This one certainly makes good entertainment - which may be half the trouble.It's the story of a California grandmother buying an abstract painting in a junk-shop for $5, and then being tipped-off that it looks like an original Jackson Pollock, worth up to $50 million, if proved genuine.You don't have to dig very deep into the story before it starts to rattle, and not only because California is the natural habitat for wild theories of this sort. There is just too much of the pantomime about it all. The woman in question (Teri) is a long-distance truck-driver, who looks surprisingly genteel for one of that trade, as though she is posing as trailer-trash, with philistine opinions about abstract art - as echoed in the somewhat bowdlerised title of the film. She claims that a picture ought to 'look like something'. Well then, why choose such an unlikely present for a friend, when she could have found a nice harmless landscape or a bowl of fruit? On come the experts, who are quick to remind us about 'provenance' - a word she claims she has never heard before. Thomas Hoving of the New York Met talks in an impossibly conceited way about his status as an authenticator of paintings, clearly acting a snob character-part, to get us taking sides in the big contest: connoisseurship v. folksy fireside wisdom.Well, we certainly do take sides, even sometimes changing sides, as the evidence gradually comes to light. Apparently fingerprints have a lot to do with it, since Pollock despised the brush and palette. They even bring in a fingerprint expert from the Canadian Mounties - another over-theatrical touch. Two of the so-called experts insist that the painting is genuine, but it turns out that both of them were previously jailed for fraud. It is even claimed that the painting doesn't show enough evidence of Pollock's permanent drunkenness on the job!Unfortunately, the closer you look at Teri, the more you conclude that she is just a little unhinged altogether. When she finally understood what provenance meant, she invented a colourful ancestry for the painting, and at least one expert swallowed it whole. Last heard-of, she had turned down a $9 million offer, still holding out for the big fifty, even though authentication is looking more elusive than ever. And it will take more than Joe Beam and his (excruciating) country song about her to get me voting against the smart-and-smarmy experts, as I believe I'm meant to.

hi . am i the only person who noticed that when the painting was compared with the known Pollock that the two seemed to be part of the same piece of canvas, like the piece had been cut to a smaller size? there were lines that crossed over at the right places, like a puzzle would fit. i especially followed some of the yellow lines and they were continuous on both paintings. seems worth a closer look to me. i enjoyed the movie.since we are a love Pollock,hate Pollack family , it was fun to watch this film together although no one changed their mind on their position.we tried to get to MOMA recently but picked the one day that it was closed. i'll try again the next time we are in new york.

There's this old joke about a small town exhibit of Norman Rockwell paintings where a snobbish big city critic is trashing the art at every turn."We know why you don't like this art". says a local."And why is that?" asks the critic."Because we don't need you to tell us if it's any good!"And thus, this film begs the question, "Is collecting modern art about art or collecting autographs?"This HBO documentary details the adventures of Teri Horton (Tugboat Annie of the Trailer Park and professional dumpster diver); a small town gal finding herself in possession of what might very well be an original Jackson Pollock potentially worth millions and sets out to prove its authenticity. Herein lies the rub of modern art; "If you don't know who did it, is it any good"? We watch as the painting is wagged from pompous art critics to curious aficionados, business persons and forensic specialists each with their own take and assessment of authenticity. Little of which has anything to do with the actual art on the canvas.Here is a fascinating look at the facade of modern art and the stuffed shirts who make cowardly proclamations regarding authenticity while avoiding the content of the painting itself.Interesting stuff whether you like modern art or not; and while Ms. Horton's rural irascibility wears mighty thin by the end of the film, there's enough fun and insight to give anyone an art lesson.

