Night and the City (1992 film) De Niro's work as "more like a riff on Rupert Pupkin, the goofy talk show fan he played in Scorsese's "The King of Comedy"". Ebert and Howe both agreed, however, that Alan King's performance was fantastic. Owen Gleiberman concurred in his review, but he sided with Ebert regarding De Niro, concluding, "the actor who once seemed the heir to Brando, Clift, and, yes, Widmark — the actor who once got so far inside his roles that he just about detonated the screen — now plays characters who don't seem to have any inner life at all." David Ansen praised the
Drena De Niro Batson of The Black Nexxus Acting Studio. With the turn of the millennium, De Niro set her sights on writing and directing her first film, "Girls and Dolls". This documentary examined a young stylist's obsession with her dolls, and won De Niro the Best Directorial Debut Award at the New York Independent Film/Video Festival in 2001. More recently De Niro's endeavors have led her back to Italy, where she worked on her latest film. Since 2006, she has been the spokesperson for the Kageno Orphan Sponsorship Program, which helps provide care for orphaned children in Kageno villages. De Niro currently