Niro

"Flawless" isn't. Not by a long shot.It's obvious and stereotypical. It's leaden and unconvincing. It's not nearly as outrageous as it thinks it is.And it offers the sad sight of Robert De Niro playing yet another physically flawed character, in a performance that's more artifice than acting. At this stage in his career, no one should doubt De Niro's ability to shape his body and soul around the most damaged characters imaginable, be they overweight fighters, deranged taxi drivers, murderous psychopaths or comatose mental patients.

"Analyze This," the new movie from comedy expert Harold Ramis ("Groundhog Day," "Ghostbusters"), would be worth celebrating if only for its centerpiece, Robert De Niro doing a hilariously dead-on impersonation of himself.But a gem like De Niro's performance can only be set off by the proper setting, which makes "Analyze This" such a rare find: a well-conceptualized comedy that actually achieves what it sets out to do, in about 100 minutes.No bells, no whistles, no errant bodily fluids making their way to the leading lady's hair, "Analyze This" gets its laughs the honest way: with a generous amount of mugging, several inside movie jokes, some giddy sight gags and lots of undemanding humor along the way.Mostly, though, the laughs in "Analyze This" are for De Niro, who plays a gangster named Paul Vitti.

When "Wag the Dog" was nominated for three Golden Globe awards last month, no one was more surprised than the film's director, Barry Levinson."If you're basically setting out to do a satire of politics and show business, and to be cynical, you assume that you'll never be particularly accepted," Levinson said recently, calling from his home in Marin County, Calif. "I think that's historically the case. We put a lot on the table, and it's quite interesting, the reactions we're getting.""Wag the Dog" is a wicked political satire in which Robert De Niro plays Conrad Brean, a Washington spin doctor who manufactures a television war with the help of Hollywood producer Stanley Motss, played by Dustin Hoffman.

Charlie Sheen goes AWOL from drug rehab centerLess than a day after his release from a hospital after a drug overdose, Charlie Sheen left a drug rehabilitation center and was picked up by police and taken to another hospital for vTC observation, authorities said.The 32-year-old actor, who has starred in "Platoon," "Wall Street" and, most recently, "Money Talks," was stopped Saturday while cruising Pacific Coast Highway in a limousine with friends. The rehab center had alerted authorities, warning that Sheen needed supervision because of medication he was taking under a doctor's care.

EVERYBODY SAYS we're heading for war, so naturally we headed for the movies to see who wins. "Wag the Dog" was playing. Everybody says it's the blueprint for the coming conflict with Iraq, a transparent excuse to get our minds off the president's trousers, except it's Albania playing the patsy in the movie."

Sylvester Stallone is enjoying a wave of publicity these days extolling his high-mindedness for accepting less than his usual mega-millions to appear in a "serious film." But after seeing "Cop Land," a question naturally arises: Has Stallone really done anyone any favors?It's not that Stallone, who plays a lumpish, slow-witted New Jersey sheriff, embarrasses himself in "Cop Land." His is a modest, unshowy performance, expressing a genuineness absent from virtually every other Stallone picture since the first "Rocky."

It's a quiet night in TV land, but let's see if we can't dredge something up."Dave's World" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- You wanna have Maude handling your career? Dave apparently does, as Bea Arthur drops by to play his new agent, who turns out to be a rather pushy sort. Certainly sounds in character. CBS."Boy Meets World" (8: 30 p.m.-9 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Shawn (Rider Strong) becomes a girl -- Veronica Wasboyski, by name -- to research an article for the school paper about dating and sexual harassment.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Getting to know Robert De Niro is like getting to know the stranger sitting next to you on a city bus. You can ask basic questions and get reluctant answers, but the stranger probably wishes he were sitting next to the mute bag lady who wasn't so curious.De Niro is a great actor. He gives his all even in a small part like the bumbling pathologist he plays in "Marvin's Room," which is scheduled to open locally Jan. 31. But as an interview, the word is that he's no award winner.

I'm still trying to find a women's magazine worth reading. As usual, Ms. is the only one that comes close.Its tone is heavy-duty, to be sure, but somebody has to talk to women as if they were more than the sum of their beauty-tipped parts. Ms. has long understood that women care more about getting along with men than getting in bed with them; this month it asks the guys themselves if they've been getting the message.Michael Kimmel writes about the decidedly small proportion of men who don't simply pay lip service to feminism but actually participate in it. Virtually everybody these days believes in equal rights, Kimmel points out, but "Some men declare themselves feminists just a bit too effortlessly, especially if they think it's going to help them get a date."

Only major star power can set the heads of Venice, Italy's jaded concierges and door bouncers swiveling, and with the Lido landing this week of Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro at the Venice Film Festival, rubberneckers had their biggest field day in years.The occasion was a press junket here for producer-director Barry Levinson's crime drama "Sleepers," which had its world premiere Wednesday night. The Italian media's embrace of "Bobbee!" and "Dusteen!" is so complete that well over 200 of its regulars spilled onto the Lido docks to greet the pair and fellow "Sleepers" stars Jason Patric, Vittorio Gassman, Levinson and producer Steve Grodin when they arrived.

