Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome (or at least fun to read). Need your book industry news? Never fear, Kate Copeseeley is here to give it to you straight.
In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: #AmericanGods Trailer, #Batgirl Movie, and An 8yo Amazon Bestseller. All this and more!
Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two.
New Valerian Trailer
Look, I love The Fifth Element, so I have some idea that this is going to be weird, but wow that is going to be weird.
The Book of Henry
This looks heartbreaking and amazing. Wow.
War For Planet of the Apes
I’ve heard this franchise is good?
It Trailer
Omg, I could barely get through this trailer. Me no likey. (Dude, I couldn’t even watch this twice. Kudos to all of you who will watch it in the theater!!)
Game of Thrones Season 7 Teaser Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxWfvtnHtS0
American Gods
BATGIRL MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!
DC is really showing us that they can bring the ladies. Perhaps the big fuss over Wonder Woman is making the studios consider new girl superheroes they can make movies out of. Anyway, it’s not just a movie… it’s a director, too!
The superheroine is getting her own standalone movie from filmmaker Joss Whedon.
Whedon is nearing a deal to write, direct, and produce an untitled Batgirl pic for Warner Bros. as part of its DC Extended Universe.
No other producers are currently attached. Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, is overseeing with Jon Berg and Geoff Johns. The new project originated in the past month following a meeting between Whedon, Berg and Johns.
Batgirl is one of the most popular superheroes in the world, but has never gotten her own movie. The project will also feature other characters from the world of Gotham.
Batgirl first appeared in DC Comics in 1967 as Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon in “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!” by writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino.
Yes, please!!!
Black Eyed Peas Comic Book
So, music and a comic book, I guess? Black Eyed Peas sure likes their variety, don’t they?
In July, the pop group will release a comic called Masters of the Sun – The Zombie Chronicles, which will be distributed by the industrious superhero company.
Benjamin Jackendoff and artist Damion Scott are responsible for the artwork, while it is none other than will.i.am himself who wrote the story about a futuristic Los Angeles that’s under attack by aliens while humans are morphing into zombies.
Masters of the Sun drops this July. Stoked for you to see what we've been working on with @Marvel Comics 👇 https://t.co/SbALEmGGf7
— Black Eyed Peas (@bep) March 16, 2017
“The Black Eyed Peas and I have begun a new journey,” will.i.am told Billboard of the new venture.
“We’ve been working on this original story for years and partnering with Marvel to bring this book to life is more than a dream come true.”
Masters of the Sun is said to combine real life allegories of LA gangs, hip-hop and street dance culture as its main character, Zulu-X, is placed at the centre of a new adventure that sees him fighting an ancient evil order using wisdom and street smarts.
“Few artists have done more to embed hip-hop in popular culture than will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas,” Marvel editor Axel Alonso said.
“So we are thrilled to present this deeply personal story that speaks directly to hip-hop aficionados, comic book fans and the intersection of those communities.”
Looks good to me, but really, I just wanna see the TV show adaption. Netflix anyone?
Jumanji Movie to Deviate Greatly From Book Version
There is an uproar over this one, but I think it’s gonna be okay. The game in the Jumanji 2 movie will NOT, I repeat, NOT be a board game.
It’ll be a magical video game that transports a group of unsuspecting youths into a dangerous jungle world, to be represented by avatars. A lucky audience at Las Vegas’ CinemaCon got a peek at some footage and that one big plot change on Monday.
According to The Wrap, Jumanji is “a classic, ‘90s-era video game console” in the upcoming movie, now titled “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” Full of action and comedy, it “looks fantastic,” one critic tweeted from the event.
In the film, four wildly different teenagers stumble across the game console while serving detention at school, becoming avatars totally different from themselves: the “meek” Spencer becomes “a stupid and girl-crazy jock” avatar played by Dwayne Johnson, “football jock” Fridge becomes “a tiny Einstein” played by Kevin Hart, popular girl Bethany becomes “a bookworm professor” played by Jack Black and “un-athletic” Martha becomes “an Amazonian warrior” played by Karen Gillan, according to the studio.
Giving off strong “Breakfast Club” vibes, the group of teens can return to their lives only after they “start seeing things in an entirely different way.”
