on volunteering

nevertheless an optimist

 

"[When auditioning] assume you're not getting the part. It'll free you to make bigger, bolder choices."
- Robert De Niro [born 1943]

coming of age

Lorenzo:

The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.

- A Bronx Tale

You're Fucked

routine

"I get up 4:30-5am every day and work out. Keep the bones strong. 45 pound dumbbells. Aerobics, Bike."
- Robert De Niro 

What to do when ...

... you're staying at Robert De Niro's NYC hotel here. 

a taste of other lives

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method

"It's true: I spent lunchtime in a grave during the filming of Bloody Mama. When you`re younger, you feel that's what you need to do to help you stay in character. When you get older, you become more confident and less intense about it -- and you can achieve the same effect. You might even be able to achieve more if you take your mind off it, because you`re relaxed. That's the key to it all. When you`re relaxed and confident, you get good stuff."

- Robert De Niro

portrait of artists

"Art is capturing something essential."

- Kevin Kline [born 1947]

Photograph of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese by Brigitte Lacombe.

An earlier reference to essence here.

simplify

Hans Hoffman [1880-1966] identified Elysium [top image] as his own favorite work.

Hofmann came into his own when he was in his 70s and 80s. Robert De Niro's parents met at a Hofmann class. Hoffman's considered by some as the most important artist/teacher of the last several hundred years. Push-Pull. Space. Plasticity.

An earlier reference to De Niro's father here.

De Niro's Tribeca Hotel

The artwork behind Robert De Niro is by his father, now deceased.

Robert De Niro [born 1943] is photographed behind the reception desk of his new boutique hotel, The Greenwich, in Tribeca, Manhattan; he indicated on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show that he expects final construction to be completed within another 6 months.

Benjamins

Cent' Anne

Robert De Niro [born 1943] played a pivotal role in Francis Coppola's The Godfather, Part II, as young Don Vito Corleone. His performance earned him his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor. He became the first actor to win an Academy Award speaking only a foreign language [Sicilian].

--------

Michael sits at a large table with Kay, his son Anthony, Mama, Hagen and Teresa, Connie and Merle' Fredo and Deanna, and Frankie Pentangeli.

MAMA

Cent' Anne.

This, the table of honor, all raise their glasses and repeat the toast.

DEANNA

What's 'cent' Anne?'

FREDO

A hundred years...it's a toast.

CONNIE

It means we should all live happily for one hundred years. The family. If my Father were alive, it'd be true.

"Godfather Part Two" screenplay by Mario Puzo [1920-1999] and Francis Ford Coppolla [born 1939] who won 5 Academy Awards by the age of 35 and has bipolar disorder.

The 2blowhards assess Coppolla and the first film he's made as a director in ten years "Youth Without Youth" here.

You probably shouldn't be talkin' to him

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"
- Robert De Niro as unstable former Marine Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver [1976]. Paul Schrader's entire screenplay here.

Inspired by Travis, John Hinkely, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Regan in 1981. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.