A Reagan-era Oakland of punks, basketball and rap battles comes to life in 'Freaky Tales'

“Freaky Tales,” a choppy curio from the writing-directing squad of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson,” “Captain Marvel”), is an ode to the Bay Area arsenic a lad mightiness retrieve it, showcasing 3 semi-true stories acceptable connected May 10, 1987, that gild facts into myth. “Oakland successful ’87 was hella wild,” gloats rapper Too Short, the film’s narrator. Too Short is onscreen too, successful a cameo arsenic a cop. (There’s besides a mentation of his younger aforesaid played by DeMario Symba Driver.) “Freaky Tales” gets its rubric from Too Short’s nine-minute opus of intersexual braggadocio from his 1987 golden record, present foreshadowing a gender-war comeuppance helium deserves.

That summer, Fleck was a 10-year-old successful Berkeley. He was excessively young to person experienced Too Short’s rap battles first-hand, but aged capable to lug the vigor of that clip astir arsenic portion of his ain identity. Fleck and his longtime collaborator Boden construe the feeling of that excitement — that super-sized, should-have-been-there precocious — into snapshots of a beaten-down metropolis that can, connected occasion, combat backmost and win.

Most of the places and immoderate of the radical are real. But the prima is the movie’s hyperactive, adjacent overwhelmingly contradictory nostalgia. Not lone does the movie feign to beryllium connected VHS with achromatic static tickling done the conception breaks, it besides has cigaret burns connected the precocious corners of the framework to unreal we’re besides simultaneously watching it connected a 35mm reels astatine the section theater. Sometimes enactment scenes are juiced up with cartoonish doodles and dependable effects; sometimes, the enactment is all cartoon. I’m definite the filmmakers cognize that Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater wasn’t showing “The Lost Boys” that May. (It wouldn’t unfastened until July.) But I’m beauteous definite they don’t care. It’s each astir the vibes, dude.

The movie is divided into 4 sections with 3 groups of heroes: punks, rappers and the Golden State Warriors who were successful the NBA playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers, the “Showtime” squad that would spell connected triumph the championship. On this peculiar night, however, crippled 4 of a imaginable Lakers sweep, Golden State constituent defender Sleepy Floyd (here played by Jay Ellis) refused to lose. He scored 29 points successful the 4th quarter, a post-season grounds that inactive stands contempt aboriginal Warriors similar Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant trying their damnedest to sound it down.

Floyd’s large nighttime is existent and you tin find archival footage of it online, including Floyd’s tribunal broadside interview with a section sportscaster who describes the player’s occurrence successful mystical terms. Floyd, the newsman says, played truthful transcendently it was similar helium was “unconscious” — helium went to “another realm,” “that different zone.”

The filmmakers person taken that thought of metaphysics and spun it into a phony religion with Floyd hosting TV commercials for Psytopics, a mindfulness campy wherever chap Bay residents tin bid their encephalon to conflict some “inner and outer demons.” For him, that presumably includes Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though the publication volition yet person its fictionalized Floyd beheading much hostile atrocious guys with a ninja sword.

Three of the communicative arcs travel a elemental plan: An underdog fights and wins. The 4th section, wedged successful the middle, is simply a fabricated communicative astir a deed man, Clint (Pedro Pascal), who tries to retire, assuring his large woman (Natalia Dominguez) that his fist of fury is present “just a hand.” Pascal goes astir it sincerely, but the mini-tale is truthful grim that it lone accomplishes 2 things: getting Pascal connected the poster, and wholly scrambling the movie’s tone.

Otherwise, these interconnected plots are rousing pulp fictions — the Quentin Tarantino movie is an evident inspiration. Characters criss-cross each other’s paths successful ways that are cute but don’t aspire to cosmic coincidence beyond Pascal’s Clint advising 2 punks, Tina and Lucid (Ji-young Yoo and Jack Champion), the astir susceptible spot to purpose a spiked bracelet.

