Notorious Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Newcomer Jamal Woolard plays Biggie as an adult, and it's as if he were born to the part. It's almost possible to forget you're watching an actor and to believe that this is the real man playing his own life, as Eminem and 50 Cent played theirs. Biggie lives in Brooklyn under the wing of his overprotective, Jamaican-born mom (Angela Bassett). He's smart but a bad student and eventually moves into the neighborhood drug trade (though he never partakes of his product). He impregnates his girlfriend, goes to jail and fills several notebooks with his unique brand of literate, jovial, fast-paced rhymes. He meets Puff Daddy (Derek Luke), an up-and-coming producer who has an idea for a record called "Juicy." Meanwhile, he discovers -- and sleeps with -- the sexy Lil Kim (Naturi Naughton) and meets and marries his true love, Faith (Antonique Smith).

It really was about time that Christopher 'Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace received his own biopic. Unfortunately, judging by what I've seen so far, Notorious has been flirting with being one step up from a movie of the week -- and for someone so influential in music history, that's a shame. The latest poster for the biopic has just been released, and like most of the marketing for this film, it leaves you feeling a tad underwhelmed.

Before being crowned "the savior of East Coast hip-hop", Christopher Wallace could have been just another statistic. But, during his short career, he created some of the most influential sounds in hip-hop -- along with launching his producer, Sean 'Diddy' Combs into the spotlight. Notorious was directed by George Tillman Jr. (Barber Shop) and stars Jamal Woolard as Wallace, Angela Basset as his mother, Violetta, and Antonique Smith (RENT) as his ex-wife, Faith Evans.

A few posters have already been released, but in most cases they looked like rejected covers from Source magazine (if you don't believe me, take a gander at some of the previous one-sheets). By the looks of it, this latest poster is going for a decidedly more 'dignified' look -- and in this case, dignified seems to mean ripping off of the Ray poster. Luckily, no matter what the posters or the trailers may look like, at least this movie is going to have one hell of a soundtrack. Check out the full version of this poster after the jump.

Notorious arrives in theaters on January 16, 2009.

Wayne Barrow, producer of the film Notorious, has released the first photo of Jamal Woolard in the role of B.I.G. (aka Christopher Wallace) over on his official blog. Dude looks just like B.I.G., who will always go down as one of New York's greatest rap artists. Underneath the photo, Wayne writes, "Although Jamal has a bit of history of his own in the music industry, he is still relatively unknown, which we thought was an integral element in filling the role. Jamal, a Brooklyn native, has been working hard to capture the spirit of Christopher's character, the soul of the man. We are extremely excited about our choice of casting, his natural charm and charismatic demeanor is very reminiscent of B.I.G and we look forward to sharing this ride with him..."

This should be a fascinating little picture, especially if you were/are a fan of Biggie Smalls and his music. (My wife still rocks out the occasional Biggie track in the car during a long road trip.) Starring alongside Woolard will be Angela Bassett (playing Smalls' mother, Voletta), Derek Luke (as Sean "Diddy" Combs) and Anthony Mackie (as Tupac Shakur). George Tillman Jr. will direct, while the film is set to head into production on March 24 in New York City. Fox Searchlight has already set a release date of January 16, 2009 for Notorious.

So, does this guy look like Biggie ... or what?