Could you elaborate/explain a little on what you meant by this?:

And then they both die tragically before their time, Warhol in 1987, Basquiat in 1988-let's not leave that out, indeed that's one of those magic celeb "rock star" things that Warhol trafficked in..

Glad you like it.

I think part of the success of it was no doubt is the quality of the actors, famous actors and other arts personalities who agreed to do it because: they wanted to be in it, the whole project was attractive to them.

But now that you have seen it, you might find it interesting that it was a little controversial in the art and film world. I think mostly because it was director Schnabel's first foray into film and he was known as a notorious egotistical artist who had gotten fame and fortune and many people were jealous and think of him, his stuff is not that great, he's shallow, he's a celeb artist and he just got lucky and now he thinks he can make movies. So from Wikipedia on the movie this is what Schnabel says why he wanted to do it:

As director, Schnabel inserted himself into the film by adding the fictional character, Albert Milo (Gary Oldman), who he based on himself. Schnabel also added cameo appearances by his mother, father, and daughter (as Milo's family). Schnabel himself appeared as an extra as a waiter.

Basquiat was the first commercial feature film about a painter made by a painter. Schnabel said:

"I know what it's like to be attacked as an artist. I know what it's like to be judged as an artist. I know what it's like to arrive as an artist and have fame and notoriety. I know what it's like to be accused of things that you never said or did. I know what it's like to be described as a piece of hype. I know what it's like to be appreciated as well as degraded."[6]

Though no one can see inside someone else's mind, the film is not that fictionalized, one thing it is is a pretty realistic.of Basquiat's world, because Schnabel was part of that world.

The big art dealers in the film, Bruno Bischofberger and Mary Boone, these are not fictional, they are real people and both of them really do act like that, I have seen them in action at art fairs and the like, as well as their familiars.  Dennis Hopper who played Bruno, he knows a lot of these people very well, he has been heavily involved in the art world for a long time.

Though I was never part of this big-time, big money "contemporary" art world (I'm a specialist in art by already dead artists.) But I've been around it enough.

I interacted with Warhol a couple times on the job at auction viewings (that's not rare, more than a few New Yorkers did if they spent time around Manhattan in the late 80's, he was always on the streets, not at all elitist in the daytime, he would carry a big bag of his Interview magazines and hand them out to people, like a group of construction workers who would be thrilled to meet him. Warhol was a maniac collector of stuff as well as a famous artist. His estate took many days to sell at Sotheby's.The guy never slept.) From the wikipedia entry on the movie, I find this to be very true:

Comparing Bowie's portrayal of Warhol to others who've portrayed Warhol prior, Paul Morrissey (who directed many films that Warhol produced) said "Bowie was the best by far. You come away from Basquiat thinking Andy was comical and amusing, not a pretentious, phony piece of shit, which is how others show him." He also noted that "Bowie at least knew Andy. They went to the same parties." Bowie was able to borrow Warhol's actual wig, glasses and jacket from the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh for the film. Writer Bob Colacello, who edited Warhol's Interview magazine in the 70's and early 80's, said "[Crispin] Glover walked the most like [the real] Andy, [Jared] Harris talked the most like Andy, and Bowie looked the most like Andy. When I first saw Bowie on the set, it was like Andy had been resurrected."[16]

Warhol was not the pretentious phony piece of shit thing. He just didn't talk a lot, wasn't good at talking.. And he wasn't good at interacting with people verbally. He actually wanted most of all to be a fly on the wall where everything was happening and not affect what was happening.. And he found that if he acted wooden, it just increased his mystery. If you talked to him he would just listen and say :"oh" and "gee". Acted more dumb than snotty. Amusing is definitely the word.

So from all that I think Schnabel is being accurate. He's being especially accurate about what it's like being that kind of celebrity. These people are not what they are made out to be by the celebrity meritocracy, they're just people with all kinds of flaws.Just thrown into fame.

So when the issue about the movie jumps to "appropriation" of minority culture, as we have discussed here a bit and which it does a bit in the Wikipedia entry, that really hits me as an improper distraction. It's ironic, its just another kind of appropriation to do that. Basquiat was just another flawed person thrown into the limelight by having desired talents and the whole lady luckness of that, something he thought he wanted, not a piece of black meat to be used to represent racial problems. All the people that used and abused him, they were not thinking about putting him down because of his race, rather, his whole appearance and habits, it made him more intriguing to them. He even hid his middle class background, ran from the whole climber culture of his father, he himself was desirous of being what he saw as a more exciting poor "street person".

So the film, it's a very good depiction what it's like in this world to become a celebrity because of perceived genius. And how that perception happens, most notably not through any rational process, only lady fortune.playing.

In particular, I especially liked how Schnabel didn't make high drama about certain things. We were talking how everyone has his own cross to bear. In the end, people like Warhol and Basquiat, had the same thing. Even though they are made out to be so different than you and me.

On the relationship, I think it is really true that they oddly clicked odd because their art was so different, not because they were similar personalities and couldn't relate to most people that well....it was a true "bromance."

He very much came off as low key and humble. Used the work "gee" a lot. Often talked like a teenage girl. Sometimes, rarely, a sarcastic quip but you had to be sharp to catch it.

He did not snub people. He acted equally odd to everyone. He would walk on the streets of Manhattan alone with a bag full of Interview magazines and give them to anyone who came up to him and sign it too if they asked. An image stuck in my brain: driving past the Regency hotel where people famously had "power breakfasts" in the 80's, I saw his white shock of hair on the street in the middle of a flock of construction workers in hardhats, they were getting copies and waiting for him to autograph them.

He did not have the level of fame he does now when he was alive. It was kind of like a fringe fame. So he could walk around without being bothered that much.

But the diaries show he was always thinking very catty thoughts, very similar to a stereotype catty gay guy talking to his best gal pal on the phone. A lot of "So and so and so and so were at the table with us. I wonder why she stays with him, he is such an asshole". He never revealed that catty gay guy thing about himself in public nor to most of the people who thought of themselves as his friends. So the diaries were a surprise, or at the very least a chance to find out what Andy was really thinking when friends thought he wasn't being that transparent.