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Summary: diaries to life
Review: This movie is a tale of young man's struggle through his teen years. In the beginning, he has it all, but then starts using drugs for a thrill. When his habit becomes and addiction, this movie takes you on a ride that brings the dark side of drugs to life. DiCaprio's work in this movie is sheer genius.. A must see!
Rating: 
Summary: Sure it's a true story...but where's the plot?
Review: Although Leonardo DiCaprio shows some amazing depth and vulnerability here it can't save the movie from becoming redundant. When there is a plot, the movie does very well: a young street punk goes bad due to the various pressures of school and life. But once he goes bad, so does the film. DiCaprio's performance is extraordinary, but how many times need we watch a junkie lay on the ground and ask for money, even if the performance is extraordinary? We see his character sinking lower and lower, until rock bottom is hit, and then is hit again, and again, and again. All right, he's at the bottom, we get it. Perhaps it was complete truthfulness to the real-life story, directed that way to help the tragedy sink in for us viewers. Sink it did.
But the movie is good nonetheless. It's certainly gritty, realistic and very hard to watch at points. Bruno Kirby is particularly icky, with a sadistic smile that could make you hurl. It would work very well (almost up there with "Requiem for a Dream" in this aspect) as an anti-drug video for schools. It probably could have been half as long, and more powerful because of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Basketball Diaries, Great Movie
Review: This is a great movie it has hot stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Mark Wahlberg, and James Madio. They are great together and this is a great movie. They show their hot bodies a lot in this movie...see for yourself. A must see for Leo, and Marky Mark fans!! It had good acting and lessons too, the hot actors was a added bonus. In one scene you can see all of their rear ends, and in another a great view of James'. Being a teenage guy I can relate to what the guys went through.
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Summary: Best DiCaprio Movie
Review: This is the best DiCaprio movie I have ever seen. In fact, the only reason I was able to handle such cheesy and girly-type movies like Titanic, is because I had seen DiCaprio in this movie beforehand, and had deduced that he was already an amazing actor. The scenes in which he was detoxicating from the drugs are utterly amazing, in fact they are so real and life-like that they make you feel Jim Carroll's (DiCaprio) desperation. But the best scene is when he is crying through a chained door to his mother for some money. Wow. The only persons who would not find this movie sincere and life-like are persons who have never left their sheltered academic existences, which seems to be the case in most of the reviews I have thus far read about this movie. Someone asks: "Does anyone know what it is that Jim (Leo) finds in the drawer of his friend's place, after the friend rescues him from freezing in the snow?" Hello! The point is that we have to imagine that Carroll is telling the story to us...Therefore, we have to assume he didn't quite remember what he took, or that maybe it was not important enough for us to worry about...The point is that it was something small, and perhaps insignificant since in the end his friend is part of the audience which is listening to the reading of his diaries.
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Summary: Script isn't good enough to make me feel emotion
Review: The 1995 film is based on the autobiography, published in 1978 by Jim Carroll, about his descent into heroin addiction as a teenager. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a Catholic school student, it shows him enjoying being part of a winning high school basketball team, sniffing glue and taking part in petty crimes. It's set in a Hollywood version of a gritty New York Manhattan neighborhood, and, as a New Yorker myself, I must say I was confused about exactly where it was. DiCaprio writes poetry in a notebook and visits a dying friend in the hospital. I guess that's supposed to show how sensitive he is. There are also some supposedly moving scenes where he is strung out on drugs and begging his mother, played by Lorraine Bracco, to give him some money. However, in spite of his tears and his rantings and ravings, he never became a sympathetic character to me. Maybe it was because of script, which didn't let the audience know exactly what it was that either turned him to drugs or made him stop. And maybe it was because he just can't stop being Leonardo DiCaprio. Mark Wahlberg is cast as one of his pals, and so is James Madio. And Julliette Lewis has a small part as a young prostitute. All these people are just background though for DiCaprio, who is in every single scene and whose character dominates the film which is blissfully only 103 minutes long and moved fast enough to hold my attention. Too bad it just isn't good enough. Perhaps DiCaprio fans might like it, but I just can't recommend it.
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Summary: How drugs are not cool!
Review: The Basketball Diaries is a good movie, i'm not saying it's a good movie for a young kid like me but it teaches you at the end of the movie that drugs are not so cool! It can get you to jail , it can even get you killed. It also teaches you not to steal or back-talk your mother, or not to get into fights, and to choose the right friends. I think it teaches you every thing you should not do.I mean obviously the guy is trying to say drugs are not cool and they can get you in alot of troule.Because if you get it on dvd you go on this thing I forgot what it is called, but these people are interviewed and there saying that drugs messed up their lives and how they used to think anything whith drugs were cool, but they are not.
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Summary: Good In Spite Of The Sleazy Overtones
Review: Stories about drug addicts are usually not my bag. See my review on Easy Ryder. However, the acting packed scenes and the fast paced nature of Basketball Diaries, make it an entertaining study. Leo DiCaprio is very compelling in his role as a basketball star turned junkie as you can really feel his traumas. Mark Walhberg plays a good foil for Leo as his thug partner. Bruno Kirby is his usual steady self as the basketball coach. Many of the scenes are not too pleasing with drug addicts rolling around looking for their next fix. In addition, the rampid theivery and misbehavior by Jim and his thug like friends is a bit overdone. Its a wonder how children with Catholic School upbringings turn out so misguided. However, Jim eventualy finds himself with poetry and eventually picks himself up. But not without hitting rock bottom first.
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Summary: Please ignore the review for this film!
Review: It is ironic that some of the best films out there are low-budget - Full Monty, Snatch, The Way Of The Gun, Romper Stomper. If not cheap then certainly far from overly expensive. The reason for the success of these films is that they are genuinely good. After you got past the effects, was Titanic, Gladiator, Pearl Harbour, AI or Independance Day really that good? In fact, Pearl Harbour has many people's votes (although not mine since I'll admit I haven't seen it myself) as one of the worst films ever made. Basketball Diaries is a gritty and low-budget film. This doesn't shy away behind special effects or fancy graphics. What you see is what you get. The story is a harrowing tale of drug abuse, which starts with low-class drugs like glue...and works it's way up to heroin. I think it is actually a true story, which makes it all the more chilling. When it starts it reminds you of yourself growing up - the first time you may have experimented, had sex or did something dangerous; how you behave with your mates. But it becomes detatched, showing you the harsh reality of what can happen when relatively harmless drug dabbling turns into a daily addiction. All in all, Basketball Diaries is brilliantly executed film. It certainly shows DiCaprio's greatest performance that I've seen by a mile. If you want happy endings and sugar coated fun look elsewhere.
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Summary: The Right Words
Review: You know it's funny, it takes a movie like this to demonstrate what we already know. I'm gonna cut the legs on this review short. From experience, I can vouch for the movies message that the emotion is real. This has no correlation with the actors, nor' the directing, simply on the story, which in fact is derived from a true one. I'm a fan on the depiction of the human condition; and after watching this movie, I had to catch my breath. The Human suffering, the tragedy, it all comes full circle here, and you just want to reach out your hand, but then again it's just a movie. This movie grips you, and entangles you in a web of emotions, showing you the inner-workings, as though the human condition was an organ. I like the thought of that, indeed. So you have my opinion, that this movie is for any fan who likes to be knee deep in a gripping tale. But don't worry, you can't overdose on this, like I said, it's just a movie.
Rating:
Summary: Stays with You
Review: I originally saw this movie when I was very young. Leo had not become a big star, I didn't even know his name. But the details of this movie, spanning from drugs to cancer and the lessons learned along the way, I still have not forgotten. Wonderful real life drama.
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