'Notorious' Open Thread.

notoriousposter08

slb and I expect this thread to be full of qualifiers and faint praise, e.g. “not bad for a no-name rapper who has never acted before,” and “surprisingly passable.”

One more thing. I’ve read several reviews that praise Naturi Naughton’s acting in this film. Who knew? Never has there been a movie I’ve wanted to see so badly that I really did not want to see.

Alright, y’all. Go for it.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • Steve

    I saw it today in brooklyn…I mean…I thought it was awful in terms of script…had a clear bias…and wasnt exactly factual….especially in basic chronology…

    In terms of performances, I dont think Biggie dude was good… I thought Naturi did a good job and actually most of them women (with the HUGE exception of Angela Basset..ugh) were good. However, I felt the movie glossed over Kim’s character and gave you what you expected (and definitely skipped the abortion of BIG’s baby…)… Although I felt the girl playing Faith wasnt nearly as beautiful as Faith…she didnt do too bad.

    Bassett was HORRIBLE though.

  • geo

    steve: what horrible about bassett’s performance,aside from the lack of an accent?

  • Steve

    I mean pretty much the lack of an accent is inexcusable. So I pretty much couldnt pay her any attention and the fact that she TRIED the accent sometimes but not other times…I mean part of her problem was the writing, but her character had no depth it was way one note….

    I also think Mackie as Pac wasnt so good BUT..its kinda impossible to be a character that to most of us is a caricature period…so I thought tat was kinda impossible…and I think MAckie is a good actor.

  • Steve

    I mean I dont wanna be ridiculous critical…I think there were good parts to the movie, I just couldnt get over the writing…I think some of the actors definitely put their all into it….I think its almost impossible to make a GOOD movie about characters that are already larger than life….and you also could clearly see that Puffy produced it based on the slant of certain parts of the storyline…

  • I thought it was great, which I usually don’t think about movies. It was well produced and fantastically cast. I loved it and cried at the end both for the loss of innocence that that era represented and for our loss of Big. The movie spoke to a part of the hip-hop generations history by telling a story that has not been told. It was filled with great performances, especially great because they came from unknown actors. The only drawbacks were the constant platitudes and the aggrandization of Puffys influence (but that’s Puff), and Angela Basset’s usual overacting and wack accent. Biopics are rough because they have to condense a lifetime into two hours, so the nature of the genre shined through and made certain things hokey, but the same is true for any biopic of a person who isnt around to provide clear motivations for their actions. As such things go, its in that Five Heartbeats category as a celebration of an era and a sound. I will watch Notorious again and again and already have plans to catch it again in the theater – it was like hip-hop church in there, everyone rapping along with some of the best lyrics of all time. It made me proud to have lived through that time and been a a part of real hip=hop. Anyway Im kind of recapitulating the review I wrote, but in short, it was a great black movie!

  • Really, thembi? ‘Great’?

  • e.

    i’m late but I didn’t think it was great, I think it was ok for what it was. very clearly biased, biggie was no angel but the last 10 minutes sure would have fooled me. the problem is that we know a lot of dirt about BIG and this movie was not trying to go there. charlie baltimore had no lines. they never showed big hitting kim and we all know he did. they sure as hell did not touch the abortion. I think they really should have developed all of the characters. it just said some of what we knew, tried to explain their side of the tupac battle (for the millionth time).

    another thing is that some of the points contradicted the BET notorious story, the one with his friends, especially the part about the direction of the music of his second cd.

  • e: There was a Vibe article, circa 1998 or so, that implied that Faith’s work with domestic violence groups had been because she had been beaten by Biggie.