Jun
20
My Kid Could Paint That
Filed Under review, television, thoughts | 7 Comments
Last night my friend Laura and I had a girls night, our husbands were having a boys night at the Coors Light Maxim Golf Experience. I made Laura some amazing Linguine & Chicken Thighs and she brought over a movie- My Kid Could Paint That.
I had heard of it before from Rosie O’Donnell’s blog. The movie hits close to home for Rosie because of all the paintings that her kids do. It’s almost similar to the movie because she often tapes them all painting in their painting room, it’s amazing.
I was mesmerized with the movie. It’s a documentary about Marla Olmstead, an adorable and shy 4 year old. She started painting when she was 2, and they always loved her work, but really all parents love their children’s work. A friend of the families owned a coffee shop and offered to put her work up in the shop, just to see what might happen. As it turns out a gallery owner saw the painting and loved it, after finding out that it was done by a 4 year old the story just grew and grew. And that was just the beginning. She has art shows and her paintings sold for anywhere between $250 (the first one) - to $25,000. Issues arise when people start questioning whether she had any help from her father, an amature painter himself. The documentary does an amazing job of making you really think about it. In the beginning you are so amazed with Marla’s painting, that you believe she does it all herself. Further into the movie after they tape her painting and compare it to other works she has completed you wonder whether she did in fact have help from her father. The painting that she was filmed painting (called Ocean) looks a lot different from the other paintings that she completed (for example Building & Zane Dancing [Zane being her younger brother]) the others are tight patterns and are very symmetrical, the one she painted on film was not. In the end of the movie you are left to decide for yourself.
I honestly feel that it doesn’t matter if she had help, the pieces are still amazing, but if she had help they should have said from the beginning that it was father-daughter work, and not that she did it all herself. The parents were adamant in the movie that she did it all herself and the only help she got was with setting up the canvases, that she did all the painting by herself. The father seemed a bit odd in the movie, and I think it may have been possible that he was helping out. Laura found Marla’s manager to be really weird, and I agreed. He never seemed to give the right answer when people were asking questions and after a documentary about Marla ran on CNN he was filmed screaming at a camera who was asking him questions. Quite a creepy guy also.
I really want to believe that she made these herself and I would highly recommend seeing this movie, so you will know what I’m talking about because this may seem like a lot of mumble jumble. And please let me know what you thought of it!
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Apr
29
Canadian Idol
Filed Under music, television | 4 Comments
Canadian Idol is holding their auditions once again. In addition to the traditional in-person auditions they are trying something a bit different this year: “Last chance auditions” - online auditions! You record your video, and send it to them and they put them on the website so everyone can watch them! I’m not sure if they put all of them up, and I actually doubt that they do because there were probably so many sent in. We actually know someone who is on the site- she sang Oh Canada for her song. They had to sing specific songs, but I’m not sure how many there were to choose from because I don’t see the rules posted anymore (the contest is closed). As an alternative I think you could have written your own song, which is what my two favourites did! Here is a bit more information that I found.
I actually tried out for Canadian Idol years and years ago. In grade 12, my best friend and I took the bus to Toronto and waited in line forever and sang, and didn’t make it. It was fun thought. I think our problem was that we definitely didn’t sing the right song. I didn’t pick my song until I was in line, and kept thinking of songs, and then realized that I didn’t think I knew all the words. Looks like I won’t be found in the limelight any time soon!
Anyways! Here are some videos that I liked. You need to click through to the next page because they kinda mess up our formatting.
Jan
21
Last night after Mic, Kate and I returned relaxed and stretched from our first yoga class (taught by our favorite yoga instructor Lara), and after our boys (two of them, at least) cooked us a delicious dinner of chicken cordon bleu, potato pancakes, fennel, and bruschetta, I caught the last 45 minutes of CBC’s Test the Nation.
There were 6 groups competing - Chefs, cab drivers, backpackers, flight crew, celebrity lookalikes, and bloggers. Naturally I wanted the bloggers to win - they were really the only group I felt an affinity with. If they had snowboarders, I probably would have gone with them instead. :) I thought the bloggers had a pretty good chance - most of us online seem to keep up with world events, especially those entertainment and pop culture related. I only saw one of the quiz segments (the last one - Indulge Me) and I’m happy to report that I scored perfect! When the questions and answers were reviewed, I was able to answer the majority of the questions before the answer was revealed. I think I would have made a great blogger team member 
As you’ve probably figured out from the title of this post, the bloggers won with an average score of 50! Top score overall was earned by a blogger, one Rick Spence. Even the celebrity representing the bloggers - Samantha Bee, my favorite Daily Show correspondent - was the highest-scoring celebrity.
Reading through the Test the Nation website, I discovered that one of the 5 experts who devised the quiz itself is an old professor of mine - Tim Blackmore of the University of Western Ontario. My SEO blogging brain had also been wondering if all those bloggers got links to their blogs on the CBC website - indeed they did! I’ve discovered some great new Canadian blogs already.
Canadians - they are still looking for members for teams like Americans living in Canada, Armchair Athletes, Buskers, Mechanics, and many more. Hey Lauren, they’re even looking for cheerleaders!
