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Aug 16, 2014biffblack rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Easily and by a wide margin the best of Julian Schnabel's work as a movie director. Low-key yet haunting portrait of an outsider who made it big in the New York art world, yet was so lacking in inner resources that his fame achieved the opposite of keeping him afloat. There's a brief, almost subliminal glimpse of a man and his daughter dancing around, goofing off, as "The Nearness of You" spins on the soundtrack. A friend of mine and I asked each other: Why is this bit in the movie? And as soon as we asked the question aloud, we knew the answer: it serves as visual shorthand for all the things Basquiat didn't have and never in his short life would have. The movie is poignant while sidestepping sentimentality. Well acted by entire cast (with the possible exception of Parker Posey, typically overblown, as the gallery owner Mary Boone, but she isn't around much).