same movie, a debt collector, teen punks, a rap duo, and an alternate universe’s Sleepy Floyd of the Golden State Warriors go up against the oppressive forces of bigoted criminals, nazi punks, and their racist overseer against the backdrop of the music and cultural ethos of 1980s Oakland.
Containing a fantastic ensemble including Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Dominique Thorne, singer Normani in her film debut, Jack Champion, and the late Angus Cloud along with one of the most unexpected cameos since Bill Murray in ZOMBIELAND, the massive cast interacts almost effortlessly with one another whether its a simple glance or a sustained crossover between vignettes. Pascal and Mendelsohn in particular give excellent performances as the Joel-esque enforcer on a quest for redemption and racist authority figure worthy of a slot in INDIANA JONES respectively.
The attention to fidelity can be felt throughout as well. The soundtrack is exclusively packed with Oakland/Bay Area rap and punk artists (with a little Metallica thrown in for good measure). Fleck stated that he tried to put as many locations from his memories into the film as possible. This blend of reality and science fiction schlock makes the entire film into a bloody fairytale more than fitting of the term “freaky”. Scenes evoking THE WARRIORS, ENTER THE DRAGON and other ’80s films feel right at home among the real Oakland in fictionalized depictions of the May 10th Lakers vs Warriors game and infamous figures like Sleepy Floyd and Too Short.
That said, when one thing is hyper-focused, other areas can fall short, and tonally the film feels uneven. The segments get stronger as they go, significantly so in the latter half of the four, but this results in the initial segment seeming unpolished and weaker compared to the more fleshed-out storylines at play in the latter portion of the film. The performances are all equally solid, but the initial segment in particular feels more meandering in its storyline; with the teen romance feeling inconsequential and oddly placed among the larger Nazi Punks Fuck Off plot point. In a film full of racists getting their comeuppance in increasingly violent ways, it feels more like a fun, cartoony wish-fulfillment angle than the more seriously treated interactions with bigotry, racism, and abuse of power showcased in its companions.
Overall, however, FREAKY TALES has heart and passion in its message and subject matter that evokes both 1975’s TRILOGY OF TERROR and 1995’s TALES FROM THE HOOD. You’ll laugh with the jokes and settle into the comforting nostalgic broth as intended, but there is a real rage boiling underneath the quirky veneer, and a tacit understanding that what this film’s creators really miss about their memories of the ’80s was the underground community’s unflinching pushback against neo-nazis and far-right movements that they wish was more widely practiced now in 2024. As the film’s final wall break says outright to whatever racists may be watching and forgetting what used to happen during that zeitgeist, “You know who you are” and this is Our wish-fulfillment moment. It’s blunt, it’s ballsy, and it will be interesting to see the reactions to it as it reaches a wider distribution.
FREAKY TALES is now showing at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Tags: Angus Cloud, Anna Boden, Ben Mendelsohn, Dominique Thorne, Enter the Dragon, Freaky Tales, indiana jones, Jack Champion, Jay Ellis, Normani, Pedro Pascal, Ryan Fleck, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival 2024, Tales From The Hood, The Warriors, Trilogy of Terror
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