THE TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. MOVIE

Biopics are a tough road to hoe.

If the subject is still alive, producers and writers will do whatever they can to avoid offending the person involved- thus, all the sweet stuff like drug addiction, domestic abuse, and even murder are severely downplayed to chalked up to being some kind of misunderstanding or example of human frailty. Jerry Lee Lewis was an advisor on his movie, Great Balls of Fire, and, admittedly, he let a whole lot of things get in there that most would've cringed at or white-washed over. But that makes you wonder how much he left out. And it was still a terrible, terrible movie.

If the subject is dead, there's an urge to make the person seem larger than life. Suddenly they are full of all the sage wisdom they were unable to impart to us in life, so they do it in grandiose biopic death.

Granted every step in the making of the biopic will be scrutinized in a way that, say, a movie about a talking dog, wouldn't. For instance, if you're Joaquin Phoenix and someone says "You should play Johnny Cash," it's gotta be tough to say no, but that doesn't change the fact that he looks and acts nothing like the Man in Black.
I would think the very nature of the biopic beast would mean the makers of the movie would thus be extra careful how the thing comes together. But no. "Hey Lou Diamond Phillips. You're Ritchie Valens, OK?"

When it comes to the script, the fact of the matter is, famous or not, most people aren't that interesting. Whether you're Jim Morrison of the Doors or Jim Morrison the vacuum cleaner salesman, a scrappy enough filmmaker could probably find SOMETHING to make a movie about- One is living the debauched, drug addled, pile-of-naked-girls swingin' 60's lifestyle, while the other deals with mild alcoholism and crippling depression. You decide which is which. At the end of the day, everybody's got their shit, and they still put their pants on one leg at a time. Sure, Bettie Page was a good lookin' broad who most of the world has seen naked in one pose or another (or many), and yet outside of said nudity, The Notorious Bettie Page featured almost nothing worth watching a movie about.

But Hollywood can't stay away from the fast bucks involved in turning the lives of people with a pre-established audience into bloated budget big-screen spectacles, whether the people involved are interesting or not.

Most recently added to that list of famous lives chucked through the Hollywood-filter is Notorious, the story of noted gangster rapper and generally large person The Notorious B.I.G.

Now, I should say I don't really know jack shit about rap music. But, like any other blue-blooded Midwestern white person with eight bucks to rub together, I was intrigued. Any famous person who dies young holds a certain air of mystique around them, and it's curiosity pure and simple that gets you itchin' to find out what all the damn hubub is about.

Turns out, most famous people who die young are not much more interesting than the uninteresting young people you might know who are still alive.

So, even though I thought it was a hi-lariously bad movie, here are 10 Things I Learned From Notorious, the Notorious B.I.G. biopic...

1.)If you need some quick cash, put your hand in a payphone coin return. It will have crack in it that you can then hand to someone standing directly behind you in exchange for a fistful of wadded up money. If that person is a pregnant lady, fuck 'em.

2.)Pure uncut Columbian cocaine is occasionally mistaken for a plate of mashed potatoes.

3.) Need some guidance? Just ask Notorious B.I.G.'s mom! She's just packed to the gills with friendly aphorisms, life-affirming knowledge, and thought provoking quips. If you can't find Biggie's mom, look for Spiderman's Aunt May. Same difference.

4.) If you're living the hard life on the streets in the ghetto, go find Puff Daddy (or whatever the hell he's called now.) Within the span of what seems like about 2 hours of your life on-screen, you will go from abject poverty and a life sentence in jail to lavish record release parties and your very own throne. That P-Diddy is somethin'.

5.) Lil' Kim was once just a lowly, wholesome flight attendant who DIDN'T show her vagina to large groups of strangers.

6.)Whole East Coast/West Coast rap battle? A simple misunderstanding.

7.)If you are about to be murdered by a rival gang, you will have ample opportunity to reconnect with all the people you have abandoned, mistreated, or completely ignored since the beginning of your movie. And said estrangements are sufficiently fixed by making one phone call to the person you've metaphorically pissed on.

8.)I will never let a man call me a bitch.

Let me explain...

Here is an actual scene (as well as I can remember it) between Biggie and his 2 year old daughter:

Biggie (on phone with ex): "You're a motha fuckin' bitch!"
tender music swells as B.I.G. looks down at his daughter, playing on the floor about 3 feet in front of him.
Biggie: Hey CeeCee. C'mere, I gotta teach you somethin'.
CeeCee: A rap song?
Biggie: Nah. Somethin' more important than that.
Daughter climbs on Biggie's knee. They have a touching moment together
Biggie: Whatever happens... don't never, EVER let a man call you a bitch.
CeeCee: OK Daddy.

9.) Apparently Danny Elfman wrote "Hypnotize." According to the "Music by" credit, anyway.

10.) B.I.G. doesn't actually stand for anything. It's just because he was fucking big.

And If you don't know, now you know.