With fall film festival season heating up and the awards race poised to start, it’s easy to get tunnel vision when it comes to the year’s best films. The past few months have heralded the arrival of several splashy pictures, each all but guaranteed a glitzy awards season run. But what about the films that premiered earlier in the year, the ones that might have slipped through the cracks in the developing awards conversation? Some might fade into obscurity, but others — with the help of a well-timed physical release — will soon get new leases on life.
I Love Boosters is one such film. Though it’s easily one of the best of the year, its March release came and went. The second feature from writer-director Boots Riley, it’s part-heist, part-zany social satire, with visuals so saturated and trippy it circles back around to abject absurdity. Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, and Poppy Liu are the film’s titular boosters, lifting goods from a Bay Area designer (Demi Moore) who’s long taken advantage of the disenfranchised. Their crusade couldn’t be timelier, but I Love Boosters is more than its jagged sociopolitical statements. It’s also just a really good time at the movies, and it’s finally getting another chance to remind us.
How was I Love Boosters received upon release?
Critics lauded I Love Boosters when it premiered at this year’s SXSW Festival. It currently holds a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, with its cartoonish sensibilities and fiery perspective cited as major highlights. Inverse joined the chorus of praise at SXSW, albeit with a grain of salt: Boosters might be Riley’s best project to date, but it’s occasionally undone by its ambitious, twisty sci-fi elements.
This is the same director who debuted with Sorry to Bother You, a film that bends reality at its earliest convenience and then just… keeps introducing insane wrinkles to its plot. Boosters goes to similar levels of absurdity, but it’s saved by its rip-roaring humor and a pitch-perfect cast. Most audiences seemed to like the ways the film goes off the rails. Though its audience score on RT is a bit lower than its critics score (it’s currently sitting at 75%), reviews praise Palmer’s performance as Corvette, the deadpan, disillusioned leader of the Velvet Gang.
Why is I Love Boosters important to see now?
I Love Boosters may be the zaniest movie of the year, but it’s also one of the most unique.
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There’s never a bad time to watch a Boots Riley picture, as the director remains woefully underrated. I Love Boosters might be his most accessible story so far; now that it’s readily available to watch at home, there’s no better time to tap in.
Boosters only gets timelier as current events get bleaker. Riley has always been keen to tackle the systems of power that revel in oppression, and address the corporate and political greed sucking our planet dry. Boosters doesn’t disappoint on that front: it may start off tackling the fast fashion brands exploiting laborers and the environment, but it eventually expands its scope to cultural appropriation, respectability politics, and even Bay Area f-boys. Yes, it’s a weird one, but it has the capacity to surprise and delight, if given the chance.
What new features does the I Love Boosters Blu-ray have?
It’s not easy finding a physical release with very dynamic special features anymore, but I Love Boosters may be the exception that proves the rule. In addition to a stunning 4K version of the film, its release comes with a handful of special features, including a “making of” featurette, a blooper reel, feature-length commentary from Boots Riley, and interviews with the cast. Once upon a time, this was pretty much standard fare for any physical release; nowadays, few films are guaranteed the same treatment. It’s a shame, but it’s nice to see Boosters getting a little something: it’s one of the best films of the year, and now it can be celebrated as such.