I was bothered by the anti-intellectual attitude displayed by Teri Horton and others in the film. What is this pathetic snobbery you find in ignorant people who feel their opinions should be considered simply because they admittedly know nothing about the topic they are talking about? Teri shows great smugness by her distaste towards the "Pollock" painting she buys at the thrift shop saying, "Painting should look like something!" I bet this makes her feel all-superior to those of us who like Jackson Pollock because, obviously she knows what "painting" is supposed to look like and we don't.Teri's claim that she was dismissed by snobbish art world types because she is a drunken, foul-mouthed, truck driver is specious. I would never say that no one in the art world was ever rude to her, but consider this, if her "Pollock" is genuine and worth more than $100 million, why wouldn't gallery owners and art dealers talk to her?If the painting were genuine, the gallery that represents it would get a 15% - 20% commission on the sale. The good publicity the sale would generate would be a boon to any art dealer and that would lead to even more sales for the gallery. It makes no sense that they never even bothered to return her calls.Unless you consider this, Teri says that the first art dealers she spoke to asked about the "provenance" of the "Pollock" and she didn't know what a provenance was. Much filmic hilarity ensues from the cockamamie "provenance" Teri fabricates. It goes like this, the painting came into being during a drunken night of painting that included James Cagney, Joan Crawford, John Wayne, a naked Broderick Crawford and ended with Jackson Pollock signing the painting with his penis.Pretend you're a gallery owner; you get a call from a woman who, while slurring her words, says she has a Jackson Pollock for sale. You ask where she got it and then she lets loose this story of alcoholic Hollywood revelry so clearly improbable it beggars the imagination. Would you call her back?Another problem is the involvement of Tod Volpe, the convicted thief, embezzler and fraud who is retained by Teri to represent her questionable "Pollock". Isn't that like starting a new business and then hiring Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Andy Fastow and the other Enron thieves to run it? Then you explain your hires to investors by reasoning since business is corrupt, and these guys are corrupt, they are the perfect management team! Isn't this lunacy?At one point, Volpe (the convicted fraud) says it is the art world's job to prove that Teri's painting is NOT a real Pollock. What? Is he an idiot as well as a liar and thief? Hey Volpe, you are asking millions for this painting, you have to prove it IS a Pollock. The burden of proof is on the people making the claim.The biggest piece of evidence for the paintings authenticity is the discovery of a partial fingerprint on the back of Teri's "Pollock". The film claims there are no known Jackson Pollock fingerprints in existence, so the self-proclaimed "forensics expert" Paul Biro goes to the Pollock/Krasner Institute and lifts a Pollock fingerprint off a paint can from his studio that he will try to match with the fingerprint found on Teri's painting.First question, if there are no known Pollock fingerprints in existence, how does Biro know that the one he got from the paint can is really Jackson Pollock's? Second question, since Pollock was arrested for being drunk and disorderly a few times, are the filmmakers really sure there are no fingerprints of his in existence?I had questions about fingerprints and the law, so I spoke with a public defender here in Philadelphia about fingerprint evidence.Teri says "if you can send someone to the electric chair by fingerprint evidence, why can't you authenticate a painting?" Well, in fact, you CAN'T send someone to the electric chair based solely on fingerprint evidence.Paul Biro finds three matching points on the partial print found on Teri's "Pollock" and the alleged Pollock fingerprint from the paint can. Is that enough? Is there a legal standard here? The answer surprisingly is NO! There is no set legal number of points that have to match for a fingerprint to be considered proof of identity, but according to my legal expert, three points would never be considered anywhere near enough.All in all, the fingerprint evidence in the film does not meet even the most minimal legal standards and that is the only solid evidence they have.But the clincher for me was when I discovered the existence of a painter named Francis Hogan Brown, who was well known for painting copies of Jackson Pollock's work that were virtually identical to Pollock. Brown says that he distributed lots of these knock-offs in the Southern California area on or around the time Teri Horton claims to have purchased her "Pollock".In fact, Brown says the painting in the film (which he has seen in photographs) looks just like one of his. He says that for several years now, he has repeatedly asked to see Teri Horton's "Pollock" up close, but that Tod Volpe and Teri Horton have refused to let him anywhere near it. Why is that? If Francis Hogan Brown can prove that the disputed "Pollock" Teri has is one of his own paintings, doesn't that settle this case?One final thing, the film goes to great lengths to show that the former museum director Thomas Hoving is an arrogant, know-it-all, jerk. So what? You don't have to look very hard in the art world to find a pompous ass. I am willing to bet that it would also not be difficult to find a truck driver who is also a pompous jerk. But what does that prove? Absolutely nothing.