Downtown 81

Has some really good music and performances; Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, DNA, Tuxedo Moon, the Plastics, Melle Mel, Vincent Gallo, Lydia Lunch...etc, but aside from this there isn't much more to it. The dialog, especially the narration(by Saul Williams), is actually pretty good, but the performances are all pretty bland or outright bad, no matter how many hipsters are thrown in; Debbie Harry and Jean Micheal Basquit(the latter being the leading role) both still don't have enough cultural cred to keep this film from being a novelty item. It goes for the a Jack Kerouac style roving spontaneity, but doesn't have the insight to keep it moving along, which is where the band performances come in. I guess its pretty balanced in that regard between great music and bad acting, and I did enjoy it, but I just expected more. Though it does have a fairy tale ending.

Definitely not for everyone. The life in the life of a NYC artists, from the art scene to the music scene with a bit of drug influenced scenes. Love it or hate it, it's a peace of history.

For anybody born after 1990 that ever wondered what the 1980's was all about,this film may (or may not)answer a few questions. Jean Michelle Basquiat stars as himself,in a "day in the life" of a graffiti artist who is trying to raise some money to pay his rent. Along the way, he meets up with one interesting character after another. This film also features performances by some of the era's proto punk/New Wave/No Wave/Hip Hop/etc. musical acts (including out of towner's,Tuxedomoon,in what looks like a very hip music video that MTV would never even consider airing). This started out as 'Glenn O'Brien's New York Beat Movie'(O'Brien co-wrote the screenplay),but was shelved,due to a lack of finances before it was finished filming. The film was directed by Edo Bertoglio, has only directed one other film ('Face Addict'),like 'Beat Movie',dealt with the New York uptown/downtown art scene . The fact that over the years,the soundtrack became lost to time only made matters worse. In the late 1990's,however, the original 16mm negative was found (sans soundtrack),a new soundtrack was made up (using a brand new soundtrack,including a replacement voice over dub for Basquiat,who, had died in 1988),and the film was finally given a limited "art house" release in 2000,under the new title,'Downtown 81'. Not the best film depicting the 1980's,but certainly not the worst. Not rated,but contains some rude language.

Nothing but the void, a pleasant one for those who have known the eighties, but well, quite boring for those who are not interested in it. NO screenplay in this film, but a hero wandering in an underground New York full of arstists and night clubbers. It is aimless, pointless and naive. But not entirely unpleasant.

Your assessment of this movie depends completely on what you are looking for. If you come to this film without any knowledge of who and what and why, it will be disappointing. But if you approach the film not as a movie in the regular sense but as an historical document of a moment in time, then it becomes an entirely different experience. In this sense it helps to understand what is being documented and who these people are. Some working knowledge of the late 70s NYC downtown scene, the Mudd Club, T.V. Party, the lower east side art boom, the post-punk music world, etc. gives you a much greater sense of appreciation. Understood historically and not just as another film, whether the movie works as a traditional film, whether the plot is interesting or the characters well developed (a tricky proposition seeing that the original dialogue was lost and had to be re-dubbed) doesn't matter. What you are seeing is the last truly avant garde art and music scene in the US before AIDS, money, MTV and the rest destroyed it. And it focuses on someone right at the center of the storm, Basquiat before his rise to international fame. (Another commentator questioned Basquiat's cultural credibility, but I'm not sure what culture he is talking about). Beyond that the musical performances are exceptional and rare and are worth the price of admission by themselves. This is a portrait of something lost and timeless. It is a fascinating historical document and should be appreciated as such.