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The Basketball Diaries (1995)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
21 April 1995 (USA) moreTagline:
The true story of the death of innocence and the birth of an artist morePlot:
Film adaptation of street tough Jim Carroll's epistle about his kaleidoscopic free fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction... more | add synopsisNewsDesk:
(29 articles)
tMF Talkback: Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Two awesome actors in similar mode? (From The Movie Fanatic. 5 October 2009, 9:05 PM, PDT)
tMF Talkback: Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Two awesome actors in similar mode?
(From The Movie Fanatic. 5 October 2009, 9:05 PM, PDT)
User Comments:
Another heroin-addict diary... more (128 total)Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Leonardo DiCaprio | ... | Jim Carroll | |
| Lorraine Bracco | ... | Jim's Mother | |
| Marilyn Sokol | ... | Chanting Woman | |
| James Madio | ... | Pedro | |
| Patrick McGaw | ... | Neutron | |
| Mark Wahlberg | ... | Mickey | |
| Roy Cooper | ... | Father McNulty | |
| Vincent Pastore | ... | Construction Worker (as Vinnie Pastore) | |
| Bruno Kirby | ... | Swifty | |
| Jimmy Papiris | ... | Iggy | |
| Nick Gaetani | ... | Referee #1 | |
| Alexander Chaplin | ... | Bobo (as Alexander Gaberman) | |
| Ben Jorgensen | ... | Tommy | |
| Josh Mostel | ... | Counterman | |
| Juliette Lewis | ... | Diane Moody |
Additional Details
MPAA:
Rated R for graphic depiction of drug addiction with related strong violence,sexuality and language.Parents Guide:
View content advisory for parentsRuntime:
102 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 moreCertification:
Australia:MA (cable rating) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A (British Columbia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:R (Manitoba/Nova Scotia) | Portugal:M/16 | Finland:K-15 (video rating) | New Zealand:R16 | Canada:14A (DVD rating) | Australia:R | Germany:12 (bw) | Norway:15 | Singapore:R(A) | South Korea:(Banned) (original rating) | South Korea:18 (re-rating) (cut) | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R (NO. 33624) | Iceland:16Filming Locations:
Forest Hills High School, Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, New York, USA moreFun Stuff
Trivia:
Many links to The Sopranos - Lorraine Bracco (Dr Melfi) plays Jim's mom. Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti) plays the friend who dies of Leukemia. Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy) is the guy that gets spat on whilst on the ferry. moreGoofs:
Anachronisms: This movie is set in the 1960s, and besides seeing modern-era vehicles seen in most outdoor scenes, numerous skyscrapers that didn't exist in background shots, when Jim (DiCaprio) takes his sick friend Bobby out for a night on the town and away from the hospital bed where he is dying from cancer, the film completely ignores the date the film is supposed to take place. As Jim and Bobby are shown strolling down modern day (circa 1995) and post porn-littered 42nd Street, they reminisce when there were adult theaters all over the street, and Bobby refers to one porn movie with the title, The Sperminator, an obvious take from the 1984 blockbuster, The Terminator. Until the early 1990s, pornographic shops and theaters lined 42nd Street and the immediate surrounding area which formed a virtual adult district. However by the 90s, when Rudy Giuliani became city Mayor, he effectively shut down almost all porno shops in the city by the time this movie was made, and not only do we see the newly sanitized 42nd Street, Jim and Bobby talk about how it changed in this way. moreQuotes:
Jim Carroll: You're growing up. And rain sort of remains on the branches of a tree that will someday rule the Earth. And it's good that there is rain. It clears the month of your sorry rainbow expressions, and it clears the streets of the silent armies... so we can dance. moreSoundtrack:
People Who Died moreFAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (128 total)
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When you've watched plenty of movies based on some drug-addict life story you can't help compare them... I mean, the story is always the same: a guy begins having drugs for fun, or because he's boring, or just because he's young and wants to try new experiences, then he gets hooked, starts to rob or to prostitute himself, and eventually ends up in prison. That's what we see in Christiane F., El Pico, Trainspotting, Drugstore Cowboy... There may be differences in the form, and in the characters, but the content is always the same.
The dinstictive feature of Basketball Diaries is that the main character actually exists: Jim Carroll, a writer-singer-performer born in NYC in the 50's. And this is supposed to be his autobiography (or the cinema adaptation of some diaries he wrote when he was a teenager, heroin-addicted). Because of that, Basketball D. is more poetic than the rest of the movies I named before, the voice over of DiCaprio's character is present all along the film, telling us about his thoughts (rather nihilistic's) , with a style near to Burroughs or Jack Kerouac, urban poetry, tough and without ornament. Maybe that's the strong point of Basketball Diaries, because movies such as Christiane F. or El Pico recreates much better what it means to be a drug-addict, they're much more explicit, more dirty, much harder...
DiCaprio's performance deserves a new paragraph, 'cause it's simply astonishing. His best performance EVER, plenty of different shades. As he did in Gilbert Grape or This Boy's Life, he shows us how versatile he can be. If only he'd choose better the films he works in.
My rate: 7/10