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14.01.09 # 1:35 # Review # 21 Comments
The Notorious reviews have arrived from the west coast.
If you have any interest in this era you should get hold of Nick Broomfield’s excellent documentary Biggie And Tupac
How does the biopic measure up? Here’s what the movie critics are saying -
Variety -
“Notorious is a rock-solid biopic with a foolproof rise-and-fall storyline and a warmly nuanced performance by Jamal Woolard as B.I.G…cutting a figure at once sympathetic, comic, deceptively charming and occasionally cunning…he owns the movie. …A sense of doom never really permeates Notorious, which is far more concerned with one artist’s development, demons and self-realization.”
Newsweek -
“[Notorious] managed to stun, unsettle and move me. It’s been 11 years since the still-unsolved murder of the hip-hop icon, and the film does a wonderful job of revisiting that dangerous yet creatively rich time in music history.”
“Complex and involving biopic about the Notorious B.I.G. that never quite gives the full picture of its enigmatic central figure. …producers can’t quite solve the mystery of who was “Biggie.” Nevertheless, this is the first gotta-see movie of 2009. It has terrific performances, a powerful soundtrack and eye-catching visuals.”
Notorious currently holds an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, from 5 reviews.
Leave your own Notorious review in the comments.
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Arnold Rave
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Notorious is a must see movie. It shows a son that is kind and loving to his mom with a bit of defiance by not really going in a positive direction. However, he tries to get it by experiencing life in many forms but never reaching that point of true adulthood because his life was cut short. Yet, it appears that he could have made it after the second album because he started to see what was important but he never made it, which is sad. I’ve always said Tupac was messy because he kept bad company, even though he was talented, you can tell if you revisit his life he was a follower, very immature and again kept bad company. However, this is all about BIG and “Jamal”, wow that guy was great and makes me remember when Bad Boy was at an all time high. My only regret is what if BIG was still here how he really could have changed the world for the better but again he fell short and now we are only left wondering what if…2 Thumbs up for Notorious, a Must See.
Nicely put Nick.
Notorious was just okay….yes the guy that played Biggie was phenomenal. Okay great…the guy who played Diddy looked nothin like Diddy….Lil Kim perfect…the way that Faye was depecited was totally accurate….my biggest flaw of course was the way tupac was depicted….that was just garbage….tupac never wore a beanie that said thug life on it…he wasnt a crackhead that jumped all over the place like the film depicted him…not to mention the actor that played pac looked more like snoop….there was also some innaccuracy in the part of the movie when biggie came to sacramento, cali to do his concert….that was not totally accurate…..little things that werent accurate: the jewlery that biggie was wearing didnt come out till recently…the skull shirt pac was wearin in the pool hall was a total joke….and the guy who played suge was gay….the scene where pac got shot at biggie’s studio was a sham…there was so much more to that scenario…everyone knows that biggie had nothin to do with that an diddy had everything to do with that….jus a very biased east coast movie…..bottom line 2 stars..
Why did Diddy have Tupac shot? (the time he survived)
NOTORIOUS was an awesome movie for those who LOVE BIG. I saw it last night and want to see it again and again! I cannot wait to have it released on DVD to add to the family archives. Back in the day, the Elvis lovers, the Beatles lovers etc—-those type of passionate spirits get the love us fans have for BIG. BIG’s charismatic style and flow captivated the HEARTS of millions during his time on the mic. I think those who actually followed his music when he WAS ALIVE and were around the SAME age range as he at that same time, (especially those in NY NJ, etc)will have different opinions than those that weren’t.ITS A MOVIE. Its impossible to depict and include everything, but they did an excellent job bringing his story to the BIG screen! Some things I’ve heard that viewers felt were excluded–may have been because BIG may have wanted some areas kept private and Sean Combs,his Mom, etc honored that. Some situations they decided to just touch on the issue. All movies of this type are based on both factual and opinions and compromise. Take 5 different major figures in his life and you’d get 5 different viewpoints–thats just reality. The marketing was great! The movie is great! The movie wasnt about BIG/Tupac or BIG/Diddy or anyone else! It was about giving us an entertaining glimpse of most of what BIG experienced in his life! My only regret is that I didn’t go back home to NY to watch the movie with all the love and electrifying energy I know it deserved. (I’m in ATL). The music, the shows–a true Party movie for BIG fans!
I thought the movie was great. I am a BIG fan from the moent I heard him. My opinion was always that Tupac was responsible for his own shooting because he hung with the wrong people. I always thought BIG although not being the absolute greatest person in the world had alot of growing up to do and was a product of the neighborhood he grew up in. Its hard to be the chubby kid on the block, with the nerdy clothes going to private school.
