"Can I have seven Bing-Bang burgers, please?"
With this phrase, spoken by a 13 ft tall, 19-year-old Black man named Cootie ordering some fast food and shocking the restaurant's clientele, the trailer for Boots Riley's new seven-episode series, I'm a Virgo, introduces us again to his fabulously creative and calculated absurdist imagination. Boots announced the trailer on his Twitter feed, "I'm excited for you all to see my show- I'm A Virgo. It comes out June 23rd. Here's the trailer." The trailer features a re-mix version of "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" by Digable Planets, so you know the soundtrack will be dripping fire.
Redefining the genre of Sci-Fi with his first movie, Sorry to Bother You, revolutionary Hip Hop icon of Oakland's The Coup fame, director and producer Boots Riley astounds the mind yet again with "the biggest coming of age story of all time!"
As reported at IndieWire, "Per the official synopsis, the series is a darkly comedic fantastical coming-of-age joyride about Cootie (Jharrel Jerome), a 13-foot-tall young Black man in Oakland, CA. Having grown up hidden away, passing time on a diet of comic books and TV shows, he escapes to experience the beauty and contradictions of the real world. He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters his idol, the real-life superhero named The Hero (Walton Goggins)."
Writing and directing all seven episodes, Riley explains his hopes for the series, "For me, it's really experiential. How do I keep you interested and wanting to keep watching, and how do I get you do feel something? I don't want you to keep watching because I have done this easy, manipulative thing that makes you have to press 'watch the next one' again. I hate stories that don't end… I'm not saying how many seasons it will be, but there's a story that ends."
Editor-in-Chief of Collider, Steve Weintraub, interviews Boots Riley here. "During his interview, Riley spoke about Tune-Yards and his band, The Coup, who provide the score and soundtrack to I'm a Virgo. He also discusses what he called his "cinematic album" that will add three more features to the director's filmography, future cameos with LaKeith Stanfield and Elijah Wood, and talks about the use of practical effects versus CGI when filming his 13-foot protagonist, and how that decision has affected the storyboarding of this carefully crafted series."
Click here for the trailer for Boots Riley's first film, Sorry to Bother You.
Check out one of my favorite songs by The Coup, a collaboration with Dead Prez, "Get Up," from the 2001 album Party Music.
Riley recently penned an opinion editorial at Deadlineabout the Writer's Guild of America work strike.
"People are looking for ways to control the world around them and are finding that since the motor that propels capitalism, what creates wealth and power, is the exploitation of labor, their power comes not from simply letting their voices be heard, but from their ability to withhold their labor.
And these struggles are not just for their much needed pay raises and benefits, some are radical in nature. A couple years ago, we saw Boeing workers strike, demanding that instead of making jets engines during the pandemic, they make respirators for those in need. Here in Oakland, where I live, this past week, Oakland teachers on strike have won their set of Common Good proposals, which will allow teachers, parents, and community members to collectively decide on what is done with the resources allotted to the school district. People are using their power to reimagine power relations. In the context of all of this, this WGA strike is one of the most visible of those thousands of strikes. What we do right now will be part of the story that tens of millions tell themselves about how the world works and what tools we have with which to change it."