The last update we gave you on Pearl, French director Elsa Amiel's debut feature, was back in April, and big news it was - news that Swiss sizzler Julia Föry had been cast as the film's eponymous heroine. The film is currently "in post-production", we noted, meaning it could well be doing the festival rounds as early as this summer.
Julia Föry as Pearl
And that is indeed what has happened. Shown in Venice last Saturday, the film has had "strong word-of-mouth" according to France24. And the first review - on Indie Wire - praises both the film for "subverting the male gaze in striking fashion", and Julia, "whose acting debut suggests her abilities as a performer aren’t confined to the stage".
Julia (with Peter Mullan) in Pearl
There's also the first stills, and the first preview clip, which - though we don't get to see what shape Julia is in - demonstrates that she has more than enough star quality to hold the camera's attention. Plus we all get to play a bit of "Spot the FBB Extra".
What we'd really like to see though, is the film in its entirety! Even more so after reading Indie Wire writer Michael Nordine's description of its opening moments...
The first close-up is almost microscopic, so close to the skin you can see sweat emanating from individual pores as you try to discern what body part you’re looking at. Then the camera pulls back ever so slightly, just enough for you to realize you’re inches away from the base of a woman’s neck — might this be Pearl? — as she pushes herself to the limit on a weight machine. The music, a dreamy guitar riff that wouldn’t be out of place in a David Lynch film, isn’t as loud as her pained exhalations.
With Shannon Rabon (-Perdikis) the Overall Bodybuilding champion (we warned you! - see FMS passim) and one of three new Female Bodybuilding pros, plus Dana Shemesh (-Meirovitch) among the 20(!) new Physique pros, this will not be the last and only time FMS pays a visit to last weekend's NPC North Americans in Pittsburgh.
However, our initial research hasn't got much further than the (always) stunning (especially so because she now competes in Physique) Lauren Martin-Stow.
There were a lot of ladies in the Physique division, but I seriously doubt any of them had as good a time on stage as Lauren. Or at least that's how she makes it seem.
Hardly the biggest, hardly the most ripped - she doesn't even look that tanned, or oiled up for that matter. But these normal prerequisites just go right out of the window when there's so much emoting going on. Just her range of expression as she performed her chest pose was surely enough to cause all sorts of mess for heads in the audience.
And as for the side triceps...
Was anyone lucky enough to have actually been there? Did she actually roar? Did it shake the auditorium to its foundations, make the building's structure unsafe? Did subsequent classes have to be held in a hastily rearranged alternative venue?
Answers on a postcard please.
And as an extra treat, here she is emoting in motion.
A new occasional series, Underrated is not intended to be about judging decisions - if it was, we could probably run a post about every single woman who's ever competed! Instead, we aim to (re)focus on women who we think do not enjoy the prominence they deserve in the collective female muscle consciousness - someone a new recruit to the female muscle lovin' world would not necessarily come across.
UNDERRATED?
Less than 30 pics on GwM, and no more than a five-page thread on the forum whose first rule is... and the majority of those pages are taken up with more recent, post-retirement pics (more about that later). It's highly unlikely - as it is with all of the women we feature on Underrated - that you would underrate her if you know her, but with that kind of coverage, then it's also unlikely you have come across Tatianna unless you're old enough to remember her from her turn of the millennium pomp.
She was of that era when the line-ups at the USAs and the Nationals read like a list of all-time favourites compiled by some 40-something muscle head (like me). Sarah Dunlap, Heather Policky, Bonnie Priest, Gina Davis, Colette Nelson, Michelle Tuggle, Lora Ottenad, Sherry Smith... I could go on. She competed with distinction against all of them, she totally looked the part, but ultimately Tatianna - despite a couple of top 6 finishes - never placed high enough to win her pro card and compete at the very highest level. After a (thankfully) brief (and unsuccessful) dalliance with the Figure division, she would only ever get out her posing suits again for paying clients. She went "under the radar" as I believe they say on the dark side.
CAREER
If she was competing now and at her 2001-2002 peak, I'd say she would have won just about all of the IFBB shows so far in 2018, with only the Toronto Pro a possible exception. However, in her time she was just one of a thunderous cohort of soon-to-be greats and others, like her, who would have been greats in another decade.
From Baltimore, we first find her competing locally at the Eastern USA Championships in 1996 as a "novice". Four years later she is at the Atlantic States Championships earning her only class and Overall win.The year after that, at her first national level show - the NPC USAs - she makes the Heavyweight top 6, and then at the North Americans places 4th behind Lisa Aukland, Colette Nelson and Carmen Brady.
Though she undoubtedly looked great in 2001, her peak, I would say, came in 2002 at the NPC Nationals. In a Heavyweight division packed with some of the best female muscle ever (not only compared to today but also any other day) Tatianna placed 4th, a 5'9" ripped ebony Amazon showing off her genetic gifts and exceptional development in all their glistening pumped glory. In the judges' opinions, she was bettered on the day only by Sherry Smith, Alley Miesch-Nie and Overall winner Sarah Dunlap. She never reached such competitive heights again - placing 13th at the Nationals in 2003, and the less said about the return as a Figure competitor in 2005 the better.