Imagine the way he felt when his Dad walked out on him. That would have make me do the things he did too. I went to college in Kansas but grew up in the NY TriState are, so what BIG was feeling I was too. The movie explained one side of things, BIGs side. Nothing else.
It starts out with BIG talking about himself and explaining his side of things. Thats all that matters. What you or I or Lil Kim or any host of reviews thinkis not of importance… If we weren’t interested in BIG we wouldn’t have watched the movie. Let it be what it is. A movie about BIG. If you want to have a total explaination of what the murder case and the East
Coast West Coast beef was, lets get Morley Schaefer on it… 60 Minutes can solve even the most difficult of stories.
The movie was great! i loved all of it except on how they did my boy pac. For those you know alot about pac, he was nothing like that of what they portrayed in the movie. It was insult to all pac fans. The guy that played him was to weak lookin and his voice was to light, and to NICK, pac was no follower! He was revolutioner. He was public speaker, he part of the nation and black panthers, and was an actor. know what your talkin about over there! Big and pac where both great rappers and are legends in the rap game. The fued was fueled by the media. Pac was shot in his friends studio and then big said he knew nothing about it. Pac says how do you not know who shot me, we in your hood and its your studio!. Look at documentaries of pac and big. They speak for themselves in the videos.
West Coast ridah is retarded…Notorious didnt portray Pac all that well but the clothes that Pac wore in the movie were exactly what Pac wore in real life…from the THUG LIFE beanie and skull shirt to the Orange silk shirt…KNOW YOUR FACTS DICKHEAD
Big did not have Pac shot by all accounts, but Pac thought he did and that is what ended their friendship. Who shot ya was written before Pac got shot. As for the portrayal of Tupac..Tupac happened to be a peripheral character and Biggie said in the movie that he was a revolutionary. Anyone who know’s Tupac history, who his mom was and has heard him speak knows of his inner fire. It was more than likely part of what contributed to his death. Next, they should come out with his biopic because I must say I know less about him than I do about Biggie.
BTW, I loved that movie, it took me way back to when I saw Biggie in 1995 at the Greek Picnic in Philly…He was throwing money into the crowd. He had just started out so it wasn’t all about the Benjamins yet, more like the Washingtons. LOL
I have to say I was amazed by this movie. I was going into it thinking this is just another ghetto film about drugs, sex and violence. Although there was some scenes involving these things, it was totally different. I was caught by surprised by the unknown actors direct and accurate portrayal of the characters that they were portraying. Yes, they may not looked exactly alike the characters they were playing, but they did a good job of acting like them. Although the movie was Biggie’s mother’s idea, it was unbiased portraying all of the characters in both their positive and negative lights. I don’t think that this movie was in anyway trying to portray the east coast as good and the west coast bad; it was trying to say how the media hypes things up to a point where you believe what they say even though it’s not true. You have to question all sources of information. Both Tupac and Biggie were born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and had very similar backgrounds and upbringings which made them come together as friends. When others saw how these two powerful rappers were good friends, others came to draw them apart and succeeded. In the end, I think this film shows you how money and fame can and will make enemies with the ones you once loved and cared about. Looking at this film and just criticizing it for not having the correct actors or portrayals is petty; you have to look at the bigger picture because there is so much to learn from.
Let them both rest in peace so that we can end all of this fighting back and forth. You have to ask yourself, how would their mothers feel about this negativity?
I agree. I have not seen a lot of people who look exactly like Tupac or Biggie. You got the general idea of the charachters from the movie. I agree also that the petty back and forth is crazy, the end result is the same for both of them. Their mons are without their only sons. God has blessed me with a child, i cannot imagine their heartbreak at the loss of their children. To raise them and get to know them for that long, to have dreams and hopes for them snuffed out by gunshot. Everyone on either side of the fence needs to bow their head on that one.
man ya’ll dumb as f#%! man. Some of the shit in the movie wasn’t accurate at all. They had a mercedes in the movie that didn’t come out until 2003, the beef between Notorious and Pac was all but completely overlooked and censored. A lame corny ass mother fucker played Pac; A flaky ass no name actor played Puff Daddy; the only people they casted right were the females in that movie. Then you people who claim to have love for Biggie, don’t even know shit about him. It was a halfass story, with all its variety of content, was still censored to shit. Let Pac and B.I.G. rest in peace. We all need to.
And remember: “Puff Daddy, is a treacherous ass hoe ass bitch nigga. “
Ugh JC,
Were you a personal friend of Biggie’s? Does anyone know everything that happened? I am a Biggie fan I I feel I got the gist. He was a warm intelligent guy with street smarts and he had human issues. Is it that serious? His mom helped to put the movie together so what are you saying about her since you have so much love for her son? I like Tupac too, but this wasn’t a movie about his life. . He was a side character. They can capture him better in his biopic. As for Puffy, who would you rather have seen play him?