UPDATED My Kid Could Paint That trailer

In the span of only a few months, 4-year-old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international renown -- and sold over $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. She was compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, and called "a budding Picasso." Inside Edition, The Jane Pauley Show, and NPR did pieces, and The Today Show and Good Morning America got in a bidding war over an appearance by the bashful toddler. There was talk of corporate sponsorship, with the family fielding calls from The Gap and Crayola.

But not all of the attention was positive. From the beginning, many faulted her parents for exposing Marla to the glare of the media and accused the couple of exploiting their daughter for financial gain. Others felt her work was, in fact, comparable to the great Abstract Expressionists -- but saw this as emblematic of the meaninglessness of Modern Art. "She is painting exactly as all the adult paintings have been in the past 50 years, but painting like a child, too. That is what everybody things but they don't dare to say it," said Oggi, the leading Italian weekly. Through no intention of her own, Marla revived the age-old question, 'what is art?'

And then, five months into Marla's new life as a celebrity and just short of her fifth birthday, a bombshell dropped. CBS' 60 Minutes aired an exposé suggesting strongly that the paintings were painted by her father, himself an amateur painter. As quickly as the public built Marla up, they tore her down. The New York Post asked whether "the juvenile Jackson Pollock may actually be a full-fledged Willem de Frauding," the Olmsteads were barraged with hate mail, ostracized around town, sales of the paintings dried up, and Marla's art dealer considered moving out of Binghamton. Embattled, the Olmsteads turned to the filmmaker to clear their name. Torn between his own responsibility as a journalist and the family's desire to see their integrity restored, the director finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a situation that can't possibly end well for him and them, and could easily end badly for both.

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[G58]

"Little arrogant girl"?? She's 4 years old in that film.

And don't you realise that at 4 years old, all any child can do is reflect her environment? A child isn't even legally regarded as knowing right from wrong until they're 10 years old.

Marla also said Zane painted one of them. That's innocence, and honesty - the complete opposite of arrogance.

What IS arrogant is a nasty little ass hole adult making ugly, cruel, ignorant statements like this.

[Rodrick Toombs]

Abstract art is a farce.

[mookiemu]

Except for the atheism part, I agree with you completely!

[mookiemu]

I believe she painted these paintings. That's the problem with abstract art. You can give a monkey a brush and make people believe that it is great art (that's been done). I would love to see a 4 year old paint something in the style of a Rembrandt, or a Bougeareau, or a Sargent. Then I would be impressed.

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[jordanthewizard]

How is her work any better than anything any other kid her age might paint?

[Dawn Threader]

so what she is 4 !

another thing she doesn't give a shit about >>

are you that free about your work ? the critics will bite your ass

and u will feel it if u don't get rid of jealousy they will nail ,u to the cross I hope the best enjoy what u do

[Dawn Threader]

I think what s interesting about this work is she really doesn't give a fck what ppl say she has a pure intent her color schemes and designs are real patterns of mOvement there is no movement in some work it is stale and dry and retarded in its expression

like big fcking deal

this work is alive and assumes no responsibility what u or I think it is pure and inclined with every splatter theres another one that follows another and another

[joe butler]

the dad does crazy paintings, like photos...you can feel his frustration.

[Atis Luguzs]

Paintings actually are too big for 4 years child - she would never complete all surface, because of loosing interest to that canvas.

[Erin Kelly]

that the kid didn't paint them herself is a fool because they are assuming that these paintings are actually professional abstract paintings when it is really that they look like them because abstract paintings take no skill at all to make. In my opinion the child should not really be famous for the paintings. Modernist art is about ideas and this child is not doing it to express those