If you haven't noticed already though, it's time to point out that as well as being a 5'9" ebony Amazon, Tatianna was (and still is, more about this later), an absolutely gorgeous woman. This muscle + beauty combo was then, as now, much in demand on the schmotography circuit, and while it's not easy to find contest pics of Tatianna, she did more than her fair share of glamour work. WPW/Ray Martin (as always) got in earlier than most, much of their work with her done while she was very much in her voluptuous (and quite frankly f***ing ginormous) off-season shape.
There was work with Physique Art (remember them?!) and others that showcased Tatianna in pretty much a "mainstream" glamour kind of way - a model who just happened to have massive muscles! Awefilms, on the other hand, tended to use her as an "action girl", beating up unfortunate/fortunate (depending on your point of view) male weaklings in mini-movies "Sista Paine" and "Gladiatrix FemMuscle Action".
She was also memorably (in my house) shot by Ivana Ford (again, remember her?!) and perhaps most memorably of all by Bill Dobbins, wearing nothing but some sand.
APPRECIATION
The day after the muscle worship episode of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends aired, I overheard four women in my office discussing the show, and particularly the Female Bodybuilders it featured. "Yuk!" was pretty much the capsule review - Louis spends most of his time talking to Maria Calo and her (short-lived) husband, you may recall. I expected nothing less, I'd been bitterly disappointed not so much by the portrayal of the world I was so fascinated by, but more the choice of subjects. They could have had Yaz Boyum, but instead we got Maria, and the fans Louis spoke to... embarrassing. But then one of the women says, "except Tatianna" and to my delight they all agreed. She was "lovely" they said, "such a sweet person", "so girly", "yes, very feminine".
And it wasn't just on British TV that Tatianna got noticed. She was a regular on those US chat shows that used to feature FBBs from time to time in a kind of "all woman" pro-female muscle way (those were the days, eh?!). Hardly surprising then that Dobbins selected Tatianna (not, note, Maria Calo) to represent his work on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno when doing publicity for his (racy) book Modern Amazons.
She was - on top of being an outstanding amateur Bodybuilder at a time when future legends were all over the NPC - an articulate, funny, stunningly beautiful, strong woman. And whatever "it" is that makes some muscle women capable of reaching out towards the mainstream and not being mocked, she had that in spades as well.
NOW
As you can see, she has still got most of those qualities today. She's still hot, one forum poster says. She's just not big anymore. Oh really?! That bicep is an illusion, is it?
Watch that (mostly cringeworthy) Louis Theroux episode in full here, or just the "Meets Fans of Female Bodybuilders" segment here. I haven't turned up any of the Jay Leno footage, so if you know where it can be found then please do get in touch.
Not an "official" Sunday Sizzler, but it is Sunday and this woman is volcano hot, so...
Kim is one half of "The Dynamic Duo", a couple "working on their fitness" and documenting that work on their shared Instagram. Don't be scared though, I say "shared", but you could count the pics that feature Mike on one hand, while you'll need more than one hand to count the pics of his hot and hard better half posted today.
We're posting just the one.
We think it'll make you want to see more...
Enjoy!
Summer and Summer Lovin' ends here. FMS is back to normal tomorrow.
Despite hot, hard and disproportionately developed competition from the likes of Suelen Bissolati and more recently Alessandra Alvez, Gracyanne Barbosa remains Brazil's bumbum #1. Heading towards 7 million Instagram followers - Suelen and Alessandra both have less than half a million, and even Eva Andressa Vieira with 4.6 million isn't in the same league - and, although not a competitive Bodybuilder, Gracyanne was in your Hot and Hard 100 for the fifth consecutive year in 2018.
Mostly, it's Gracyanne's spectacular lower body, her world-renowned bumbum and thunder thighs, that get all the attention - and rightly so. However, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that recently as well as adding definition to her prodigious size down below, Gracyanne has also been getting bigger and more defined up top.
This is all good. As a female muscle lover, more muscle is always good. But spare a thought for Gracyanne. Suddenly nothing in her wardrobe (that isn't super stretchy) seems to fit anymore. For a while I could still do my jeans up as long as I didn't have any underwear on, she explains. But now I can't even do that. Worse still, her ever-growing body has actually destroyed a fair portion of her wardrobe. Not that anyone's complained, but it's pretty awkward when your top just rips open in public, she says. And I'm having my lingerie custom-made now because everything off-the-peg bursts at the seams as soon as I put it on. Not that her husband's complaining...
Is her love of pole fitness responsible for this growth spurt?
Or is it - notwithstanding somewhat ridiculous accusations that she is the "Queen of Fake Weights" (ie. that in her training videos the amount she seems to be shifting is just a few actual weights plus a load of 0kg "fake" ones) - simply that she trains really hard?
Whatever she's doing, it's working.
Ai karamba!
[NB: Gracyanne Barbosa had nothing to do with the making of today's post, and all quotes attributed to her are completely made up - FMS Legal]
As women who feature heavily in GwM's High Score Today go, Amanda Ballengee is - in my experience - rather unique. Exquisite muscle beauty, one comment reads, but completely different to the usual on this site - no gym pics found at all!
