The documentary has an interview with a New York Times art critic who discusses modern (or abstract) art and the reasons behind the sometimes apparently insane valuations for what looks like some paint splashed on a canvas. Part of his explanation is that the story behind the artwork contributes to the value. What has the artist gone through, for example? In Marlas's case part of the value is due to the fact of her young age and the apparent sophistication of the w

Her husband Albert is a successful businessman in the golf industry, and it consumes his life. He is very cold to his wife, which is doubly unfortunate because of the fact that she has deep emotional problems stemming from being the victim of sexual abuse as a child. She is teeming with self-loathing and his attitude towards her certainly doesn't help matt

Directed by Martin McDonagh, In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as Ray and Ken, two Irish hitmen sent to Belgium to carry out an assignment for their boss Harry, played by Ralph Fiennes. When a previous botched mission leads Harry to give Ken unexpected orders regarding Ray, the two find themselves at odds with each other and must decide how to proc

It turns out that the two fellows are British assassins just coming off a job, and have been ordered to go to Bruges to hide out for a couple of weeks. While older Ken enjoys the beauty and history of the town, Ken is completely and utterly uninterested. While Ken seems to be as much a mentor as a partner to Ray, the younger half of this duo reminded me of a pesky five year old boy - kind of like Dennis the Menace after too much su

Some interesting notes: True Grit didn't get a single award despite ten (10!) nominations; Christopher Nolan didn't receive any awards despite Inception being entirely original and praised for its design, winning 4 other awards no less; Anne Hathaway, poking fun at the Academy's attempt at appealing to a younger demographic is the presentation's youngest host ever at 28 and last but not least, 8-time Oscars host Billy Crystal made a friendly and fun appearance making some wish he was back to host ag

You can look at Towelhead from a couple of different angles, but as the parent of an 11 year old daughter, I look at it as a cautionary tale of exposing kids to sexual images too early, and not being a father that they can turn to for advice and comfort instead of whatever guys is availa

Now to some of you this may sound interesting, and I suppose it could have been, but the overall effect of this movie awards games updates|https://moviefestivalhub.com/ with it's bland, bright and washed out colors on the screen and the details of the relationships that we are subjected to is quite depressing (yes, I get it, that's the point) and to be honest left me feeling more than a bit dirty to have been witness to all this. Not "porn" dirty, but "slimey" dirty, like going through someones dirty laun

We meet the family, consisting of Marla, a younger brother and her parents. The first half of the documentary tells the story of what led up to the discovery of Marla's paintings (first displayed at a local coffee shop just for fun) and the ensuing fame and eventual media blitz. The Olmstead's introduction to the world came through a local newspaper reporter who comes across as extremely ethical on both the journalism side of things as well as the human side. Before writing her initial story about Marla and her paintings, she asked the Olmsteads very clearly whether they really wanted her to write the story, because although there was a positive side to the publicity there could also be some negative consequences down the r

Jakes Gyllenhaal said it best this evening, pointing out that it would be the shorts that make or break our Oscar Pools. I am usually able to get half of them right by watching them and picking favorites but this year I got them all wrong. Amongst the big categories there were few surprises though, outside of Tom Hooper ( The King's Speech ) beating out David Fincher ( The Social Network ) for achievement in directing. But hey, Chris Nolan wasn't even nominated for Inception so without further

Things are zooming along like an out of control freight train with first national and then international fame. The paintings sell for between $5,000 to $10,000 each and a waiting list forms for future paintings. We see that Marla's mom is much more reserved about the whole thing and wouldn't be unhappy if everything stopped tomorrow. She harbors concerns about the effect it is having on her family and her daughter in particular. Marla's dad on the other hand doesn't see any downside at all, and at one point his wife states that he really enjoys being the center of attent

The film takes place just before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein when the U.S. first invaded Iraq, and I found it interesting that they wasted no time whatsoever telling us that her father (Peter) is Catho

In the end the family manages to at least partially gain back the trust of the art world by finally documenting on film themselves Marla creating a painting called "Ocean" from start to finish. Although that particular painting does share similarities to prior paintings, it actually seems less sophisticated than those that have come before. Since then they have documented another painting from start to finish called "Rain", which does seem to be closer to the style of the earlier painti