Sounds cool to me, like they put in a lot of thought to their potential audience. 90’s video game console? Yes, please!
So Wonder Woman Has No Hair? Or Too Much Hair?
I guess Amazons created by Zeus also care greatly about personal hygiene? Because the latest hullabaloo on the internets is that Wonder Woman has been shaving her pits.
On Twitter, many have questioned why actress Gal Gadot has perfectly smooth pits in the film’s new trailer, despite the fact that Wonder Woman is supposed to have had no previous contact with regular humans (or their beauty standards).
Some have also pointed out that her armpits appear to be a lighter skin tone than the rest of her body, leading many to suggest they’ve been “digitally bleached” or “altered”.
Complaints about Wonder Woman's armpit digitally bleached. My question is -why is an Amazon with no previous contact with humankind shaven? pic.twitter.com/S6sDNj7UFQ
— Laura 🇵🇸 (@Lioness_Laura) March 20, 2017
Leaked screenshot reveals what Wonder Woman's armpits looked like before they were digitally altered by the patriarchy. pic.twitter.com/V4nZ07heaj
— Dr. Li Qi Huang (@martian_munk) March 18, 2017
If Wonder Woman is focused on saving the world in WWI, it would be completely understandable if she forgot to pack her razor for the battlefield. (It’s important to note that if you search the terms “Wonder Woman” and “armpit hair” on Twitter, the loudest critiques are mostly from men.)
The answer to the question of “Why/how are her armpits hairless?” is likely that Gal is a Hollywood actress who either opts to remove hair from her armpits among other body parts or was instructed to do so for the film. And that brutal body standard is, unfortunately, the norm in Hollywood. It’s atypical for film directors to make their movies more realistic by giving women hairy pits and legs and unruly eyebrows — even though the post-social-media era has increasingly embraced this kind of accurate and empowering representation. (Hello, #glitterpits.)
On the other hand, the criticism that Gal’s Wonder Woman is receiving brings up another important question: Hairless or not, why do people feel the need to call out a woman’s appearance? Gal can do whatever she wants to her body and her armpit hair — she can shave it off, grow it out, braid it, or dye it pink — and it isn’t really our business.
First female superhero film for 17 years and all the talk is about her armpits… #WonderWoman pic.twitter.com/MPXMERdi3S
— r.a.c.h.e.l t. (@racheltunnard) March 17, 2017
Philosophy student Laura De, from Belgium, knows the stigma that’s attached to having armpit hair all too well. Last year, she starred in a series of photos designed to open up discussion about female body hair but found herself at the centre of cruel trolling.
Commenting on Wonder Woman’s new look, she said that her “shaved and bleached” armpits are a result of “patriarchal norms”, but we shouldn’t just focus on the character’s appearance.
“People don’t talk about the personality of the female character in the movie, but they criticise her body,” she said. “That’s a real problem.”
Wonder Woman is awesome and I can tell you she is not here for your commentary on her appearance.
Shaved or not shaved, let’s all just celebrate the wonderful fact that we’re getting a FREAKING FANTASTIC WONDER WOMAN MOVIE!!!!
My Brilliant Friend Adaption on HBO
It was rumored that Elena Ferrante’s series of Neapolitan Novels was getting shopped around and now HBO has confirmed it has bought the rights to air the series.
The first of Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend follows the early friendship of Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo in post-war Naples, examining the often tumultuous undercurrents of female friendship, adolescence, and class.
In March, it was announced that Italian director Saverio Costanzo had signed on to direct television adaptions of the four Neapolitan Novels, but there was no news of distribution. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports that HBO is partnering with the Italian production company RAI to produce the first of the novels. My Brilliant Friend will be an eight-part drama in Italian and will begin production in Naples this summer.
While there’s no word yet on casting, Ferrante and co-writers (including Costanzo) will write the script. Hopefully, with Ferrante on board—itself a coup considering the opinions about adaptations of her work that she shared in Frantumaglia—the adaptation will capture the writer’s rare ability to navigate the intensity of women’s emotion and her subtle depictions of gendered violence that make the Neapolitan quartet so appealing.
I’m sure it will be something to see.
