I don’t know much about Oakland, but FREAKY TALES seems designed to be the Oakland-est movie of all time. So Oakland that Too $hort is the narrator and one of the producers and has a cameo as a cop and is a character in the movie played by rapper Demario “Symba” Driver. Also they have a cool retro synth type score but they got Raphael Saadiq to do it.

It’s presented as an anthology film, but it’s the type where each of the stories intersects a little bit and ultimately becomes one story in the last chapter – actually not that far off from the structure of WEAPONS, which I watched the day after I watched this. What it made me keep thinking of though is the made-for-cable movie COSMIC SLOP, even though this is pretty different and definitely way better. I guess just because it’s weird stories hosted by a music icon and named after one of his works.

Although there’s a sci-fi element in a stylishly fake looking “cosmic green stuff” that pops up occasionally (Short Dog figures it “was just one of those freaky things that made the Bay Area so damn fresh” at the time) I think it comes closest to being a crime movie. There’s a hitman, a corrupt cop, and everything revolves around a botched robbery of Golden State Warriors point guard Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis, TOP GUN: MAVERICK). I of course enjoy that type of story, but the standout chapters for me are the two about circa ’87 Bay Area music scenes, following some punk rockers and then a female rap duo, each group having a fateful incident after leaving the same showing of THE LOST BOYS.

First is a straight forward wish-fulfillment fantasy for our times: a diverse collective of punks protect their club from gay-bashing skinheads. Nazi skins showing up to ruin punk shows is of course an age old problem – it’s the reason for the Dead Kennedys anthem “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” and before our current political nightmare I just knew the word “antifa” to describe the punks who stand up to those assholes. FREAKY TALES gives us a comic book magical realism antifa stand that recalls SEVEN SAMURAI, 300, also some SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD in its cutely stylized violence. It’s a fun time for all (except the nazis), but particularly, I’m guessing, for fans of Bay Area punk and hardcore, because it takes place at the real volunteer-run punk club Gilman, partly during an Operation Ivy show (portrayed by another band I can’t find the name of).

I was surprised to read that this is a mythologized telling of an actual fight that happened there. Some of the real details used in the movie include the collective taking a vote to violate their usual non-violent ethos, the nazis fleeing in their smashed up pickup truck, even a participant fighting with his aluminum crutches (but not with a retractable machete built in, I don’t think).

I was also a sucker for the punk rock love story in the middle of it, with kinda shy Lucid (Jack Champion, motherfuckin Spider from AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER) crushing on his badass friend Tina (Ji-young Yoo, MOXIE) and being too afraid to admit it (though buying her a spiked bracelet for the battle might be a giveaway). All that tension culminating in a magical Hollywood romance ending in the middle of the pit while a band plays “Rise Above” made my heart go pitter-patter.

The hip hop tale is more down to earth, revolving around Entice (Normani from the group Fifth Harmony) and Barbie (Dominique Thorne, Ironheart from BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER), who are trying to make it as a rap duo called Danger Zone. After THE LOST BOYS they happen to meet Too Short associate Lenny G (Stunnaman02), who has seen them rap before and invites them to make a guest appearance at the show. This is basically a cinematic origin story for the song “Don’t Fight the Feelin” from Life Is… Too Short, one of those sexist-rapper-gets-dissed-by-woman-guest-stars songs (see also Ice Cube’s “It’s a Man’s World” featuring Yo-Yo). Like the song it’s all in good fun but it’s interesting that it 1) really zeroes in on the dejection of Danger Zone coming to the club and thinking they’ve been set up just to be victims of his foul, misogynistic rhymes and 2) mirrors this with a scene where a customer at their ice cream shop day job disgustingly harasses them.

That harasser also turns out to be main villain “the guy” (Ben Mendelsohn, LOST RIVER), an asshole cop but also the head of the thievery ring but also (spoiler?) the father of one of the skinheads who knows what they’re up to and still loans them his truck. In the third chapter hitman-trying-to-go-straight Clint (Pedro Pescal, TRIPLE FRONTIER) suffers a tragedy, has nothing to lose and decides to get revenge on his employer, The Guy. Pascal is in practically all movies now, but I’m not sick of him yet, and he’s generally so lovable I almost forgot he could play this kind of menacing tough guy (but with a heart) type of character.

I will call this a SPOILER since I didn’t see it coming but there’s a running bit that a couple different people mention Tom Hanks movies and someone says that he’s from Oakland and used to sell hot dogs at A’s games, then suddenly Hanks himself appears in the movie playing Hank, an opinionated video store clerk. It’s pretty cool to see him in a role and movie so out of character for him, and I also like the gimmick that an exclusive underworld poker game would take place in a secret room behind a shelf in the porn room.

The last chapter is “The Legend of Sleepy Floyd,” a celebrity mentioned and seen on TV in earlier stories. I have to admit I didn’t know it was a real guy until I saw on the credits that he has a cameo. It’s a really funny way to glorify a living person because they set it during a legendary record-breaking game he played but also they (SPOILER) give him scanner powers and make him go on a samurai rampage with a look that sort of combines Blade with basketball gear. I know this had to have been a great audience movie because I was ready to applaud alone in my living room. The action climax is really well executed, which makes sense when you find out the stunt coordinator/second unit director was my favorite Paper Tiger, Ron Yuan (BLACK DYNAMITE, WILD CARD) and the fight coordinator was James Newman, who Yuan worked with directing BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN.

I can’t wait for my movie-loving friend from Oakland to see this and give me her verdict, but it feels like a nice love letter to me. Here’s an informative article from local outlet KQED that tipped me off to some of the local details. I figured the movie theater was a landmark but it didn’t occur to me the ice cream shop was too. Also I’m dumb because I know Marshawn Lynch (LOVE HURTS) as an icon for playing in Seattle but duh, three guesses where he’s from. So that’s why he has a cameo. The late Angus Cloud (ABIGAIL) was also from there and he has a real role as a comically out of step (but still ultimately horrible) member of the thieving nazi gang.

FREAKY TALES is written and directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, the latter being the Oakland native who dreamed of doing this. Regardless of the regional details, I do think it helps for one of these ‘80s pastiche things to finally be made by people alive at the time (though they’re younger than me and I would’ve been a little too young to go to those shows). They are the husband and wife team who made the indie movies HALF NELSON, SUGAR, IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY and MISSISSIPPI GRIND before somehow ending up doing CAPTAIN MARVEL. I don’t know the story of why it took them five years to follow up a movie that grossed $1.131 billion but I think it’s very cool that what they ended up doing was this small labor of love that I would’ve guessed was from hungry, fresh-faced newcomers. Those of us without a connection to the city have still enjoyed the ripples of their culture, and/or we hate nazis and enjoy sword fights. So check out FREAKY TALES on blu-ray/4K or I believe it’s on HBO Max or one of those.