The craving for the 1980s never dies down, and cinema, of this era, feeds what is, in fact, an all vintage fashion, becoming strongly complicit in it. A fashion that takes us back in time and to the glories of yesteryear. To an era when not only everything was possible, but where hope and carefreeness were the real driving force of the world, acting as a driving force for the realization of everyone’s dreams. An era, that of the 1980s decade, in continuous nostalgia operation, which has led or will lead, very soon on the big screen, to the release of a film set in the year 1987.
Not surprisingly, a particular year precisely for the big screen. A year in which, again at the cinema, films such as The Untouchables, Robocop, The Relentless, Good Morning Viet-Nam, The Principal – A Violent Class, and many other titles that we are not going to repeat here. A year that represented, also and especially almost, the beginning of the sunset of the era of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States of America, his second term, just to be precise.
A year, also 1987, that must be considered particular for the city of Oakland itself, in which several news events or even events involving strange stories occurred that inspired the making of this brand new action movie, which borders on the thriller genre, and whose plot is well composed of four stories, all different from each other, but which in the development intertwine until they turn it into a halfway film, a feature film as they used to say episodic and choral.
Not only that, the scriptwriters’ inspiration went so far that the expression strange tales was even fruited for the title, that is, and in the American language, ‘Freaky Tales’; whose original plot goes something like this: Oakland, 1987: a mysterious force guides the underdogs of The Town in four interconnected stories: teenage punks defend their turf from skinhead Nazis, a rap duo fight for hip-hop immortality, a jaded henchman gets a chance at redemption, and an NBA All-Star settles scores.
Leading performer is the new American film star Pedro Pascal.
The lead actor of the TV series ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Gladiator II,’ a sequel that made no regrets about the legendary first installment of 2000, is catapulted into the most lived-in reality, as an absolute protagonist at the end of the same decade, by Tom Hanks, the that takes part in this film, as it used to be called, with a cameo and apparently appearances of some depth will not only concern his own.
From what is emerging in recent weeks is that the film itself will be a mere homage to that decade with a soundtrack from those years and all to listen to. Scheduled for release next April 4 in the U.S., as for the Italian release there is no word yet.
The article The 1980s returns to cinema with Strange Stories – Freaky Tales comes from TheNewyorker.
