{"id":328260,"date":"2026-05-22T20:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/328260\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:00:10","slug":"photos-oakland-turns-i-love-boosters-into-a-full-blown-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/328260\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Oakland turns \u2018I Love Boosters\u2019 into a full-blown party"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bay Area-set anti-capitalist surreal comedy starring Keke Palmer<\/a>, Demi Moore<\/a> and LaKeith Stanfield<\/a> had preview screenings nationally beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 21, ahead of its official release the following day. Here, lines stretched up Grand Avenue as ticket buyers, many dressed in costume, anxiously waited to get inside the historic theater to show support for one of the Town\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

The Oakland-based Bay Area Film Night bought out three theater screening rooms and sold out four showings, with the last one letting out around 1 a.m. the next morning. The logistics of letting one crowd out and getting the next one in even had theater owner Allen Michaan pitching in to help clean the theater between screenings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis night is extremely special,\u201d Bay Area Film Night Executive Director Rippin Sindher told the Chronicle. \u201cI look outside, there\u2019s a line full of people from all races, colors, ethnicities, genders. That\u2019s what I live for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The night\u2019s showing speaks to the connection many Bay Area residents feel to Riley and his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoots Riley is so unapologetic in his activism, in his existence, in his authenticity as a filmmaker,\u201d Sindher went on. \u201cTo me, (\u2018I Love Boosters\u2019) is inspiring and really saying to people, excuse my French, \u2018F\u2014 the system! \u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bay Area Film Night, founded by actor and filmmaker Jamal Trulove<\/a>, hosts cinema events and partners with various community organizations. On Thursday, that included the Town Experience, which promotes Oakland culture, and Trapxart, a clothing brand and media company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe storytell around the culture and share positive narratives that put the best light on what Oakland really has to offer,\u201d said Town Experience founder Charlese Banks. \u201cAny time we have a movie that is somehow attached to Oakland, we try to bring the community together to not only boost local theaters\u2019 business, but also to watch these films together.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the crowd didn\u2019t just come to watch a movie. Dressed for the occasion, there was as much colorful eye candy off screen as there was on screen, with a pre-show costume contest inspired by Riley\u2019s bright, monochromatic costume design in \u201cI Love Boosters.\u201d The winner was Paradise the Poet, an Oakland artist.<\/p>\n

There was also a stand-up comedy set by Oakland comedian Jerry Law.<\/p>\n

Riley was supposed to attend, but canceled at the last moment. No one seemed to mind.<\/p>\n

The audience was having so much fun that by the time \u201cI Love Boosters\u201d actually began screening, it risked being an afterthought. But the crowd was fully engaged.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMovies that are based around Oakland culture, it\u2019s a certain language and lingo and energy that happens in the room,\u201d Banks said. \u201cI think people are really going to love it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bay Area-set anti-capitalist surreal comedy starring Keke Palmer, Demi Moore and LaKeith Stanfield had preview screenings nationally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[329,7,332,838,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-328260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-movies-and-tv","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}