SAN FRANCISCO EAST BAY AREA, CA (Apr. 18, 2025) — In the 1980s, the Oakland-Berkeley area was a happening place to be. The A’s and Warriors were building something special, musicians like Too Short were making a name for themselves nationally, while the seeds of Green Day and Rancid were being planted at Gilman Street. The new anthology film “Freaky Tales,” directed by Berkeley-native Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, pays homage to this era.

Too Short narrates the film’s four intertwined stories. He also pops up briefly as a detective. Many other Bay Area luminaries make cameo appearances in the film as well.

The first story starts with some teens who frequent 924 Gilman St. “Gilman,” as it is known, is the birthplace of punk band Operation Ivy which begat Rancid and Green Day and many other bands. The locals are having difficulty with a bunch of newly arrived Neo-Nazis who continue to harass and attack them. The story follows a predictable path, but as I’ve stated before, watching Nazis get what they deserve is always satisfying.

The second story follows a couple of female rappers who must deal not only with despicable policemen, but the possibility that the women will never be anything but a joke to their male counterparts. There is some solid rapping in this otherwise so-so segment.

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In the third segment, Pedro Pascal gives a great performance as Clint, a father-to-be doing his last job as an enforcer for a shadowy crime boss. This story carries the most emotional weight, along with being the most realistic of the four. The directors neatly mix Pascal’s storyline with the first two and lead it right into the final story.

In the 1987 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, the Warriors got destroyed in the first three games by the Showtime Lakers. In the fourth game, Eric “Sleepy” Floyd woke up the Warriors and scored a record 29 points in the fourth quarter to win the game. In the fourth story of our film, Clint’s boss has secured some goons to rob the houses of the richest Warriors while they are playing in the game. When Sleepy Floyd gets finished with his game, he realizes what has happened and goes on a Tarantino-esque revenge spree.

This fourth story is the most ludicrous of the four, but it works because it plays with the legend of an already mythic Bay Area figure.

The thread holding the four stories together is a relatively weak plot point about a mental health improvement technique called Psytopics that some characters rave about. It may or may not have something to do with the Athletics’ green hues that tint lightning and occasional important props in the film.

For those who grew up in the Bay Area during this time period, the film is a wonderful time capsule with plenty of Easter eggs on which to converse. However, it may not land the same way with “outsiders” who would not know Loard’s from Baskin-Robbins. B

Class Warfare Reimagined

Director Bong Joon Ho does not need to use much subtlety to get his message across. His films “The Host” and “Snowpiercer” are overt arguments about class structure and the need for those at the bottom (or the back) to fight to rise above.

In the former film, they must battle a monster whose creation stems from those at the top dumping chemicals into a river. In the latter, the poor “tail-ies” at the back must fight their way through all the classes in front of them to take over the train.

Bong’s latest film, “Mickey 17,” is another lesson in how letting the class system run amok can lead to perilous consequences for those at the bottom. At the very bottom is Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson). In the not-too-distant future, Barnes decides things are so bad and his debt so crushing, that he signs up for the “Expendables” program. At this nascent point in the program, nothing is forced upon applicants. Barnes chooses, of his own free will, to allow a new clone of himself to be produced each time he dies on a dangerous mission.

Bong uses Mickey and his repeated, sometimes gruesome deaths to say that this technology is not far off; we should be putting safeguards in place to never let something like the “Expendables” come to pass.

Pattinson plays multiple versions of Mickey mostly as a sad, clownish figure whom we are supposed to laugh at and pity at the same time. It is only later in the film, when a different type of Mickey emerges, that Pattinson really shines as two opposite versions of the character.

The plot pivots when this new Mickey shows up. It is here that the fight of those at the bottom vs. the few at the top takes center stage. Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette play rich, religious zealots who have taken their flock (along with Mickey and some other skeptics) to find a newer, better world on which to live. Ruffalo has a blast as a smarmy, terrible person who conflates leadership with unchecked power. Needless to say, it is very topical.

I appreciated the early part of the film, yet I soon realized that it could not sustain its premise. Once the plot switches gears, however, the film truly shines. Certainly, this film will not bring the same accolades to Bong as “Parasite” did, yet “Mickey 17” still justly belongs among the oeuvre of one of today’s finest directors. A-

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