Madonna adoption request rejected On Friday, a judge rejected Madonna's request to adopt a second child from Malawi and said it would set a dangerous precedent to bend rules requiring that prospective parents live there for some period. Madonna's lawyer, Alan Chinula, said he has "filed notice for appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal." The country's child welfare minister had come out Thursday in support of the pop superstar's application to adopt a 3-year-old. But in a lengthy ruling Friday, Judge Esme Chombo sided with critics who have said exceptions should not be made for the star, who has set up a major development project for the impoverished African country.

Ben (Robert De Niro), the producer in the middle of the Hollywood comedy What Just Happened?, always has to push ahead, even when he's not sure where he's going and even when he regrets leaving something behind. Enormous projects such as Hollywood movies or American political campaigns require a propulsive, never-say-die attitude just to cross the finish line. At the moment this movie picks up Ben's life story, he's not sure he's going to make it there on any front. He's still in love with his second wife (Robin Wright Penn)

What a difference a director makes. When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro shared a scene together in Heat, with Pacino as the L.A. cop par excellence and De Niro as the master criminal, the wide-awake and super-skilled Michael Mann orchestrated it, aptly enough, as a meeting of street legends, and the legendary actors pulled it off. When Pacino said "I don't know how to do anything else" and "I don't much want to, either" and De Niro replied, twice, "Neither...

There's a great, taut, jet-black satire hidden at the center of The Good Shepherd, Robert De Niro's anemic epic about the founding of the Office of Strategic Services before the Second World War and the OSS' postwar transformation into the Central Intelligence Agency. The government and military gamble that men with old school backgrounds will have a deeper emotional investment in their country and fewer conflicts about protecting it than more recent immigrants. They want the reliability of a rock-ribbed bank.

THE QUESTION A dysfunctional group hops in a vehicle and heads off across America, with wacky comedy in hot pursuit. Where have we heard that before? Oh, wait ... Johnson Family Vacation. Oh, and Flirting with Disaster, and Lost in America, and National Lampoon's Vacation. Oh, and ... you get the idea. Anyway, Robin Williams is the latest to take his turn behind the wheel in the new RV. It makes us wonder, what do you consider the greatest "road trip" comedy? WHAT YOU SAY The best road movie in my mind is Midnight Run [1988]

In mid-December, Kermit the Frog carried Robert De Niro on Saturday Night Live. When the two sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the plucky green amphibian did everything he could to make the duet work. Focusing his golf-ball eyes on the lethargic superstar's barely open ones, opening his mouth wide to put over each lyric while the big mug next to him mumbled through the words, Kermit kept De Niro in the scene. At one point, he even placed his long green hand on the actor's forearm just to steady him. When Kermit wasn't around, De Niro sank without a trace.

The story, like an old VHS tape, has undoubtedly been distorted by years of repeated use, but here goes: It's 1975. Dustin Hoffman is on the set of John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, running wind sprints to prepare for a scene that calls for his character to appear flushed and out of breath. Seeing his young co-star jog up and down the street for no apparent reason, Laurence Olivier - the wizened Pharaoh of British theater - haughtily asks Hoffman to explain himself. When Hoffman obliges, Olivier shakes his head and clucks, "Why don't you try acting, my boy?"

I'm a big fan of surround sound, ever since I saw the movie Midway in the 1970s. I'll never forget bugging my dad about taking me to see the movie because of the booming guns of the warships and such. So getting that feeling at home - I have Midway on DVD - excites me. I'm not much of a regular television viewer, but movies on DVD hold a special place in my heart as solid, enjoyable entertainment. But getting the guns to boom on the tube requires adding some firepower to my television's sound system.

NEW YORK - Curled on a chair in her hotel room, Eliza Dushku is multitasking while a hair stylist and a makeup artist primp her for a late-night talk show spot. The actress finishes a salmon salad, takes a drag on a cigarette and chats about Wrong Turn, her new movie. "It's really scary, isn't it?" she says, with a mischievous look. It is, but Dushku, 22, isn't worried about becoming her generation's Jamie Lee Curtis. Dushku (rhymes with "push-koo") won fans as the dangerously sexy Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel.

Analyze This was a pleasant surprise, an unlikely comedy hit that both proved Robert De Niro could do comedy - who knew? - and provided him with the perfect partner, the genially wisecracking Billy Crystal. Analyze That is no surprise, and pleasant is about the most you can say for it. Reprising their roles as emotionally fragile mob boss Frank Vitti (De Niro) and his reluctant psychiatrist Ben Sobel (Crystal), the pair once again gives us The Godfather with laughing gas, or maybe it's The Sopranos without the pathos (but with the salty language perfectly intact)