Snail mail to Robert De Niro

Hey Bobby,

This morning I went down to the Clearview Chelsea Theater for a 9:30 press screening for a documentary on herring fishermen. I got up early just to make it there on time. My guess is that I probably would be the only person attending.

Anyhow, I stopped at the table in the lobby to check in but was told that I was not in the database. That didn’t surprise me since I never applied for press credentials. As a blogger (but with 650 film reviews on Rotten Tomatoes), I figured that I would not pass muster.

But I had been invited by the film’s publicist to attend the screening. Even though she vouched for me, I was still not admitted. It was a “security issue” they told me, as if I was concealing a pressure cooker bomb. When I told them “Fuck you and fuck the Tribeca Film Festival”, the off-duty cop serving as a security guard got up from his chair with his hand on his gun to tell me to shut up. I said that since there is no law against telling someone to fuck off, he should sit back down.

If I ever run into you on the street, Bobby, I am going to tell you this to your face. With your fucking connections to Jonathan Tisch and your idiotic red tape and your bourgeois red carpets, you can take your fucking film festival and stick it up your ass.

Yours truly,

Louis Proyect