Notorious

So last night my boyfriend and I went to see Notorious, the alleged biopic movie of the late Christopher (Notorious B.I.G.) Wallace's life. Growing up on the West Coast I didn't get to learn that much about Biggie. I hardly listened to his music. Honestly I was only 12 when he died. I listened to Tupac a lot, but mostly after he died as well. My mother didn't want me to listen to rap music when I was younger, she thought that everything was ho this and bitch that. I had to show her that Tupac wasn't always calling women bitches and hos, he had a message a lot of the times.

However, Biggie's music was more raunchy most of the time, so I didn't pay attention to his music. When the whole East vs. West started, of course I fell in to it, because of my location, Los Angeles, CA. With all that being said, I was excited to see the movie about B.I.G. I wanted to see what sparked the Lil' Kim and Faith Evans feud, and I figured since mostly everyone who was there with Biggie was interviewed and had a say in the film, that I would be able to see everything. However, through out the 2 hours and 2 minutes of the movie, you only get to see faces made or eyes rolled in one scene between Faith and Kim. They are never seen talking shit about each other, and Kim was never heard rhyming about Faith. It was just as if they settled their score that one and only time they were in the same room as each other. I've heard plenty of rumors, I mean who hasn't, but I was hoping that the truth would be shown and put those rumors to rest. I guess Kim was fucking Biggie all along, even after he was married to Faith. But Biggie is only shown cheating on Faith once, and its not with Kim.

I was glad to see that they portrayed the friendship that Tupac and Biggie had, before the rivalry or beef started. However, I didn't even realize that the guy who played Pac, was actually who he was supposed to be. Besides the main characters, Big, Diddy, and Faith, no one looked like their counterparts. I guess they tried to do their best on casting, but it was confusing trying to figure out who everyone was, without their names being mentioned first. Luckily from watching the Pac documentary, and from just reading everything that was in the media, you might have had a sense of what is going on, but like I said I was only 12 in 1997. So I didn't pay attention to all the stories that were going on at the time, I was too young. Many of the people that were in the theater with us, were younger than me. High school students, so they couldn't possibly have known what was going on then.

One of the major things that stood out to me, is the fact that Diddy portrayed himself to be such an angel. He was this father figure, who took care of Biggie and looked out for him, and never did anything wrong, EVER. I know the film wasn't about him, but he was just so perfect. He didn't smoke cigars or blunts, he was barely shown drinking alcohol. I know that he was 4 years older than Christopher, but still, he didn't fuck around with any ladies. It seemed like anything that showed Diddy negatively, whether it dealt with Big or not, was completely skipped over. They had 2 hours!

Even when the whole East vs West started, after 2pac got shot in the studio in NY, and Biggie was accused of planning the whole thing, Diddy, movie Diddy, didn't say anything negative about the whole thing. I know that he was not responsible for the beef, but in the film they showed Big wanted to squash it early on, before it got started, but Diddy was like, no don't call him, this will all blow over. When it didn't blow over, and Suge Knight talked shit at the Source Awards, about producers dancing in the videos, and saying shit on tracks, Diddy didn't have anything bad to say back. I find it hard to believe that he remained so innocent during the whole East vs West. I guess from the eyes of Diddy, he didn't do or say anything to provoke things. It just seemed so odd to me that Diddy and Biggie never even talked about anything regarding the beef, in the film.

The character that played Big, Jamal Woolard did a good job, in my opinion. Its not easy playing a character who you were never around, or got to actually meet. This kid never acted a day in his life. He did a great job. I feel like the way Big's mom, Violetta Wallace and Diddy wanted Biggie to be portrayed, was maybe interpreted differently by Jamal. Like I said before, I didn't know much about him, but even Jamal's portrayal of him was almost angelic in some scenes. He did sleep around without remorse, but then when the women got pregnant he was ready to step up and become a man, at such a young age. The whole movie he was just trying to be a man, I guess that is what happens to young boys who don't have a father figure around. However, towards the end of his life, when he was in Los Angeles promoting his album, they made it seem like he had so many epiphanies. All of a sudden he wanted his whole family, his kids, his mom out in Cali with him. He called Lil' Kim to make up with her, and he made up with Faith for a minute, because they were split up at this time. He was on top of his game. He was a man, all of a sudden, at 24. Then he was shot and died. It just seemed so ironic that he became a man when he was about to die. I felt like towards the end, before he died, that whole scene was an interpretation.

Its hard to know what was real or fake. I am so much more confused about the life of Biggie than I was before the movie came out. I was happier with the rumors that I heard, and from talking to my boyfriend, who is from NY and who was 21 when B.I.G. died. Tonight we're going to watch the documentary of Notorious, which has been on BET. Hopefully that will clear up things in my mind.

One last sort of funny thing, the character that played Lil' Cease, looked nothing like him. I didn't even know who he was at first. It would have been nice if whenever they showed a person, they took a quick second to scroll their name across the scree, because I had NO CLUE who half those people were, and I still don't know. But look at the pictures below, on the left is the kid who played Lil' Cease and on the right, the actual Cease. They could have found or used someone else who looked more like him. At least that is what I think.