I went and saw the Biggie Smalls biopic Notorious last night with a couple of friends who had enough fondness for Biggie and/or really bad movies that it seemed like a good idea. I was going to do a Things I Learned Watching Notorious (With Apologies to Tom Breihan)-type post about the film today, only I'm not sure I really learned much of anything.

I do have to take issue with my colleague Charles Mudede's review of the film, though. Here is the central point of his review:

What is reflected by the movie's lack of substance, of insights, of imagination, is Biggie's own lack of substance, insights, and imagination.

I would argue that what is reflected in this admittedly lacking film is simply lazy and uninspired film-making—heavy-handed expository voiceovers, major plot points/periods swept up into spinning-newspaper type montages, weird grainy filters used to symbolize the hardness of the streets, and so on and so on—and that Biggie was, in fact, like him or not, a pretty fucking solid rapper (that Mudede furthered this argument by elevating Mad Rad above both Biggie and Tupac needs no further discussion at this late point in the game). So, I may not have learned anything last night, but here anyway are what notes I can remember:

-Within the first five minutes of the film, we see a young Christopher Wallace literally "read[ing] Word-Up magazine and listening to "Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl." Pinch yourself, it's not a dream.

-Also within the film's opening scenes: young Wallace develops (life-long) issues with the opposite sex due to playground taunts/overcomes said issues by taunting back, hinting at his later punch-line skills; he sees his absentee father leave his mother after trying to pay her off with a measly $100; he is tempted by the appearance of a shiny, tricked-out car with a license plate that actually reads "MONEY" in case you were missing the fucking symbolism.

-Unsurprisingly for a film that counts Biggie's mom, Violetta Wallace, and Sean "Puffy/P-Diddy/WTF-ever" Combs among its executive producers, Combs and Violetta are both portrayed as near saints. Combs doesn't have an exploitative bone in his body, of course, and only wants to see Wallace off the streets, out of the crack game, and legitimately wealthy. He talks of wanting to change the world; Combs is like Ghandi: "We can't change the world unless we change ourselves."

-The real-life Lil Kim was actually kind of awesome before she got truly scary/crazy.

-Someone conveniently tells Wallace that "when one of us makes it, we all make it," which is, of course, the central capitalist myth celebrated by commercial hiphop: that individual escape from poverty to wealth is as desirable as any broader social change addressing the wealth/poverty divide.

-"Juicy" really is a motherfucking jam.

-2Pac should be rolling in his (fake?) grave regarding his weak portrayal in this film.

-After his daughter hears him calling Lil Kim a bitch over the phone, Wallace explains to her that, despite his language, she is special, a princess, and that she should let no man ever call her this word that he has called women so many, many times. While receiving this dubious wisdom, the little girl is playing with and pressing together two plastic dolls: one is a barbie, the other is a dog. That's not even symbolic, it's just literal.

-On the night he's gunned down in LA, hours before his death, Wallace conveniently calls everyone in his life he has wronged or become estranged from and makes amends.

-Two hours is half an hour too long for a film of this caliber...it feels like the longest 24 years ever.

-That's all for now.