Did you see it?

If so, your thoughts?

It was better than I thought it would be.

They actually created a message out of all the drama that was his life.

Sitting in a theatre surrounded by a bunch of white, middle-aged soccer moms tripped me out. (No, we weren't there together, but that's how diverse the audience was.) I live in the 'burbs and went to an early, daytime showing, so I wasn't expecting a large urban/young crowd, but I was surprised by what I did see.

I suspect this movie may do better at the box office than anticipated.

What is the name of the movie?

wildgoldenhoney said:

"Notorious", lol.

I'm just trying to figure out why they had a 7 year old play Lil' Cease! LOL

I know the guy is short and all, but that lil' munchkin was darn near midget.

That actor really captured Biggie.

The reviews are pretty good
Entertainment Weekly: Notorious is a luridly unapologetic trip through the violence, hunger, verbal bravado, and money fever of the hip-hop world, which it views as both liberating and destructive. … Notorious sticks close to the details, and the hell-bent spirit, of Biggie’s life. B+

The New York Times: So Notorious settles into a curious comfort zone; it’s half pop fable, half naturalistic docudrama. Not a bad movie, but nowhere near as strong as its soundtrack.

Rolling Stone: Notorious leaves Biggie on the verge of a maturity that plays like wishful thinking. But even when this “authorized” movie biography makes you long for the “explicit” version, [Jamal] Woolard’s tour de force finds the human details that forged an artist and lets Biggie fly. 3.5 out of 5

The Hollywood Reporter: This is the first gotta-see movie of 2009. It has terrific performances, a powerful soundtrack, and eye-catching visuals.

Los Angeles Times: Antonique Smith, who plays Faith Evans, the creamy R&B chanteuse who would become Biggie’s wife and the mother of his son, is delicious in the role. Naturi Naughton gives Lil’ Kim, a rapper and Biggie’s longtime lover, a raw, raging edge that scalds everything around her.

Variety: Skim off all the bling, and Notorious is a rock-solid biopic with a foolproof rise-and-fall storyline and a warmly nuanced performance by Jamal Woolard as iconic rapper Christopher Wallace—aka Biggie Smalls, aka the Notorious B.I.G.

USA Today: While Notorious is well-made, it mythologizes someone who treated people, particularly women, with disrespect and whose life and art glamorized drug use, promiscuity and violence. It seems an odd choice of film to open just days before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday

Timmy84 said:

Simple enough.

banks said:

I don't think Biggie is mythologized. His foibles are well-documented.

I never knew, for example, that he'd been in prison before nearly going a 2nd time.

We saw the smart ass who didn't take school seriously, drug dealer, philandering husband, woman abuser, and "bad" father who all but neglected his daughter when his career took off.

I won't be seeing it at theaters


bootleg DVD here I come!

bboy87 said:

Fair enough. As long as you're not expecting any new information or deep insight into Biggie's life, you won't be disappointed. I mean, his mama wrote a book, so did the "wife", Lil' Kim and everybody else has been "reppin'" for him since his death (ie: talking non-stop about him), so you've heard it all before.

It was nothing special. I did like the 3LW girl as lil kim I think the performances were pretty good by the actors. The story is nothing new, so it's not like I went in thinking they would tell me something I didn't already know.

I would like to say that it could've been better, but what else could they include that was TRUE? Not a whole lot. It's not like Ms Wallace was gonna authorize a movie that completely vilified her beloved son. It was as good as it could've been, imo.


Smooches;)

I'm seeing it tomorrow.

i was skeptical but it turned out to be a really good movie, the lil cease and tupac characters were the only ones i didnt like.gravy's portrayal of biggie is eerie and the gilr playing lil kim was excellent.

It was decent. I would recommend waiting for video or cable. It's not worth 10+ bucks.The end was sad, even though we all know what happens at the end. They dramatized the ending. I'm not sure if he was really calling all those people before he died or not, but whatever. After reading that lil Kim thread and then seeing the movie, I have to agree with lil Kim. I don't know them, but I always thought Big loved Kim and they didn't make it seem that way in the movie, not until the very end. They made is a possibility

lowkey said:

That Lil' Cease character had me tripping too. Lil' Kim had nothing to complain about. Nauturi did her justice. (She had Kim's moves down on stage.) If anything, it was CEASE who should've been upset at the choice of a bucked-tooth 7 year old playing him.

And why'd they get a white baby to play the newborn CJ? LOL I mean, we were all much lighter at birth, but please. LOL

LiquidGold said:

I read someplace recently that Kim claimed Big had called her the night before he died saying those two would talk about moving things forward in the relationship department once he moved back to NY. But that part in the movie? Like he was at that hot party, getting ready to leave, and while he waited for his car to pull up, pulled out his cell phone to call and tell Kim some mess like that. RANDOM as hell.

