The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Like many people out there I'm sure, I had a loose understanding and knowledge of Basquit, but this film is very enlightening by filling in the missing gaps that I personally hadn't known about his life as told through those closest to him. The Director, who had a friendship with Basquit, does a wonderful job of interviewing people who knew him to really paint a full portrait of the mans character. Brilliant, creative, very sensitive.Basquiat of course, rose to fame from the streets even though his father was a well off accountant. His life story is sad, in the crusty, white world of art in the late seventies and early eighties in NYC, the obnoxious liberals who Basquiat was often demeaned by, because of his ethnic background which he felt, probably rightly so, like he was being viewed as some kind of primitive animal. Very sad, very moving film about a gifted artist and one of the best of the 20th century.

The only good thing is that they edited and organized the whole segments very well but many important things are missing. First of all, it has very limited interviewees. There should be more than 10 people giving the information about Basquiat during 90 minutes. Second, there's not enough information about Basquiat's mother who could be the major influence of him, so as Andy Warhol. Third, there's no explanation about why Basquiat's art work is good basically. What they are representing through this documentary is "Basquiat is genius!" and that's all. Most of all, they claim Basquiat is a straight man. I don't really get this part and I still can't understand why they want him to be a straight man? Do they feel shame about the fact that he isn't? They somehow want Basquiat to be straight. Can't they tell by his paintings? Anyway, overall, it's a really poor documentary movie. There's no point at all. Who doesn't know Basquiat's a genius/radiant child?

Jean-Michel Basquiat wasn't always a wonderful guy. He could be stubborn, and a "work-aholic" when it came to his art (he ultimately made over 1,000 paintings and postcards in his ten years making art), and got addicted to heroin which, if anyone brought it up around him, he would get vicious and vindictive. He died when he was 27 years old, and at a low point in his life and career following the death of his good friend Andy Warhol. But this isn't really what Tamra Davis wants to show, at least not entirely. She wants to give a fair assessment of her friend's work, a true artist in the sense that he pushed boundaries and conventions, did things his way, and got recognition and praise though somehow stayed on the fringe when it came to widespread acceptance. Like Jimi Hendrix, he was even revolutionary in his efforts at what he did, borrowing from others in a "neo-expressionist" style that was fresh, hip, but had a basic quality to it that could be understood.We get a view of his career- how he started off as an underground artist living downtown Manhattan at a time where, as one person puts it, "everybody did everything." No inspiration was lost on people who painted, had a band, made movies, wrote poetry and fiction, and made other art projects or graffiti. Basquiat, or "Samo" as he was called (such as "Same Ol' S***"), put up worded graffiti all over the city that got him some attention, and he had a band with Vincent Gallo where nobody could play an intstrument. But it was the very graffiti drawings he did, starting with postcards that he got sold to Warhol on a whim, and then with paintings by the dozen that he took off. One of the joys of the film is Davis showing us so much of the art, how much there was variety in his work even if so much seemed the same child-like drawings. For how simple and crude they appear, one sees a pattern, and there's an amazing sophistication in his work.Perhaps those who are not fans of Basquiat- and the documentary shows how there were some who looked down on his work, some of which (like the current MoMA director) have recanted- may not get a lot out of the movie. But as a film about the nature of an artist, how he works and how he interacts with people, some infamous like Warhol (their collaboration story is one of the highlights), and some not like the hangers-on at his apartment, it works very well. Some of Davis' low budget aesthetic makes it a little less than great, such as the newer interviews she's done with former curators, artists, musicians, and art dealers and buyers, are lessened in quality by bad audio and video. But perhaps (?) that was part of the point, too. She has an artist as her subject, also a close friend (Davis has some nice if uninteresting anecdotes about eating Chhinese food with Jean-Michel), and the work, and his life and his stories told from a 1986 interview done personally with him, speaks for itself.This all said, if you are a fan, or think you are, or even just enjoyed Julian Schnabel's 1996 movie, this goes more in-depth and you get a lot of great looks at his daring, provocative artwork, and his process. 8.5./10

This superb documentary, opening with Tamra's early interviews taped in her California home, reveals the tragically short but meteoric career of this talented, humorous, driven artist of the streets. It's an enlightening revelation of his work and his walk, including historical interviews with and recent reflections of contemporaries, friends and critics. The soundtrack drops you back into the clubs and streets of the time, with scenes syncopated to beats of jazz, early hip hop and pop. Basquiat seemed to have an internal receiver that picked up myriad cultural/racial/sexual revolution vibes from the air around him. He spent his waking hours furiously translating those messages into color and vocabulary on everything and anything around him. Black meets white, history meets contemporary, illiterate meets egalitarian. Clashes and confusion became the prolific stream of dialog for his brush and spray can: ee cummings + Michaelangelo commissioned by God to interpret society on the Vatican walls of Soho. And as the demands began to consume him, the gentle muse slept off into the mist.