"Fascinating yet unsatisfactory."

"The more you know going into the movie, the more you sense it leaving out." - Aaron Cutler

Despite the light tone many of the talking heads here assume and despite ample examples of Basquiat's stunning smile, a persistent melancholy haunts the edges of the milieu depicted in this too-breezy documentary. You wouldn't know it from the film itself, however, which feels as dry as a filmstrip shown in high-school art class. Basquiat was one of contemporary art's greatest briefly blazing lights; but to feel that, rather than just know it, watch instead Julian Schnabel's biopic, Basquiat.