Best Engagements on the screen: Penelope Cruz & Daniel Day-Lewis

I adore Daniel Day-Lewis and Penelope Cruz seperately, equally. I think there is nowhere that you can't get with each of the actors in terms of acting. And if you have both of them in your hand, you'll expect the best performance ever...

Nine is not a bad movie, in fact it's a good musical with a perfect cast from Day-Lewis, to Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman...

Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't play in as many as movies as Penélope Cruz. He is known to be very selective about his roles (4 movies in last 10 years). He devotes himself fully to his roles and continues to act as his character in his real life, during and before the shooting of the movie. For example, in My Left Foot (1989), he is known to be staying in the wheelchair even after the shooting ends and spoon-fed by the crew of the production. During the Gangs of New York (2002), for the role 'Bill the Butcher', he gets sick and refuses to wear a warmer coat since a warmer coat didn't exist in 19th century. What a perfectionist, huh?

Penélope Cruz is an astonishing Spanish actress known for her roles in Almodóvar movies like Broken Embraces (2009), Volver (2006) and Live Flesh (1997). I admire her role in Vicky Christina Barcelona, but not the movie, and she got an oscar for this role.

Back to the musical film Nine, Daniel Day-Lewis performs an Italian director, Guido who is suffering from lack of inspiration after having shot very good movies (inspired by Federico Fellini's 8½) and trying to find a subject for his next movie, titled 'Italia'.

Penelope Cruz acts as the mistress of Guido in the movie. The story is about the women in Guido's life (his mum, wife, mistress, costume designer, a film star, a prostidude and a journalist). The reception of the movie wasn't very bright, but I think it's a successful movie and a must-see for the performances of Cruz and Day-Lewis (fun to see Day-Lewis with an Italian accent)

My favorite musical part of Nine is Kate Hudson's part (makes me feel dancing). Which one is yours?

p.s. Daniel Day-Lewis is coming back with a Martin Scorsese next to Benicio Del Toro and Gael García Bernal. It seems like a perfect cast again ;)

Which side would you choose?

Photography is art, but art is not only photography. In all aspects of art, one of the main purposes of the artist is to get out of the box. To do that, artists try to linger at the borders of their form of art and they sometimes find intersections. They extend the concept of art to a level where there is “art inside the art.”

This project performed by Marina Abramovic and Ulay is one of the great examples of this search for artistic ideas and concepts outside the box. Marina Abramovic is a performance artist from Yugoslavia. In 1976, she met with the German performance artist and photographer Uwe Laysiepen who prefers to go with the single name Ulay. They started to live together and form art.

The photograph was taken by Mario Carbone who directed the art show. The occasion is the opening reception of an art show hosted by Abramovic and Ulay. However, the concept of “art inside the art” is incorporated in the show amazingly as the two artists stand naked at the doorstep of the gallery facing each other.

Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Imponderablia (1977)

This interesting way of greeting the guests forces everyone to make a momentary decision to choose which one of the artists to face, male or female, as they go between them, through the doorstep. Watch the video to see which side people decided to face as they enter the gallery.

And then ask yourselves: Which side would you choose?