Bobby

BrettV · 07-26-2006, 11:44 PM

Anyone hear anything about this film? Supposed to be a written and directed by Emilio Estevez film ...

**HTF Ads**

BrettV · 08-03-2006, 06:24 PM

Not one person. That's amazing. I'm really excited about this one. Fantastic cast.

Timothy Alexander · 08-04-2006, 06:02 PM

Never heard of it and looked it up. It's about Robert Kennedy's assassination. More people should be aware of this film because the cast for this movie is insane!

Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Elijah Wood, Harry Belefonte, Heather Graham, Helen Hunt, Shia LeBouf, Christian Slater, William H Macy, Lindsey Lohan, Ashton Kutcher and Emilio himself.

Where's Charlie?!?

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0308055/

BrettV · 08-05-2006, 12:27 PM

Yeah, I saw that. That's why I was so shocked that no one had heard of it. Wonder what kind of release this will get ..

streeter · 08-05-2006, 12:45 PM

I've really been looking forward to this film for a while.

As for Charlie: At one point he was going to be in the film, but I don't know if that ended up happening.

There was a really nasty Esquire article about this film not too long ago. It almost seemed like a personal attack on Estevez. Anyone else read it?

Henry Gale · 11-16-2006, 09:59 PM

It's a must see for me.
That night I was at the Steve Allen show and Kennedy brother-in-law Peter Lawford was the guest. Later on I was at Pat Paulson's "Victory Rally".
A couple of days earlier I had seen Bobby as he was on his way to the Greek Theater. I was surprised by the gray in his hair. Pierre Salinger was walking next to the car Kennedy was in.

Adam Lenhardt · 11-16-2006, 11:49 PM

Wow. It's funny you mention Paulson. I just watched a documentary on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour yesterday.

ChrisMatson · 11-26-2006, 10:46 AM

I saw Bobby on Friday and thought it was good, but not great.

The movie did a good job of showing us what the psyche of America was like in the summer of 1968. I just wish they focused more on RFK, but that was not the point of this movie.

I left the theater with a sense of great loss--what might have been...

streeter · 11-26-2006, 03:58 PM

That's exactly what I thought of this movie as well: good but not great.

BrettV · 11-29-2006, 06:22 PM

Shoot. I've only heard great things so far besides these reviews.

I'll be the judge for myself and probably check it out this weekend.

Henry Gale · 11-30-2006, 04:22 PM

I thought the movie was not good, but rather sucked.
It's Emilio's fault. Before I saw it I heard a Love Boat comparison and that is right on the money.
It's easy in hindsight to see how this went so bad. All those big names? They loved Bobby, hell, a lot of us did. I'm sure they were hoping it would be good.
And then there's the business of President Sheen's son working on it, and President Sheen himself being part of the cast.
The reality is, Emilio could not direct his way out of a paper bag. Some of the actors transcended this mess, they probably got to make dialogue changes.
Others, Elijah Wood comes to mind, weren't so lucky. Elijah seemed to be reading cue cards, for the first time.
Ashton Kutcher's hippy-dealer was an embarrassment.
Then there was the music. Mixed way too high and with the grace of a sledgehammer.
What worked best was video of Bobby, and Bobby's own words. We could get that in an actual documentary.

Nathan V · 12-01-2006, 05:43 AM

I thought the sound was mixed a tad low-looks like one of us was in a bad theatre. I could "barely" hear the songs playing, except source music, the Sound of Silence piece, and that oh-so appropriate (not) Mary J. Blige crooner at the end credits. Haggis cuts his storylines better than this, and I was no big fan of Crash. This is a kid's version of Nashville. I think that's the best way to sum this one up. People who haven't been exposed to that, and other great films with similar subject matter, will probably enjoy Bobby. Check Nashville out if you want to see large-scale American loss of innocence done right. One has to admire Emilio for trying, though. Sharon Stone in particular is outstanding, as are Demi Moore (easily the two highlights of the film) and Nick Cannon, demonstrating for the first time that he has excellent acting chops; Hopkins and Macy are great too (big surprise that is). Emilio just doesn't have the goods- especially scriptwise. The film is quite successful in evoking a sense of nostalgia for what could have been. There are some very good moments at the climax, and the end credit photos are as affecting as the ones in Flags of our Fathers.

Regards,
Nathan

Patrick Sun · 12-03-2006, 04:04 PM

This felt like a Friday night episode of "Hotel" from the 1980's, it was just so nondescript in shoehorning its points on race and inequities of a class system that has evolved in the US on the eve of the 1968 primary elections in California. The use of the steadicam shots lacked a certain spontaneity and got a little too cute at times because I kept focusing on whether the cameraman would show up in the mirrors during the shots, and not the on acting performances, most of which were not helped by an average script.

RFK was almost an afterthought at times, and the lack of focus on the man himself, in favor of all the soap opera elements detracted quite a bit from the film. There wasn't a good way to screw up the tragedy that lies in wait, so the ending wasn't bad, but it never really built up any tension to that fateful day, and you're left with an "eh" feeling coming out of the theater.

I give it 1.75 stars, or a grade of C-.