FREAKY TALES. Sometimes good things do happen. Not geopolitically, it would seem, but at least occasionally at the multiplex. With zero foreknowledge, I stumbled across the poster for Freaky Tales, emblazoned in neon green and tantalizing us (especially we NorCal kids of a certain age) with the tagline, “In 1987 Oakland was hella freaky.”
OK, done. On board, albeit with the usual self-described healthy amount of skepticism, which was eroded by the prominence, on said poster, of Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn and Jay Ellis. Internal exclamation points abounded, though checked somewhat by having been previously burned by the promise of high-concept throwback genre pastiches that, in the light of day, simply could not live up to their own imagined brilliance. No need to name names; if you know, you know.
Operating under the notion that limited expectations might prevent later emotional deflation, I proceeded without additional research, hoping somewhere, in the chambers of my darkened little movie lover’s heart, that this might actually be something as good as (better than?) I allowed myself to hope it would be. And somehow, in this age of extinction, it was.
To sidebar only briefly, my experience with Freaky Tales, which is the work of writer/directors Anna Fleck and Ryan Boden (Half Nelson, 2006; Captain Marvel, 2019) dovetailed with a brief text conversation wherein a friend and fellow genre enthusiast wondered aloud whether there was room anymore, within the movie business, for lower-budget experiments featuring prominent actors. I suggested that there certainly is, albeit in a diffuse, even splintered way, such offerings being spread across smaller production and distribution companies, sadly, often relegated to the shadowy corners of streaming services. And then I wandered dumbly into an East Bay crime story about West Coast punk, anti-fascism, basketball, video stores, street crime and supernatural environmental influences. With Marshawn Lynch driving a muni bus, crackling with green electricity, into the Oakland sky. I’ve never felt happier to be proven right.
Fleck and Boden, filmmakers from the sparsely populated generation that made a place for itself as the indie revolution of the ’90s was in its death throes, generally wear their hearts proudly on their artistic sleeves. They make movies that revere and refer to the great work that came before, but with a degree of unshowy kindness, an unsentimental transparency that, for me, has always worked. Sugar (2008), a baseball story about the immigrant experience, had me just about bawling; Mississippi Grind (2015), an homage to California Split (1974) and a bygone generation of movies like it, deserves more attention than it has received. But they aren’t such navel gazers as to misunderstand the business into which they have entered. Rather, they seem to understand it better than the business does itself, as evidenced by the fact that they’ve parlayed a dalliance with Marvel into a one-for-us that, in its specificity and weirdness, could very well find a much wider audience than one might expect.
Narrated by the legend himself Too $hort (né Todd Shaw), Freaky Tales tips its cap to the video store generation (literally, in one instance), referencing (visually, verbally and otherwise) totemic influences from Repo Man to Pulp Fiction and myriad others in between. Incorporating shot-on-video segments, rap battles, animation, kung fu, slashers and other cinematic landmarks, it is a bristling, funny, bloody send-up of cinematic seriousness that seems like it may have been as much fun to make as it is to watch. The screenplay may not be quite as water-tight as it could be, if we’re being honest, but its shortcomings pale in comparison to the rush of watching a work of grimy, gleeful imagination, especially one designed as a paean both to late-20th century cinema and the Yay Area. R. 146M.
HELL OF A SUMMER. As a member of the quiet minority that never really got on board with Stranger Things (I watched the first season, all right?), I must admit that the cult of Finn Wolfhard is largely inscrutable to me. He’s got a band, I guess. And now he’s written and directed (with delightfully named co-star Billy Bryk) this, ostensibly a summer camp slasher comedy. Which has perhaps been overburdened by marketing, as the trailer has been in heavy rotation these past months, presumably due to its creator’s cultural caché.
It may come as a surprise that I do not begrudge Wolfhard his fame or access, particularly because he’s parlayed it into an entree to the arcane art and business of feature filmmaking; good on him for that. I just wish the work was better.
Founded in the tropes of classic horror, Hell of a Summer sets out from a promising premise (murders at a summer camp, for anyone who was drifting off), but squanders its exciting cast, as well as its themes of inter-generational distance, with misbegotten pacing, unsurprising reveals and a paucity of exciting kills. As much as I admire the intent, I think Wolfhard and Bryk (a comic highlight, to be fair) needed to have studied their influences a little more closely. R. 88M. BROADWAY.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
NOW PLAYING
THE AMATEUR. A CIA decoder (Rami Malek) takes to the field for unsanctioned revenge after his wife is killed. PG13. 123M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND. An isolated, island-dwelling lottery winner schemes to reunite his favorite music duo. Tom Basden, Tim Key, Sian Clifford. PG13. 99M. MINOR.
CHOSEN: THE LAST SUPPER PART 3. Episodes 6-8, no spoilers. TVPG. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
DEATH OF A UNICORN. Whoops, a father and daughter (Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega) hit a magical beast with their car and — surprise — a billionaire (Richard Grant) makes it worse. R. 104M. BROADWAY.
DROP. Gimmick thriller about a single mom (Meghann Fahy) on a first date getting messages threatening her kid if she doesn’t kill her date. PG13. 100M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
THE KING OF KINGS. Animated adaptation of Charles Dickens’ bio of Jesus Christ, voiced by Pierce Brosnan and Oscar Isaac. PG. 104M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE. Trapped in the blocky video game with Steve. Starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa. PG. 102M. BROADWAY (3D), MILL CREEK (3D), MINOR.
SNOW WHITE. Live-action Disney musical. Don’t take any poisoned apples. PG. 109M. BROADWAY.
THE WOMAN IN THE YARD. A grieving widow (Danielle Deadwyler) and her family are visited by a menacing figure in black (Okwui Okpokwasili). PG. 188M. BROADWAY.
WARFARE. Drama based on U.S. Navy Seals’ memories of a mission in Iraq, unfolding in real time. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter. R. 95M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.
A WORKING MAN. Jason Statham in another side-hustle action movie about a construction worker dad back on his trained killer bullshit. R. BROADWAY.
For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.
This article appears in How the Klamath Dams came down.