Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me

This tell-all surface Netflix documentary profiles one of the most famous women of the 1990's and 2000's, and covers the exact same material that I, a non-fan, have seen before. Think of it as "The E! True Hollywood Story (Now with Bewbs!)."

Vickie Lynn Marshall was from Mexia, Texas (which is filmed like it's one of Dante's Circles of Hell). Born in 1967, she was a beautiful child who attracted attention almost immediately. She married early, had a child, and ran away from an abusive homelife, ending up dancing in strip clubs in Houston. She met another stripper there who would become a lover, and Vickie changed her name to Nikki. Pictures of Smith (her married name) made their way to Playboy and Guess Jeans, and a model was born. Now known as Anna Nicole Smith, she descended on Los Angeles, taking modeling gigs and an occasional film role (she was offered only $50,000 to appear in "The Mask"?!), and becoming more and more famous for not doing very much. Behind the scenes, she was seeing and married an oil billionaire sixty years older than her. Drugs became a part of Smith's life, starting out as pain medication for her breast augmentation surgery. Her son, Daniel, was by her side as she saw billionaire J. Howard Marshall, and the stripper friend, before her life began to spiral out of control- which was caught on camera by ever-present paparazzi, and eventually her own infamous "reality" show. She died after giving birth to a daughter in 2007, but her life made tabloid headlines even years after she was laid to rest.

One of the many flaws in this documentary is an odd one- it's not long enough. We get six hours on serial killers and their "unheard" audio tapes, but less than two hours on a household name who was literally in the public eye for fifteen years? Smith had a rough upbringing, and an hour could have been spent on her parents alone, instead of a gotcha moment that seems tacked on to the end of the film. The film makers could not get some important...