Unless you have
been living under a rock for the last couple months or so, you were more than
hype when VH1 announced that they were creating a bio pic based off the lives
of the legendary girl group TLC.
Twitter was abuzz with opinions and criticism after the release of the
cast for the movie. Actress Drew Sidora
as the smooth deep voiced Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins award winning speller and quarterback,
child star KeKe Palmer as Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, and hip hop’s outcast and
longest running joke, Lil Mama as the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez. After months
of preparation, and filming, the movie finally premiered on VH1 Tuesday night,
and 4.5 million people gathered in front of their TV screens to take a trip down musical memory lane.
While a little
over dramatic and a tab bit on the corny side, Crazy Sexy Cool, named after the trio’s best selling album, was pretty
sweet. The movie detailed the drama and
trials of TLC’s rise to fame while telling unknown behind the scenes
stories. Here’s a few points that stuck
out.
1)
Lil Mama is Left Eye
Was anyone else pleasantly creeped out at how much Lil Mama
resembled Left Eye? Even though Lil Mama’s lip gloss has dried up and she can’t
be taken seriously as a rapper, her portrayal of the late Left Eye put Lil Mama
back in the lime light, even if it is for 15 minutes. From her impulsive,
hilarious punch lines, to her distinctive tone and voice, Lil Mama was able to
embody the sexy swag of Left Eye. What was so amazing about her performance
was, unlike her costars Palmer and Sidora, who had the real T-Boz and Chili to
draw inspiration from, Lil Mama was able to accurately perform Left Eye’s
personality and mannerisms without the direction of Left Eye. Either she
watched the Left Eye documentary one hundred too many times, or the spirit of
Lopez descended from the heavens and took the body of the 5 ft tall rapper.
Either way, it melted your heart a little to see Left Eye back on our TV
screens. Her performance got me so much
into the movie that I forgot about her untimely death at the end. Her performance was so good, it almost made
everyone forgive her for her awkward,” hip hop holy ghost “disruption of Jay Z
and Alicia Keys’ performance at the 2009 VMA’s. Almost.
 |
| It was times in the movie where she looked so much like Left Eye , it was scary. |
|
|
 |
| Lil Mama did her thing in the movie but I don't think she will ever be publicly forgiven for storming the stage and ruining a legendary Jay Z performance. |
2)
Damn Pebbles is shady
 |
| LOL |
Because the bio
pic was mainly written around the point of views of T-Boz and Chili, the
portrayals of certain main characters in the movie may have pissed some people
off, specifically former TLC founder and manager Peri “Pebbles” Reid. (or that
chick Crystal that was the girl in the TLC before Chilli. They did her wrong)
While LA Reid’s ex-wife may or may have not been a money hungry manger in
reality, Rochelle Aytes’ portrayal got everybody to hate her and blow her
twitter up with memes and insults.
According to the story of T-Boz and Chilli, Pebbles founded and nurtured
the girls into stars, while locking the young ambitious girls into a slave
contract that robbed them of their royalties and profits forcing the platinum
selling artist into bankruptcy. The real Pebbles Reid, not surprisingly, wasn’t too
happy about the allegations of her being a greedy, money hungry thief and
responded via twitter after T-Boz’s promotional interview with The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1.
 |
| Pebbles was NOT happy about her portrayal in the movie, but aye every bio pic has somebody in real life that's mad, which usually means that the story is true. *cough,cough Lil Kim* |
 |
| Rochelle Aytes and Carl Payne played Pebbles and LA Reid |
 |
| And of course the social media world had a ball with the memes lol |
|
1 3) Real Dallas Austin vs. Evan Ross as Dallas Austin
Everybody enjoys
the actor or actress to resemble the person they are supposed to be portraying
in bio pics, it makes them more believable. But there should be an unwritten
rule in movies to not have the actor look a MILLION times better than the
original person. ATL star, Evan Ross, played the role of producer, Dallas
Austin, so well, that it made people do a wikapedia search of his work. (It
really blew me that people where claiming to be TLC fans and not know who
Dallas Austin was) The ladies watching
had their brief, imaginary, love affair with the producer crushed when they
realized the real Dallas looked like an older, dustier version of the sexy Evan
Ross (Man Crush Monday?). Even though he consistently did Chilli dirty in the
movie, in my mind Dallas Austin is Evan Ross sending “500” to my IPhone.
 |
| Is it just me or does Evan as Dallas Austin look better than real Dallas Austin? |
 |
| Or maybe I just like looking at Evan Ross #heyboo |
 |
| Before Usher,Chilli had had gave her heart to Dallas Austin. He produced a lot of TLC's hits. They have a son together named Tron. |
|
4) TLC is NOT Destiny's Child!!! -_-
Just like any major musical event
that doesn’t include Beyonce, the Bey Hive couldn’t let TLC be great for 2
hours without tweeting their Destiny’s Child comparisons. First off, anybody with
a decent ear for music would rather compare apples and oranges with a brick
wall, before comparing the great DC trio to TLC. Being a TLC fan and a Destiny’s Child fan are
not mutually exclusive concepts. But let’s be real, the edginess of TLC can’t
hold a candle to the squeaky clean group that Mathew Knowles built. Beyonce
would have received 40 lashes for even considering wearing a condom as an accessory,
let alone the bare mentioning of sexual intercourse. (I’m talking about red
haired Kelly, micro braids Beyonce, Destiny’s Child, not “Sleep in your T-Shirt”
Destiny’s Child) And then, the crazy
Beyonce stans (not saying I’m not one) couldn’t even get 5 minutes into the
damn movie before they started demanding a Destiny’s Child bio pic. -_- Now let me be clear, I probably know all the
words to every Destiny’s Child song on every album (including the Christmas
album), and I would be the first one in front of a screen if such a movie was
made, but let’s be real, a Destiny’s Child bio pic would probably be just as
interesting as a WNBA championship game. People would probably die to see
Beyonce encountering the undeniable swag of Jay Z for the first time, but that’s
it. We would treat it like all of
Beyonce’s 50 documentaries of herself, we’d watch it because it’s Beyonce, and
then never speak of it again. (Don’t believe me? Who has intentionally watched Life Is But a Dream more than once?....don’t
worry I’ll wait)
There wouldn’t be any abortions, or
house fires, hell I can’t even picture a decent sex scene that Tina Knowles
would approve of. The movie would be
boring for the simple fact that the girls of Destiny’s Child actually like each
other! You can’t picture Kelly swinging
on Bey like T-Boz did Left Eye. The dysfunctional love TLC had for one another
was the most compelling part of the movie. Nobody wants to watch Kelly and
Michelle smile and hug each other for 2 hours. I’ll scream “All hail Queen Bey”
to the roof tops when it comes down to music and performing, but a whole bio
pic? Nah, I’d rather use those 2 hours of my life more productively.
 |
| If not based on the casting alone, the movie was great. Tay Approved :-) |
 |
| You can't have a bio pic without a greatest hits album can you? TLC's album" 20" is in stores now. |
|
|
 |
| You ever wonder what type of stuff Left Eye would have said about Nicki Minaj today? hmmm R.I.P |
"A scrub is a guy who thinks he's fine, also known as a busta, always talkin bout what he wants but just sits on his broke ass"
I know all the moves to the No Scrubs video. Whats your favorite TLC song? Leave em in the comments below :-)
