Robert De Niro's career

http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2016/01/dirty-grandpa.html

There are many ways you could go in attacking something like Dirty Grandpa. The easiest is to lament the fall of arguably the greatest actor from the greatest period in the history of film, to rend clothing and ululate about how De Niro has begun cashing checks in his dotage. It's tempting to use clever turns of phrase like "Aging Bull" as shorthand to avoid engaging with it. The hard way to approach Dirty Grandpa is to try to draw it into the larger conversation of what's happened to the state of our state when stuff like this is right there on the verge of being accepted as the new social lingua franca. It's the movie version of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. There's no thesis, just provocation upon non sequitur provocation.

"I want to fuck a horse and drink its blood" --Deniro in Dirty Grandpa

Surprised this article hasn't come up here before (though not sure of the argument)

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/this-theory-on-why-robert-de-niro-is-making-bad-films-is-wildly-depressing-a7111161.html

A counterpoint, from Reverse Shot:

Best Raging Bull: Robert De Niro in Dirty Grandpa
Like many other worthy comedies distributed in the drippy doldrums of late January, Dirty Grandpa was stomped on by cruise-controlled critics who took its release date and narrative scenario—a mouthy old horndog tries to re-enact Spring Breakers with his grandson in the name of inter-generational bonding—as indicators of de facto badness. Au contraire: this second film by the Oscar-nominated Ali G and Borat scribe Dan Mazer is a work of surprisingly clear-eyed vision: it’s a 90-minute leer in the general direction of Zac Efron, whose good-sporting, essentially decorative presence—i.e. stumbling around a police station lockup in an orange crop top reading “Stop Staring at My Tits”—gently redirects the masculine thrust of the material. The satirical key is the contrast between Efron’s hard-bodied blitheness and De Niro’s spirit-is-willing/flesh-is-weak intensity as the titular Grandpa; the way that the older man simultaneously resents, envies, and competes against his genetic inheritor is funny and truthful in ways that transcend the drab formalities of the plot. To some extent, Mazer is exploiting his gleefully slumming star’s aura, but darned if De Niro doesn’t seem more liberated than in any role in recent memory. This is what committed comic acting looks like.

Gleefully slumming star? This is what committed comic horrifically ham acting looks like.

i surprisingly laughed a lot @ dirty grandpa; its 100% ridiculous but idk i also think its kinda fun the lines that bobby d has to deliver convincingly, and does

it's a total abortion

like worse than al pacino in that fucking adam sandler film

He's working with Scorsese (and Joe Pesci and Al Pacino) again on The Irishman.

What a shocker, another #Resistance anti-Trumper turns out to just want a more polite form of exploitation. https://t.co/7o4kVFNkkw

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) June 11, 2018

hard to believe the man whose best performance of the last 20 years might well be in dirty grandpa would nowadays be more interested in disaster capitalism than art

I probably went to A Bronx Tale in 1993 hoping for something really good--De Niro was still a pretty good bet at the time. Forgot about it immediately. If you can give De Niro a pass for the slavish Goodfellas imitation (Jungle Fever, too), it actually holds up pretty well. Pesci's bit at the end is nice.

i don't think i'll ever get over what a disappointment a bronx tale is/was. probably my most loathed film of all time
― NI, Tuesday, May 13, 2014 10:57 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Someone who couldn't give him a pass, I guess.

Palminteri really looked like a contender for awhile there, this and Bullets Over Broadway were his absolute peak though. His career went much better than Lillo Brancato Jr's however...

Should mention him, too--he was good (and wrote it, of course). So were the young actors who played C and Jane.

Taxi Driver 2: The Legend of Bickle's Gold
― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, September 12, 2003

still a treasure

I would really like to see Midnight Run again. I saw it in the theater but I don't remember it much at all, but I remember liking it. The idea of a buddy cop action comedy with Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin is pretty wacky.

Nothing’s more unnatural and awkward than DeNiro hamming it up

What’d I say to you?

If the part of this song about him "Never, ever [trying comedy] again" had remained true, it might've spared us Dirty Grandpa at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh9GEvMzA6I

Bagel salesman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdMpVZ42RLk

absolutely fucking risible

The UK really is like Japan, so many US actors slumming it in commercials.

how much money does robert de niro need, really

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu8q3fcKNMk

De Niro, Pacino, Keitel... who's left?

Guy who played billy blanco from the bronx doing a Greggs ad?

I love Leguizamo and that would make me sad

Jeff Bridges in a shitty beer ad atm

Johnny Depp the next face of the Sun Life Over 50s Plan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ManyCesoujg

Where's the Jack Nicholson adverts?

Jeff Bridges in a shitty beer ad atm

oh god yeah this is absolutely atrocious and kinda made me hate jeff bridges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdf_XybtFjU

Bob and Al hafta subsidize those 4-hr Scorsese epics

was wondering if james caan had done any ads and i can't seem to find any, which is heartening

It's funny thinking about the reverence and mystique conferred onto some of these hack one note clowns in the late 80's and what a joke they are now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kao5YQeohyQ

This is a genre of itself. Notice the diners sitting on the corner just like they did in the Sopranos.

was wondering if James Caan had done any ads* and i can't seem to find any, which is heartening

I thought I'd seen a Caan ad, but was confusing him w/Robert Loggia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZIzRqDOSZo

*Actually, there is a James Caan commercial on youtube, but it's for Rehab center, so it probably doesn't count.

Christ, the DeNiro bagel ad even uses a faux "Jump Into The Fire."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InzueIgtTbo

He's on a roll (not a bagel) at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02UES6ghcGs

Great photo, showed up on my FB wall (Cannes, 1976). Thought about posting it on the "Photos taken of famous people together that you would never have expected to be together but make you happy all the same," as a joke.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTB0pnPVEAAl55K.jpg:large

what about de niro's father's career imo

I knew his mom was an established painter; somehow I forgot his father was, too.

there is a poll between De Niro and Pacino on twitter right now about who was hotter when they were young, with hundreds of thousands of votes

At a wedding and having a big debate rn. Please vote. Who was hotter?

— Ashley Reese (@offbeatorbit) May 14, 2023