No gym pics found on her Instagram nor website either. Instead we have Amanda picking blueberries (she can pick and carry a lot with those arms). There's Amanda with her gun dog artwork. There's Amanda with her guns (handguns and semi-automatics) and her other weapon of choice, her bow. And there's Amanda "checking cams and taking names" (eh?!) in the West Virginia woodland she calls home.
The title of today's post - Wild & Wholesome - is the name of the blog which you can read on her website, and while she clearly has an affinity for "the wild", just how "wholesome" you find her will be very much a matter of personal opinion. To some, she is simply "a lovely country girl", "a strong, confident woman representative of our Western Christian culture". To others, she is "a crazed Christian conservative".
A few years ago an old friend of mine (real not online), very successful in his field of business, decided he was going to get himself some glasses. He didn't need to wear them, there was, and as far as I know still is, absolutely nothing wrong with his vision. He just felt he needed to look a bit more intellectual in meetings, where he was often up against guys who "just looked so f***ing intelligent" with their specs on.
There's quite a lot of him in C. Moore Glootz - the bluster, the sideways point of view, the egocentricity (not that he isn't a lovely guy underneath all that!). Strangely though, some recent research reported in the UK media has suggested that not only was my old friend correct in thinking wearing glasses makes you look smarter, but also that there may actually be a link between having poor eyesight and being intelligent.
Research commissioned by Scrivens Opticians & Hearing Care and carried out by OnePoll.com found one third believe spectacle wearers look more intellectual than those who don't have prescription eyewear. The research also found 32 per cent of glasses wearers think they are perceived 'differently' when they wear glasses.
[The Sun, 31 January 2018]
Built to last: Gaby Quiros is smart enough to find the Corinth Canal
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has found that needing to wear glasses is associated with higher levels of intelligence. In the study, the largest of its kind ever conducted, researchers from the University of Edinburgh analyzed cognitive and genetic data from over 300,000 people aged between 16 and 102 that had been gathered by the UK Biobank and the Charge and Cogent consortia. Their analysis found “significant genetic overlap between general cognitive function, reaction time, and many health variables including eyesight, hypertension, and longevity”. Specifically, people who were more intelligent were almost 30% more likely to have genes which might indicate they’d need to wear glasses.
[The Guardian, 30 May 2018]
Whether what's brought it on is the (sometime) glasses wearing Swoon of the Year Shannon Seeley, or my recent deep exploration of Amanda Machado's Instagram, or something else entirely, over the last couple of weeks I've been actively searching for and collecting images of bespectacled muscular beauties for FMS.
Jana Beeckman makes sure everything matches
Am I entering some kind of brawn plus brains period?
Rachael Chaskey has read at least one book
Anecdotal evidence on the forums abounds with suggestions that some muscle women are, in fact, just as "meat-headed" as (I imagine all) male BBs (to be). I've never seen FBBs as anything less than brilliantly intelligent simply because they've chosen right, chosen the correct answer if you like - a life devoted to Bodybuilding.
So I dismiss that kind of forum chatter. For one thing, there are the actually academically qualified and professionally high-achieving types (see below), but what about Cory Everson, who plotted a career into the mainstream that remains unrivalled? What about Denise Masino or Lisa Cross or Brandi Mae Akers, who have turned their talents to money-making via muscle erotica? What about Emery Miller, chatting away to her fans on cam and managing to be engaging and apparently knowledgeable across a wide range of subjects? The most popular Female Bodybuilders, more often than not it seems to me, appeal not only to our baser physical instincts, but can also reach the largest of erogenous zones - our brains.
Doctor Alex Mossbarger
In a thread called "Female Bodybuilders with a High IQ", Bettina Kadet (now Salomone) (optometrist), Kathy Connors (well-read, knew "an impressive amount" about a minor African conflict according to a head who met her), Cerra Aredia (lawyer), Dina Al Sabah (polyglot, BSc, MSc, MBA), Dr. Michelle Neil, Dr. Dena Westerfield, Heather Darling ("accomplished" lawyer), the late great Renee O'Neil (BSc, MSc, missile defence program director), Chris Lydon (did Neurobiology and French, then graduated from Yale Medical School before discovering Bodybuilding), and, of course, Kristy Hawkins (chemist) all get shout outs.
None of them - as far as I know - are famous for wearing specs though...
Neither are many of the women we've featured today, and some I was genuinely surprised to find wearing glasses - Cass Martin, for example, Michaela Aycock, Ashlee Potts, and Megan Elizabeth Colvin. Only one or two - Paige Sandgren being the obvious example - are more commonly seen with than without eyewear, and much of Paige's geeky-girl-next-door appeal stems from that very fact.
Do the rest of them know what my old friend worked out and the later research confirmed (sort of) - that glasses really do make you look more intelligent?
It's win-win as far as I can tell. If they really do need to wear the glasses then research shows they are likely to be have clever genes anyway. And even if they are wearing them solely for effect, well that just shows how smart they are too. Either way my suspicions are confirmed. Muscle women are as brainy as they are beautiful.
