The new movie Barbie is the biggest film of the year 2023 in the US. It has broken several box office records. One of these is for making the most money for a non-superhero movie. Movie fans in the US paid a total of $162 million in the movie’s opening weekend.     1    . The film also made the most money for a movie made by a female director. Barbie was directed by Greta Gerwig, who also worked on the films Lady Bird and Little Women. Gerwig also co-wrote Barbie.     2    , so fans should get ready for Barbie 2 and Barbie 3. There may also be a spin-off (派生作品) that focuses on Barbie’s friend Ken.

    3    , made by the American toy (玩具) company Mattel. The toy was created by American businesswoman Ruth Handler and launched (推出) in 1959.     4    . Over a billion Barbie dolls have been made worldwide. Since the 1980s, Barbie has been the star of video games, cartoon movies and TV series (系列). In Gerwig’s film, Barbie unexpectedly (意外地) leaves her near-perfect cartoon world of Barbieland and comes to the human world. Movie experts say it is refreshing (令人耳目一新的) that Barbie is such an original (新颖的) movie.     5    . An expert said Barbie was a funny and attractive movie.

【推荐2】Guo Qi put his design (设计) skills to good use when he decided to start a homestay (民宿) business in 2018. The 34-year-old from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, has had a design company since 2016. “My first homestay was my own apartment,” Guo said. “I often stayed in Airbnb homestays when I traveled earlier, so I thought I should start the business on my own.” Now, he owns 30 homestays in the city.

“I wanted to install a swing in my living room but gave up the idea because it would cause some trouble for my kids,” Guo said. “But the idea would work for a homestay.” Guo installed swings at three of this homestay locations so that his guests could enjoy the beauty of the city through large windows while relaxing.

Guo Qi always redesigns his homestays from time to time. Guo said the idea was to meet guests’ different needs. It takes him up to 45 days to finish decorating (装修) a room to his taste, costing about 70,000 yuan. Practical use, comfort and design are usually the main things he pays much attention to while decorating a homestay. “It has to be different from a hotel,” he said.

He design of homestays is popular with young guests. Most guests are under 35 and they like homestay vacations. Guo said, “They are well-educated and easy to communicate with, and pay special attention to how comfortable a homestay is, as well as how different it is.”

The cartoons of a penguin interested in football and the funny side of pandemic life won the Kids News Cartoon Contest. Young cartoonists Mia Lai,10 and Zoe Neal, 13, packed fun and powerful messages into their drawings, impressing the experts of News Corp Australia.

Mia, from Sydney, was the winner in the Year 3~4 group with her cartoon about a penguin that made headlines when it swam 3,000 kilometres from Antarctica to New Zealand. “I was going to make him go there for fish and French Fries but I thought it would be funnier if he was at a football match because the sport is very popular. I googled and found out there was a match with France about the time when he was there.”

Zoe, from Melbourne, was the winner of Year 7~8 group, focused on COVID-19 with her cartoon named Travelling during the Pandemic. She said her cartoon pointed out that while people were unable to do much travelling during the pandemic, the virus was happily making their way around the world.

Zoe, who loves to draw and hopes for a job in cartoons, said she was very surprised and very happy to be a winner in the Kids News Cartoon Contest.

Four News Corp Australia’s big-name cartoonists picked the winners from more than 200 cartoons. The winners will receive a cartoon of themselves drawn by one of the expert cartoonists.