He may have had those conversations about bringing his children out while he was in Cally, but all that calling from a party?

I do think the movie captured the essence of Big and Kim's dysfunctional relationship. From all accounts, he treated her pretty badly. Too bad they didn't show him making her have an abortion or putting that gun to her head. Makes me wonder if Kim exaggerated some stuff after his death to make it seem as though their relationship was more than it was. I mean, was she REALLY ever pregnant by Big? She struck me as such a fool in love she would've had his baby because she worshipped him to the point of wanting to always have a piece of him. And I think she claimed she found out and aborted after he was killed. She would've had that child to "always rep Biggie" and have something to remember him by.

And, yes, you can wait for netflix to have this one. I went to the matinee--with a free movie ticket. (Those reward programs they have pay off.) I don't think I would've paid a full $9-10 on it.

Karen71 said:

thanks for the tips!

Karen71 said:

thanks was looking forward to see the movie because of the music really ..

It seems that a lot of people were looking for lil kim's role in this movie to be bigger than it was. This was not a movie about her and I'm sure she was a small part of his life. I heard an interview the other day that Ms Wallace gave in which she states that this movie would not focus primarily on Big and Kim's relationship, for the simple fact that so much of what kim has said about their relationship was said AFTER he died...leading one to believe that she exaggerated a lot.

I personally didn't want her to have a bigger role than what she had. She was the side bitch. Faith was his wife and she deserved to have a bigger role than Kim He wifed her for a reason.


Smooches;)

eh, i think his music and actions told us all we needed to know about him. i won't waste my money on a 2 hour long movie about some thug who happened to make a splash in the hip hop world.

sassybritches said:

"A thug", is that how you see him? WOW!! Care to elaborate?
[Edited 1/17/09 9:38am]
[Edited 1/17/09 9:38am]

shorttrini said:

he was a drug dealer who abused women and promoted violence. does it need more elaboration than that?

sassybritches said:

Yes, he sold drugs, but the money that came from it, was used to feed his little girl. I don't if you have have children, but when it comes to mine, I would do anything to make sure that she has what she needs. Biggie rapped about what was going on his his neigborhood and the surrounding streets, and that's all he knew. How is that promoting violence? If one rap song can drive a person into doing something violent, then the problem is with that person, not the song.

shorttrini said:

wrong is wrong regardless of motive. many parents are poor, single parents and they don't sell drugs. they work their asses off and get the bills paid. sorry, but i'm not gonna feel ya on the whole "i'm a parent and i'd do anything to feed them" because "anything" should include being a good role model and teaching them healthy values. besides, once he made it big he all but forgot about that kid anyway.

he was a thug. period.

bboy87 said:

Say that!

MsMisha319 said:

What reason is there to marry ANYBODY nine days after you meet them???

sassybritches said:

Whoa! How and at what point did he forget about of his kid?


Smooches;)

sassybritches said:

Preach!

SCNDLS said:

What does the length of time have to do with anything? My great grandparents knew each other for 2 weeks before they were married and they were together for 35 years. They would probably still be married if one had not died. Biggie and Faith obviously loved each other. Maybe not enough for all the extra stuff to stop, but enough.

Smooches;)

Much change in Biggie Smalls' neighborhood

By MARCUS FRANKLIN – 7 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — In rapper Biggie Smalls' old Brooklyn neighborhood, the building that once housed a coin laundry is now a plastic surgeon's office. A block away, a wine bar sells "artisanal" cheeses and meats.

Much has changed where the late superstar spent all but a few years of his life and sometimes sold crack cocaine before spinning vivid tales of his street exploits into millions of record sales.

"It's completely different," said Voletta Wallace, Smalls' mother, who moved into the area in 1969 and left after her son was killed, at age 24, in a 1997 drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. "It's a place for the better."

Wallace is a producer of "Notorious," the Smalls movie biography that hit theaters on Friday, and was on the set during filming in the area.

In interviews, she and other longtime residents and business owners reminisced about Smalls and reflected on the neighborhood's changes, which have occasionally sparked tension.

"Much has changed but much remains the same," said City Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes the neighborhood.

"In the movie the drug trade was a predominant feature," she said. "Crack was at its height. Some of what happened and occurred and existed during Biggie's time is still on Fulton Street, and we're trying to address that."

"But we've come a very long way," James added.

She emphasized the neighborhood's racial and class diversity. There's less graffiti and more white, Asian, Latino and professional residents as well as blue-collar workers, artists, and students.

