Niro

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.

As reported in the Baltimore Sun and elsewhere, Robert De Niro had lunch on Saturday at Chazz: A Bronx Original, the Harbor East restaurant opened this summer by his friend, the actor Chazz Palminteri. De Niro was traveling on Saturday from Philadelphia, where he's filming a movie, to Washington, D.C., for the annual Kennedy Center Honors. I was at the restaurant when De Niro visited, with a dog's-eye view of the excitement. Actually it was less exciting than sweet. Palminteri and his Baltimore partners, the Vitale family, were obviously delighted that De Niro, a noted restaurateur in his own right, was coming for a visit.

A few weeks back my favorite film critic noted that ever young filmmaker in America wanted to be Martin Scorsese. But here's what even that genius didn't know: Robert De Niro wants to be Martin Scorsese.That, surely, is the impetus behind the curious "A Bronx Tale," in which Scorsese's chief collaborator for three decades moves behind the camera (while still staying in front of it) to film a corrosive tale about young men and wiseguys on the mean streets of a far New York 'hood -- Belmont Avenue, the Bronx, in the '60s.

Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro lunched at a Harbor East restaurant Saturday. De Niro had an early afternoon meal with actor and restaurateur Chazz Palminteri at his six-month old establishment Chazz: A Bronx Original in the 1400 block of Aliceanna St., according to restaurant spokeswoman Marianne Ortiz. De Niro was accompanied by several other guests, she said. He was on his way to Washington for the Kennedy Center Honors, scheduled for Sunday. Also present for the meal were Sergio and Alessandro Vitale, who run the business with Palminteri.

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.

ROBERT DE NIRO is not the easiest interview in the business. Ask him a question that has nothing to do with his personal life, and he is likely to tell you that it is a personal matter. He'll answer some questions, but he is just as likely to shrug, look at his audience and bring a particular line of interrogation to a halt.He is appearing in the new film ''GoodFellas,'' based on the book ''Wiseguy'' by Nicholas Pileggi, one of our leading authorities on the Mafia. Martin Scorsese directed.

In 1984, "Saturday Night Live" alumnus Bill Murray got savaged by critics for attempting a serious dramatic role in the remake of the 1946 Tyrone Power classic "The Razor's Edge" and has stuck with comedy ever since. But he may be heading into treacherous critical waters again.Sources close to Murray say his next film project may be "Mad Dogs and Glory," in which he would co-star with really serious actor Robert De Niro. The script, by Richard Price ("The Color of Money"), is the story of a thug loan shark (the role Murray would play)

$TC HOLLYWOOD -- Artist David Salle -- a post-modernist who rose to prominence with his figure portraits in the early 1980s -- may be making his directorial debut with an erotic thriller for producer Robert De Niro.Casting materials for "Nothing Compares to You" call for "extreme nudity" from actresses who consider themselves "sexually adventurous."Told from a woman's point of view, the story is about a wife who goes off for a weekend on her own after learning of her husband's affair. When a burglar shows up in her hotel room, she embarks on a sexual quest.

"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.

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)

On weekday mornings, I'll post the most controversial, shocking and (of course) ridiculous stories for your reading pleasure. That way, when you walk into work, you'll be the master of witty conversation National  • Thank God you live in America: China arrests Christians for having Easter service . (AFP)  • Thank God you live in America, II: Syria's bloody weekend . (Financial Times)  • Taliban stages huge prison break . (AP)  • The heroism of regular people: Attempted plane hijacker  overpowered . (Reuters)

It's Monday morning, so you know what that means: It's time for Donald Trump to say outrageous things on "Fox & Friends"!  Once again, he did not disappoint. In between calling President Barack Obama "this guy," Trump managed to take on OPEC ("There's never a word of criticism"), drilling for oil ("I think we should just drill"), his voting record in which he missed voting in primaries for 21 years ("Generally speaking, I like to vote"), and his environmental record ("I've received many, many environmental awards.

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...

He now lives in Connecticut with his wife, Diana, but writer-director-producer Barry Levinson is Baltimore's native son and, in the 25 years since Diner, he's been one of Hollywood's finest. That's why insiders and movie-lovers alike are gleefully anticipating his new independent comedy-drama, What Just Happened?, a "sometimes painfully funny" movie about a Hollywood filmmaker juggling ex-wives and volatile projects. The film features his Wag the Dog star Robert De Niro in the lead role.

Billy Crystal has made a good living out of reading situations and finding the humor and irony in them. He figured he and Meg Ryan would make the sort of utterly mismatched couple people would root for in When Harry Met Sally ..., and he figured it would be funny to put a nice Jewish boy in chaps in City Slickers. But if you had told him four years ago that he and Robert De Niro would be a comic team ... "I would have told you that you were completely outta your mind," says Crystal, who's re-teamed with De Niro in Analyze That, the anticipated sequel to the 1999 smash Analyze This.

It only happens rarely, but when it happens it's wonderful. You're sitting in the theater and the usual banal litany of images sloshes across the screen -- strong men, beautiful women or maybe it's beautiful men and strong women, guns, cars, explosions-and suddenly someone says something that knocksyou out of your socks. And you think: That's writing!In "Mad Dog and Glory," all the way through you think: That's writing.The film is hard to describe. A kind of shaggy gangster tale, it's a whacked-out anti-melodramatic comedy that delights in confounding expectations.

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]