Crazysexycool: The TLC Story: A Mini Review

A few thoughts on VH-1's Crazysexycool: The TLC Story:

• All of the actresses did a fantastic job, but of the three, Lil' Mama had the strongest performance. She was really giving you Left Eye's craziness, creativity and a sense of the demons that plagued her. Drew Sidora channeled T-Boz's coolness and tomboy swag really well. Keke Palmer definitely conveyed Chili's sweetness and some of her vulnerability (the abortion scene comes to mind), but I don't know...at some points it felt she was, as Tyra would say, resting on pretty.

• The recreation of the outfits, the stage shows, the music videos *gets choked up with 90's nostalgia* were perfection. Point blank. Incorporating actual footage into the film was a nice touch too. 

• Watching the real-life T-Boz and Chili record "Meant To Be" in the studio with Ne-Yo (damn he's got a nice smile--just sayin') was really touching, especially with the montage of classic TLC images and videos.

• Pebbles...oh Pebbles. I almost wished they included more scenes with her just to for the pure music biz Mommie Dearest shade she was serving. A 25-dollar a week stipend? Rav 4s and Pathfinders for going platinum? Gurl bye! LA Reid came out much better, plus it was nice to see Carl Anthony Payne, a.k.a. Cole/Cockroach, working.

• I wish we had gotten a more in-depth look at the girls' romantic relationships. Of course we know the basics about Left Eye and Andre Rison and Chili and Dallas Austin's (Evan Ross was criminally underused) affairs, but I expected a biopic to give us more than the bare bones version of events. T-Boz's relationships with Mr. Dalvin from Jodeci (which I didn't know about--guess I'm late!) and Mack 10 hardly went beyond the surface. It doesn't take a world-class psychiatrist to figure out that three girls with absent or combative fathers are gonna grow up to have some daddy issues when it comes to men. It would have been good if the movie included more scenes detailing the ups and downs so we got a deeper sense of the girls and the men in their life. But perhaps and T-Boz and Chili didn't want to "go there."

• Ok totally random, but where was Jermaine Dupri? He played a pretty pivotal role in the group's early days and worked on their debut Ooh On The TLC Tip. Some celeb cameos would have been fantastic, but of course there's only so much you can do in two hours. Too bad they didn't go The Temptations/Jacksons(I'm still tight they didn't feature Janet at all) mini-series route.

What did you think?