Uplifting News of the Week:
8 Year Old Writes Best-Selling Book
In the cutest story in the world ever, first grader Nia Mya Reese has become an Amazon sensation.
When Nia Mya Reese received a first-grade assignment to write a book on a subject that she’s an expert in, she knew exactly what she’d write about — dealing with annoying little brothers. The project, “How to Deal with and Care for Your Annoying Little Brother,” turned into a published book and has become the number-one best seller on the Amazon sibling-relationships list.
“I am an expert at taking care of my annoying little brother,” the now 8-year-old told TODAY.
Nia Mya has been handling her bothersome sibling, Ronald Michael, for five years, so she knows exactly what she’s doing. She understands that he’s annoying sometimes because he’s younger and just learning.
Her family remained unaware of the book until mom, Cherinita Ladd-Reese, found it in her daughter’s school work and thought Nia Mya might be onto something.
“I was very, very tickled. I said ‘I think you wrote your first self-help book for kids,’” Ladd-Reese told TODAY.
But she knew the book needed some work. Ladd-Reese encouraged her daughter to check the spelling and read the sentences out loud to see if they sounded correct. If not, the girl revised them until they were right.
Ladd-Reese approached Yorkshire Publishing to ask how to self-publish the book. But the company gave her stunning news — it wanted to publish it.
So Ladd-Resse suggested that Nia Mya work with her cousin, Faith Martin, a junior in high school, to sketch out the illustration concepts. They shared these with Yorkshire’s graphic designer and they became the basis of the illustrations.
While Ladd-Reese felt thrilled after seeing the book published in November 2016, she couldn’t believe when it made the best-seller list on Amazon.
“It has been a thrill ride,” she said.
As for Nia Mya, she says she’s “happy and excited” but feels mostly unfazed by her success. While Ladd-Reese hopes success doesn’t go to her daughter’s head, she feels thrilled by Nia Mya’s accomplishments.
“I cannot even begin to explain how proud I am,” she said. “I always told her ‘You are going to help a lot of people’ … I just didn’t know at 8 she was going to do it.”
Interesting Links:
Male Authors’ Wives Do a LOT of Typing
Harlots, via Hulu, Boasts All-Woman Creative Team
Carina Olsen
YAY for another amazing news post Kate 😀 Thank you for sharing all of this sweetie. <3 Eee, I cannot wait for IT 😀 It looks SO AWESOME, lol. I wasn't scared by the trailer.. but thinking I will be when I watch the movie 🙂 Yet I cannot wait, haha. I haven't seen the original movie, though. Anyway. Ahh. Wonder Woman. So excited for that movie 😀 And lol at weird drama for it :p
Kate Copeseeley
I’m glad you’re excited about It. You have nerves of steel. I saw that little kid talking to his brother in the tunnel and I was like, TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFFFFF!!!!! hahaha
Very odd Wonder Woman drama, I agree. 🙂
Briana @ Pages Unbound
I can’t think of few things I care less about than Wonder Woman’s armpits. :p Sure, it may seem unlikely that her culture developed shaving, but as far as I’m aware, we don’t actually know so maybe they did start doing it independently, regardless of their lack of contact with other cultures. Either way, there totally would have been loud critics if the actress didn’t shave. I think we all know that, despite movements towards letting women do they want in these instances, there are still societal norms, and people can get vicious when you break them. (Not to mention that purposely having hairy armpits would have guaranteed starting a conversation about Wonder Woman’s armpits, which I’m sure no one working on the movie wants because this isn’t the point at all! Too bad we ended up with that conversation anyway.)
Kate Copeseeley
I am absolutely with you on your opinion of WW’s body hair! hahaha And no matter what, I also agree that if WW DID have a bunch of body hair, everyone would be talking about it even more! I honestly just want to be happy she’s getting a movie, you know? I’ve waited soooooooooo long!!
kris @ lemon-notes
Holy cucumbers, that trailer for The Book of Henry looks SO GOOD. I haven’t heard anything about it until now! This is a movie that I need to see like NOW.
Kate Copeseeley
I remember seeing a teaser or something, but I agree! I got total chills from that trailer. 🙂