Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

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Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

2018

1h 18m

Documentary

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Popcornmeter

88%

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51 Reviews

58%

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50+ Ratings

Never-before-seen works, writings and photographs offer insight into the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat as a teenager in New York in the late 1970s. The times, the people and the movements of the city help Basquiat form his artistic vision.

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Critics Consensus

Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat offers an insightful look into a key period of the artist's life, his peers and influences, and the early '80s art world.

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Tara Brady

Irish Times

07/23/2018

4/5

Down, delightfully dirty and almost impossible to reconcile with last year's record-breaking $110 million sale of Basquiat's untitled skull painting, Boom for Real is for real all right.

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Wendy Ide

Observer (UK)

06/25/2018

4/5

The central character in the film remains curiously enigmatic, like a drawing that hasn't been completely coloured in.

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Kevin Maher

The Times (UK)

06/22/2018

2/5

This could be deliberate, making the point that Basquiat was essentially unknowable, but it makes for a film that's considerably less engaging than its subject.

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Marya E. Gates

Cool People Have Feelings, Too. (Substack)

02/12/2024

Not only explores this time in the artist’s life, but also puts the arts scene in New York City1 at the time into illuminating context.

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Jason Adams

The Film Experience

07/02/2021

Even more than just feeling truthful about the man himself it paints a vital portrait of the time and place that he worked in and helped catapult to eternal coolness

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Steven Prokopy

Third Coast Review

06/17/2020

The time and place is so miraculously captured that it feels like you're looking at life on another planet -- one where while punk-rock kids moved in the same circles as hip-hop performers, and the resulting art is a ragged and fully representational.

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Elisa D

@elisa515 06/02/2019

Didn't learn much about Basquiat, but it's an interesting capture of the mid-70s in downtown Manhattan.

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12/26/2018

Totally captures the time.

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Synopsis

Never-before-seen works, writings and photographs offer insight into the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat as a teenager in New York in the late 1970s. The times, the people and the movements of the city help Basquiat form his artistic vision.

Director: Sara Driver
Producer: Rachel Dengiz, Sara Driver
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Production Co: Magnolia Pictures, Bunny Lake Films, Le Pacte
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): May 11, 2018, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 21, 2018
Box Office (Gross USA): $164.5K
Runtime: 1h 18m