On Fulton, the major commercial artery where the crack trade flourished in the 1980s and '90s — and where Smalls sometimes wowed sidewalk crowds with freestyles, making up rhymes on the spot — there's now a mosque and a "coffee lounge" offering organic hot chocolate, chai latte and macchiato. The video-game arcade is now a restaurant of traditional West African food.

Smalls, who also used the stage name The Notorious B.I.G. but who was born Christopher Wallace, lived with his mother in a seven-room apartment at 226 St. James Place.

Voletta Wallace, a Jamaican immigrant, taught preschool by day while earning her master's and attending Jehovah's Witness services in the evenings.

Young Chris had a talent for visual art and attended Catholic school and public high school but dropped out after being lured away by the crack trade's fast money and accoutrements.

"My son wasn't the pauperized kid he made himself out to be," his mother told writer Cheo Hodari Coker, who co-wrote the screenplay for "Notorious."

Although B.I.G. claimed the Bedford-Stuyvesant area as home ("Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one representing BK to the fullest"), his old building has been part of the Clinton Hill Historic District, west of Bed-Stuy, since 1981.

In the late 19th century, the neighborhood of mansions, Victorian row houses and brownstones was home to some of the city's wealthiest white residents, including the Underwoods (as in typewriters), the Pfizers and Bristols (FDA-approved drugs), and Charles Pratt (oil).

"The Pfizers of Clinton Hill gave way to street pharmacists selling heroin and cocaine on the corner," Coker wrote in the 2004 book "Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of The Notorious B.I.G."

Blacks from Harlem, the South and the Caribbean began moving into the neighborhood in earnest in the 20th century. By the 1970s and '80s mostly black neighborhoods like Clinton Hill, which contained solid black middle and working classes, were lumped in with the grittier Bed-Stuy.

Since then, with Manhattanites and others moving deep into Brooklyn in search of less pricey real estate, real estate agents have revived names like Clinton Hill and Fort Greene to disassociate those areas from Bed-Stuy, which many outsiders associated with blight, crime and poverty, people familiar with the neighborhoods say.

Apartments in B.I.G.'s old building have been converted to condominiums, and brownstones in the neighborhood have sold for as much as $3 million. Studio apartments are advertised for $1,250 a month while one-bedrooms rent for as much as $1,700.

Current residents include actor Jeffrey Wright and his wife, actress Carmen Ejogo; actor Malik Yoba; actress Rosie Perez; rapper-actor Mos Def; and rapper Talib Kweli.

Some older residents, most of them black, complain about the higher rents and about how newer residents (usually white) try to change things in an "insulting" and "disrespectful" manner.

Some newer residents gripe about "noise" coming from black churches, and about young black men rehearsing their rap music in parks, talking to each other on stoops and sitting in playgrounds, maybe reading a book or magazine, without children.

"What we've attempted to do is bridge the gap, the divide," James said.

B.I.G.'s debut CD, 1994's "Ready to Die," helped re-energize the East Coast rap scene, which up to that point had been overshadowed by West Coast rap.

Three years later, on March 9, 1997, B.I.G. was killed. Six months earlier, rapper Tupac Shakur, 25, died following a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Police have yet to solve either killing.

In Brooklyn, love for B.I.G. and his music is easy to find, particularly in the summer when hits like "Juicy," "One More Chance" and "Big Poppa" float from apartment and car stereo speakers, and T-shirts bearing his likeness are perennial fashion.

Many fans say B.I.G., who stood 6-foot-3 and weighed more than 300 pounds, was the best rapper ever to rhyme, citing his charisma, wit and emotional honesty.

"Just like after Ali there's no boxing and after Bruce Lee there's no karate, after Biggie there's no rap. It's a wrap. He's the king," said Abraham Widdi, who's worked for 35 years in his family's Met Food, where B.I.G. once bagged groceries.

Near the cash registers is a photo of B.I.G., hung on the wall after his killing.

Across the street, barber Eugene "Guess" Minter recalled meeting B.I.G. when he walked into the shop one day when he was 12 or 13. Years later, the rapper entered the shop with news of his record deal.

"He was so happy," Minter recalled. "He said, 'Guess, I finally got signed!'"

B.I.G. needed a haircut that day but didn't have any money, recalled Minter, who cut his hair anyway.

"That afternoon he came back with five crispy $100 bills," Minter said.

Guess also remembered B.I.G.'s endurance as a freestyler, arguing that only a couple of rappers, including KRS-One, could possibly outlast him.

"He could freestyle, it seemed, forever," Minter said. "If you didn't stop him, he would keep going without stumbling over words. He was a lyrical wizard, a lyrical genius."

"We lost something," Minter said later. "All of us. The world."