Tina and Lucid’s conception is the opener and establishes that we’re successful for chipper stories of occurrence (with arsenic overmuch humor arsenic possible). It’s inspired by a real-life showdown betwixt the hardcore corporate 924 Gilman Street, an all-ages euphony venue that’s inactive head-banging, and a radical of racist rednecks. We’re hurled into the ambiance with a large tracking changeable down the club’s sidewalk and into a performance wherever teens and 20-somethings are moshing truthful hard that the camera gets knocked down and stumbles backmost to its feet. Later, erstwhile Tina and Lucid kiss, we soar supra the enactment arsenic pogo-ing dancers blur into a beauteous romanticist swirl.

The costume section indispensable person utilized each information pin successful town. Still, these tough-looking kids abide by a rule of nonviolence — until they determine they’re truthful sick of getting attacked by neo-Nazis that they’re consenting to combat back. There’s geysers of gore and a skinhead who gets turned into a tiki torch.

It’s rousing worldly and a spot glib. The movie refuses to dampen the mood: each cheers and nary arrests, adjacent with Ben Mendelsohn’s loathsome constabulary serviceman skulking astir and harassing 2 Black girls, Entice and Barbie (Normani and Dominique Thorne), astatine the adjacent crystal pick store wherever they work. In a astute detail, Mendelsohn’s unnamed racist shoots the different achromatic feline successful the store a complicit wink. That antheral is wearing a Jesse Jackson for President hat, but he’s excessively intimidated to measurement in.

Entice and Barbie’s conception is the astir realistic. It’s besides my favorite, with the duo challenging Too Short to a rap conflict successful which some sides instrumentality hilarious verbal purpose astatine each other’s genitals. (When the euphony kicks in, you mightiness admit Entice and Barbie from the Too Short way “Don’t Fight the Feelin’,” successful which the existent girls, conscionable 15 astatine the time, took down the much established creator with some barrels.) Normani and Thorne nail the performance, spitting the tight, overlapping insults astir Too Short’s height, girth and dental hygiene with malicious glee.

Meanwhile connected Floyd’s ads for Psytopics, greenish airy beams from a believer’s eyeballs and goes connected to airy up each corners of the movie. Minty lightning bolts zap down successful moments of tension. Pea-soup hues leak retired of Entice’s microphone, the Oakland Coliseum and yes, that spiked bracelet. The greenish glow seems to imbue radical with other courageousness — oregon origin bloody noses. And it’s ne'er acknowledged by the script. It’s for statement what it means. Over the people of the film, my guesses included telekinesis and algae blooms wafting from Lake Merritt. But the enigma adds to the consciousness that adjacent though Boden and Fleck are pivoting distant from Marvel and backmost to their indie roots, they’ve made a superhero movie, aft all: a street-smart update connected the Toxic Avenger.

Either way, they’ve done their research. The soundtrack of Evelyn “Champagne” King and Public Image Ltd. and modern punk acts reworking the classics is fantastic, arsenic is the due people by Raphael Saadiq of Tony! Toni! Toné! Every framework is filled with details, down to the T-shirts for tiny determination bands similar Sewer Trout. There’s adjacent a notation to rocky roadworthy crystal cream, invented successful Oakland successful 1929.

So these “Freaky Tales” are fun, if not rather satisfying. You get wherefore truthful galore Bay Area-born stars agreed to popular into the movie for a scene, from the existent Too Short and Sleepy Floyd to different locals including Marshawn Lynch arsenic a autobus driver, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong arsenic a Psytopics devotee and Angus Cloud successful 1 of his past roles arsenic a transgression thug. The biggest coup is simply a cameo from Concord autochthonal Tom Hanks, already benignant of celebrated astatine the clip adjacent if nary of the different characters retrieve his name. (“Big” would travel retired the pursuing year.) What they bash cognize astir Hanks is that helium utilized to merchantability hotdogs astatine the Oakland A’s ballpark. Here, helium plays a garrulous video-store clerk named Hank who challenges customers to sanction the champion movies astir underdogs.

“The underdog believes we tin execute the impossible,” Hanks says with a grin. This movie does it too, successful bold neon, for a speedy and inexpensive smile.