Còn mấy cái entry ở blog cũ, post nốt. Đây là một bài báo siêu buồn cười về việc Coppola quay ra chê bôi 2 đệ tử cũ + 1 đệ tử không chính thức, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro và Jack Nicholson.

Failure to act: Coppola disses Pacino, De Niro & Nicholson

---

Thursday, October 18th 2007, 4:51 PM

Rush & Molloy: Francis Ford Coppola disses Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino in a surprising critique of three of America's greatest actors.

---

Francis Ford Coppola

---

Al Pacino

Robert De Niro

(Jack chắc đang gân cổ cổ động cho L.A. Lakers)

Francis Ford Coppola disses Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino in a surprising critique of three of America's greatest actors.

No slouch himself, Coppola directed Pacino in "The Godfather" and Pacino and De Niro in "Godfather II," and was uncredited when directing Nicholson in the Roger Corman horror flick "The Terror."

But in the new GQ magazine, Coppola reveals that he's disappointed in the three as they've gotten older — and richer.

"I met both Pacino and De Niro when they were really on the come," Coppola tells GQ's Nate Penn. "They were young and insecure. Now Pacino is very rich, maybe because he never spends any money; he just puts it in his mattress. De Niro was deeply inspired by (Coppola's studio American) Zoetrope and created an empire and is wealthy and powerful.

"Nicholson was — when I met him and worked with him — he was always kind of a joker. He's got a little bit of a mean streak. He's intelligent, always wired in with the big guys and the big bosses of the studios.

"I don't know what any of them want anymore. I don't know that they want the same things. Pacino always wanted to do theater ... (He) will say, 'Oh, I was raised next to a furnace in New York, and I'm never going to go to L.A.,' but they all live off the fat of the land."

Not one of the actors would comment (De Niro and Pacino were on the set of Jon Avnet 's crime drama "Righteous Kill").

Some might ask Coppola how he has challenged himself lately. He admits he has been focused on his vineyard and on his resorts in Belize and Guatemala. He's coming out with an art film, "Youth Without Youth," for the first time in 10 years, a period when he has mostly executive-produced daughter Sofia 's pictures and, ironically, De Niro's "The Good Shepherd" last year.

"I think if there was a role that De Niro was hungry for, he would come after it. I don't think Jack would. Jack has money and influence and girls, and I think he's a little bit like (Marlon) Brando, except Brando went through some tough times. I guess they don't want to do it anymore.

"You know, even in those days, after 'The Godfather,' I didn't feel that those actors were ready to say, 'Let's do something else really ambitious.' A guy like (38-year-old "Before Night Falls" star) Javier Bardem is excited to do something good: 'Let me do this' or 'I'll put stuff in my mouth, change my appearance.' I don't feel that kind of passion to do a role and be great coming from those guys, because if it was there, they would do it."

===

Thực ra chê cũng đúng vì từ lâu lắm lắm rồi Robert De Niro và Al Pacino không có tác phẩm nào thực sự đáng chú ý, thậm chí lần "tái ngộ" của 2 người, Righteous Kill, lại là một thất bại thảm hại. Nhưng chê Jack thì hơi quá lời, Jack không có nền tảng học hành tử tế ở Actors Studio như De Niro và Al Pacino, nhưng bằng tài năng và sự thông minh, Jack vẫn trụ lại cho đến tận ngày nay bằng những vai diễn cực kì nổi trội trong About Schmidt, The Departed và mới đây nhất là The Bucket List. The Bucket List thực ra nội dung bình thường, quá nhiều cliché về giai đoạn cận kề cái chết, mô tả bệnh ung thư cũng quá nhẹ nhàng, unrealistic, rất may là Jack vẫn kéo lại được (không ấn tượng lắm với Morgan Freeman, vẫn phong thái, giọng kể từ cái thời .... Driving Miss Daisy cuối thập niên 1980).