Films / Addicted To Fame

USA | Documentary Feature | 2011 | 89 min

Director: David Giancola
Film source: The filmmakers

“Giancola introduces himself as a lifelong movie nut who decided he’d rather be a big fish in a small pond, directing and/or producing his own low-budget, direct-to-DVD genre exercises at home in Vermont. Well aware that he was hardly making art, Giancola decided to send up action cinema in general with Illegal Aliens, a spoof in which a trio of butt-kicking babes arrive to protect humanity from the forces of evil. He figured that since Anna Nicole Smith, the already infamous Playmate turned octogenarian-billionaire’s widow turned reality-TV star, had been hilarious, however inadvertently, in prior B-pic roles, she could hardly help but add levity to his film, while doubtlessly upping its public profile.

Playboy vet and WWF wrestler Chyna agreed to co-star (under her real name, Joanie Laurer). Lesser-known thesp Gladys Jimenez signed on as the third “angel,” not reading the script until en route to the set, to her considerable regret.
Giancola and producing partner/former Dynasty hunk John James had steeled themselves for trouble, but were still unprepared for the extent of woe brought by Smith and her entourage. As preserved in ample behind-the-scenes footage, the lady from Texas could hardly articulate a cogent thought, let alone recite scripted dialogue. (“I don’t know how to read stuff like that,” she mutters at one juncture.) Tardiness turned to complete absences; crew applause that erupted following her last take wasn’t honorary.

Soon afterward, Smith’s battle for her late husband’s estate reached the Supreme Court. The massive publicity briefly rubbed off on Aliens, and made the admittedly cheesy, low-brow film seem a hot commodity. But when her son Daniel, then Anna Nicole herself, died of drug overdoses, the film’s existence was deemed in exploitative bad taste; it eventually died a quiet home-release death.

Addicted (previously known as Craptastic!) is most fun early on, with mind-boggling glimpses of the extremely mind-boggled star struggling to act or even speak. Later, when she is seen in TV interviews (which clearly must have been heavily edited to find even a couple of usable, coherent statements), the amusement wears thinner, particularly since it’s obvious from clips that “Aliens” hardly deserved wider exposure.”