Hey folks, Harry here with Sheldrake on the Gotham beat, dropping down from his sheet shenaneggans to get the story on the Tribeca Press Conference this morning. DeNiro's Fest is a wonderful one. But he's obviously sold out to Amazon.com. What sort of person would do that? Sheesh. Ahem. (Call me MR.POT) Anyway - here ya go...

Thursday March 3 2005

Tribeca Film Center

Varick Stree Cinema

Sheldrake reporting live from New York this morning.

One door closes, another opens: that’s the lesson Gotham had for me this morning. Last night something fell through for Friday which, to make a long story short, freed up all my time until Monday. As a consquence, I was able to hit a screening last night, and at that screening I ran into a friend, Eddie, who asked me, “are you going to the DeNiro press conference in the morning?” Turns out he was talking about the official ribbon-cutting opening of the Tribeca Film Festival, which, of course, doesn’t just spring full blown from Zeus’s forehead in April but requires months of upfront planning and work. Now, as it happened, this was a list that Aintitcool wasn’t on: so cracking it would require, in the words of a hero of mine (talkbackers, name him) a certain amount of legerdemain and a degree of intrepidity.

So this morning I gathered up my courage, went down to 375 Greenwich in Tribeca, the same building as DeNiro’s Tribeca Grill—and it was the wrong place. I then marched through the cold (this was where the intrepditity was key), wound up at the Varick Street Cinema (formerly the Screening Room, where Roger Heden movies went to die) and said to the beautiful women at the press table, “I’m Sheldrake, Aintitcool News.” Not only did they know us, they loved us. It’s really a phenomenon: people squeal with delight when the find out AICN is in the house. Does the reporter from Time Warner get that? Maybe. Somehow I doubt it.

A lovely woman named Caroline showed me to my seat in a very small room: there were maybe fifty people present. Lots of television cameras, also still photographers and print reporters (where I was seated: they took the New York Daily News tape off the chair and put me in it). Second row from the front folks.

Then I found out that DeNiro wasn’t the only biggie there—Jeff Bezos was there too to announce that Amazon was accepting short film entries on Amazon, letting Amazon users vote on them and that the top five entries would be in the competion. This is interesting news: if any AICN readers are making short films out there, this is one way to get into the Tribeca film festival.

Bezos introduced the web site feature, then DeNiro spoke, mostly just to say, welcome everyone. One funny moment: someone asked him if he thought the best director won at the Oscars, then he grinned and said, Million Dollar Baby was a fine movie, but you know, Marty’s overdue, everyone knows that.

Then, something I’m rather proud of happened. They lined Bezos, DeNiro and John Hayes from American Express up front for the photogs, and somebody cracked it looks like a lineup. So, class clown that I am, I cupped the hands and said loudly: “Will number two please step forward?” - -DeNiro being number two. Whole house cracks up—including DeNiro. Dear Diary, this morning I cracked up Robert DeNiro. And how are the rest of you today?

AICN will be at the Film Festival and I spoke briefly with someone who’s organizing events there about creating an AICN event there, so keep your eyes on this spot. I’ll be at the film festival full time. However, I won’t be able to cover all events, so here’s a special message for NYU and Columbia film students: if you’re interested in lending Sheldrake a hand in making sure we nail down full coverage this year, contact us soon. In your email, include some writing sample of a film review or the like that you’ve done before.

That’s all for now. Sheldrake out.

Mr. Sheldrake

New York City