Is this for real? Above is the trailer for the upcoming Anna Nicole Smith biopic Anna Nicole. The only thing that comes to mind after watching it is that they know this is going to be so very crappy, and they're upping the cheese to make it obvious this isn't a flick to watch for artistic merit, but rather for cheap, tabloid entertainment. It has to be, because I simply refuse to entertain the notion that the cheesy voiceover saying "the most anticipated motion picture of the year" is anything but tongue-in-cheek.

As Erik said last year, the film will "chronicle Anna's entire life -- from her birth to her days at Playboy to her bogus marriage to her death." Doesn't it sound exciting? I'll give them some benefit -- Willa Ford does a decent job of embodying the destined-for-doom Monroe-wannabe.

Is there anyone out there who will sit down and watch this flick from beginning to end? Me, I think I prefer a strange, goofy, and nicely brief trailer. I mean, we all know the story anyway.

[via Just Jared]

When we first reported on the indie flick Anna Nicole, we weren't kidding about it going into production right away. Case in point: TMZ has nabbed the first photos from the set; pics which show a majority of the cast clowning around and smiling it up for all to see. For anyone that's familiar with the old Anna Nicole Show on E! (yes, I watched it too), you'll notice the familiar face of Bobby Trendy all over these shots. Trendy, who I believe is the world's most annoying interior designer, will be portraying himself in the film. Great. That's just one more reason to stay far away from this disaster.

In case you're wondering, that is not the real Anna Nicole in the picture to the right of your screen. Nope, that's actress Willa Ford -- former "Bad Girl of Pop" -- and she'll be playing Anna in the flick. Also on hand in the photos are Patrick Ryan Anderson (as Anna's son Daniel) and Chris Devlin (as Howard K. Stern). Keoni Waxman, who's no stranger to real-life adaptations having helmed a film about the origins of the Amber Alert called Amber's Story, is directing. Apparently, they're labeling this an "indie film," although I can't imagine it will play anywhere except on the Lifetime channel. Then again, perhaps all you Anna Nicole films will insist on it screening at your local cineplex. Good luck with that. The film is said to chronicle Anna's entire life -- from her birth to her days at Playboy to her bogus marriage to her death. Since the film is currently still in production, I assume they'll continue to add nuggets of info regarding the recent custody battle over Anna's body and her daughter. (Hey, if they can somehow get Judge Larry Seidlin to play himself, I'm totally in!)

Have you gotten your fill of Anna Nicole Smith yet? A few weeks ago, I was typing away at the airport in Atlanta trying to drown out the continuing, repetitive breaking news that was flowing out of every speaker -- Smith had 50 million types of drugs in her body! Harried travelers kept stopping, asking what this breaking news was, and then groaning when I told them that it was all Ms. Smith, and not even the Angelina variety. But now most of that has passed. We know who the father of her little girl is, and maybe, just maybe we can hope for a nice lull in coverage on the deceased, troubled celebrity.

Yeah, not quite. We should expect more coverage for at least the next year or so as Smith's colorful life is heading to indie film, Anna Nicole, and Variety has just announced the biopic's star -- Willa Ford. She used to be the self-proclaimed "Bad Girl of Pop," and she appeared in the third season of Dancing with the Stars. Since one of her singles was the multiplatinum I Wanna Be Bad, I guess she's getting her wish. The super-speedy crew will jump into filming next week, with Keoni Waxman directing. Covering Anna from the ages of 17 to 39, it'll show the time we can barely remember when she was a Monroe-esque Playboy centerfold and Guess model, her stint as an actress, that controversial marriage to billionaire old man Howard Marshall II, the shocking death of her son and then, of course, her own death. Ford has got the barely-clothed blonde thing going for her, but I'm not sure if I buy her as Smith. Then again, plastic surgery kept the troubled celebrity from even looking like herself, so I'm sure that doesn't matter much.

It's been exactly one week since the not-so-shocking death of Anna Nicole Smith, and as the perspective baby-daddies fight to lay claim on a fortune that may never materialize, various media outlets are competing to tag the final footnote on a film career that never really happened. Jim Keough is one of several movie pundits to scoff at the media's insistence on setting Smith's story against that of her stated icon, Marilyn Monroe. "The comparison is unfair to Monroe," Keough writes. "Anna Nicole Smith will be remembered for her outsized proportions, her tabloid-friendly personal life and her erratic behavior, which included dozens of slurry interviews, but unlike Marilyn, she's light years from being iconic." It would seem that the bulk of Hollywood agrees; the L.A. Times reports that Smith's final film, a schlocky-sounding sci-fi flick called Illegal Aliens, co-financed by the wannabe-actress herself and co-written by Smith's late son Daniel, has been unable to find a theatrical distributor and will go straight-to-DVD this spring.

That's a far cry from the fate of Monroe's final film. Though Marilyn was fired from George Cukor's remake of My Favorite Wife, after her death 38 minutes of footage from that aborted project were cobbled together for inclusion in countless tributes and documentaries. The clip reel itself, completely divorced from Cukor's original intentions, was eventually released on DVD as part of a Marilyn Monroe box set. Cultural critic Camille Paglia agrees that the comparison to Monroe is off the mark, but insists that Smith had what it takes to become a genuine movie star -- if only Hollywood had let her. Comparing the late Trimspa spokeswoman to Jayne Mansfield, Margaux Hemingway and Anita Ekberg, Paglia laments the loss of a studio system that would have made room for Smith's "sexual charisma and comedic charm." "The real problem was that the broad, Technicolor comedic films in which Smith might have thrived are no longer made -- except in Bollywood," Paglia writes in a long column at Salon. "Smith had genuine talent but no place to put it."