"Notorious" *** (out of four): In the first surprise of this short year, this little movie about a big rapper is a worthy testament to the man who would be B.I.G, and the first truly good Hip Hop biopic.

"Notorious", thank goodness, is not a Hollywood remake of the 1946 Cary Grant-Ingrid Bergman Hitchcock classic. In fact, it may be the farthest thing from it: a low-budget dramatization of the tragically short life-story of Christopher Wallace (aka The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls). It also may be the first truly good biopic in the Hip Hop genre (sorry, "8 Mile"). With real firepower behind it (the Executive Producer is Sean "Puffy" Combs, with Biggie's mother, Voletta Wallace, as one of the Producers), the filmmakers are able to tap into a considerable catalog of material, so the film's soundtrack is chockfull of the artist's hits. Thankfully, even with the oversight of close friends and relatives, the film avoids deifying the man (he's seen selling crack to a pregnant woman), and only rarely dips into sentimentality.

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