"Great Performers" and Fine Portraits

I always love the mid February edition of the NY Times Magazine. It tends to capture several Oscar nominees but spreads its net wider, too. One could say it's like a miniature version of Vanity Fair's traditional "Hollywood Issue". It then celebrates the handpicked field of glitterati with portraiture sessions. This year's man behind the lens is the award winning Italian photographer Paolo Pellegrin.


His subjects are almost entirely Oscary this year (shame. I liked the variety) with Kate Winslet as covergirl. Who else? She's in hair rollers for the cover but this photo above is my favorite still from her shoot. I love how bright-morning over lit she is and, it's so... red. The write up by author Tom Perotta (Little Children) is surprisingly interesting too in that, while very flattering, it's not entirely a puff piece. He expresses brief concerns about some career decisions and the way Winslet sometimes overemphasizes her dissimilarity to her unsympathetic characters on the promotional circuit.

Inside the magazine you get Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn, Penélope Cruz, Brad Pitt, Frank Langella and Robert Downey Jr. (pictured left with Jude Law on the set of Sherlock Holmes). The sole Off Oscar player for this round is rising star Kat Dennings who is profiled by her 40 Year-Old Virgin mom, Catherine Keener.

The highlight for me? I'm sure you've already guessed it. The entire Penélope Cruz section. It's got wonderful images and a profile by Pedro Almodóvar himself, including this actress-extravagant bit

Cruz belongs to the Mediterranean school of acting, a style that is characterized by its carnality, gutsiness, shamelessness, messy hair, generous cleavage and shouting as a natural form of communication. Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, the early Silvia Mangano, even Elizabeth Taylor and Rachel Weisz, mastered this style. Penélope's Raimunda in "Volver" was modeled on Magnani, Loren and Cardinale, and I guess that it was the mesy-haired, loud-voiced Penélope that inspired Woody Allen to cast her as the mentally unstable artist in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," a role for which in the past few months she seems to receive an award every other day.

If the profile weren't generous enough we even get several shots of Pené rehearsing her big dance number in Nine. [see many previous posts]

"Coochie coochie coochie coo... / I've got a plan for what I'm gonna do to you
So hot! / You're gonna steam and scream / And vibrate like a string..."

Yes please! More, more, more.

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