Amir Bar-Lev made a documentary called My Kid Could Paint That, about a four-year-old in Binghamton, N.Y. who is supposedly an art prodigy. Bar-Lev set out to make a film supporting the kid, Marla Olmstead, and her family -- who has been accused of helping her.

But he came to believe that Marla might not be the prodigy she was being made out to be. And when his film came out, the Olmsteads -- who came to think of Bar-Lev as their friend -- felt terribly wounded by the choices he had made.

Toronto.ctv.ca has a story with photos showing the new ads that Toronto's Live with Culture campaign is running in some U.S. alt.weeklies.

The campaign's purpose is presumably to reinforce the stereotype that our city's ad creators have bad judgment, a lack of vision and no ability to make people laugh.

I'm a T.O. fan and I wouldn't visit here after looking at those ads.

If any visually-inclined T.O. bloggers stumble over this, what images would you use to sell people on a visit to this burgh? Leave a link in the comments area or drop me an email (the link's at the upper right). Your city thanks you.

Kevin Wilson at Mack the Hackistan has a post saying that Toronto Sun ME Gord Walsh is the latest to be departing from 333 King St. E. (the Toronto Sun Family blog, which Kevin linked to, has the same thing).

That can't be a particularly fun place to work these days (that's me -- a master of understatement).

From A.O. Scott's take on Smokin' Aces in the NYT:

“F.B.I.! F.B.I.!” Blam blam blam blam. “[Expletive]. [Expletive].” Blam blam blam. Spurt of blood. Plot twist. “F.B.I.! F.B.I.!” “[Expletive].” Blam blam blam blam blam. “[Expletive].” “F.B.I.!” “Hotel Security!” Blam. Exploding skull. Guy sits on a chain saw. Montage. [Expletive]. Plot twist. Roll credits.

Yes, I condensed a bit, and I’m sorry if I spoiled anything, but the above is a fair summary of Joe Carnahan’s “Smokin’ Aces,” a Viagra suppository for compulsive action fetishists and a movie that may not only be dumb in itself, but also the cause of dumbness in others. Watching it is like being smacked in the face for a hundred minutes with a raw sirloin steak. By the end, there’s blood everywhere, a bad smell lingering in the air, and vegetarianism — or starvation or blindness — starts to look like an attractive option.

A school district in Federal Way, Wash., got into hot water after putting a moratorium on the screening of the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth, which has been nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary. Here's why one parent opposed its screening.

Saw an amusing squib of an interview between U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Wolf Blitzer, host of CNN's The Situation Room, on The Daily Show on Thursday night.

Daniel Kitts, a producer with TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, thinks there's enough evidence to suggest that human-influenced global warming is a reality. While there are parts of the climate-change issue worth debating, that reality isn't one of them.

From the Washington Post:

Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.

This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took the stand in the perjury trial of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
 
Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."

"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It's our best format."