Actor Robert De Niro was in court yesterday testifying against a gallery director accused of pocketing $77,000 from the sale of his father's paintings. Salander-O'Reilly Galleries owner Lawrence Salander was already sentenced to six years in prison for the $120 million fraud scheme over the summer, but De Niro claimed that gallery director Leigh Morse stole two of his father's paintings and sold them, pocketing the profits for herself.
The News initially gave his testimony a lukewarm review, saying he "was no raging bull on the witness stand." But the powers-that-be decided to run a rave review of the actor today, recounting his every word, describing his every action lustily ("twisted his face, body, and hands as tight as a butterfly knot").
We're happy somebody has something nice to say about De Niro's "actorly" abilities these days, since he hasn't been in a halfway decent movie since the late 90s, at best. If anything, he's been doing everything he can to spoil all the good will we have for him with caricatured performances in films such as Righteous Kill and What Just Happened, garbage franchises like the Fokers series, and bizarrely miserable appearances on live TV such as SNL. If you're like us, and desperately want to remember the De Niro who is one of the best actors of the 20th century, Taxi Driver is playing at Film Forum through the end of the month. And that is a movie worth talkin' (to oneself in the mirror) about.
