"Bobby" Isn't Calamitous
The local Toronto word on Emilio Estevez's Bobby (Weinstein Co., 11.17) has been pretty bad for the last two or three days, and so I went into this morning's screening pumped and ready to scoff. But the old reverse-negative effect kicked in and I wound up not hating it too much.
Bobby Anthony Hopkins, director-writer-costar Emilio Estevez .
Much of Bobby is treacly and mediocre and some of it might make you shudder, but it's not altogether grotesque. It's reasonaby well-shot and cut, it has a few smallish moments that work, and there are some saving grace moments near the very end.
Archival footage of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy is basically what saves it, along with a recording of an eloquent and very moving speech that Kennedy gave about the persistent presence of violence in American life. Despite the best of intentions and the worst of consequences, Bobby fails to undermine the actual Kennedy mystique. There's a lingering potency to the RFK legend -- who he was, what he said, the metaphor of his life and how it ended.
Otherwise It's true what people gave been saying about Bobby -- it is Love Boat '68 at the Ambassador Hotel, and that in itself makes it pretty gruesome to sit through, but if you can get past that...
Let's try again: if you can sit back and go with the fact that Estvez is going to try and make you feel the allure of Kennedy's Presidential primary campaign as well as the terrible shock of his murder on the night of June 4, 1968, by making you feel how it was to be an average person muddling through in '68, and that Estevez will try for this immersion by showing you a series of Love Boat relationship stories -- and I mean stories and situations that do nothing to illuminate or inform anyone about Kennedy or his ideals...if you can kick back and say, "Okay, I can roll with this...I'm ready to accept the banality of this approach," then Bobby isn't half bad.
I had been prepared, see, so I was ready for the worst. I first read the phrase "Love Boat '68" in that John Ridley-authored Esquire piece that ran earlier this year. So when Bobby turned out to be tolerably pedestrian -- not awful or atrocious, but mediocre in a familiar, TV-drama sort of way -- it was like, "Whoa...!"
What's especially funny in the Ridley piece is his description of the disputes over finance and script-trimming between Estevez and Bold Films owner Michel Litvak, who not only made sure that his wife, the Russian-born Svetlana Metkina, was given a part in the film but managed to arrange for her to appear in "more scenes" just as principal photography was about to begin.
Sure enough, Metkina is in the film and to be honest, she's not half bad as a Czechoslovakian journalist looking to wangle an interview with RFK.
It isn't the performances that are terrible -- it's the 1980s Aaron Spelling-level material. Anthony Hopkins exudes a certain courtly dignity as a longtime Ambassador Hotel employee coasting on memories. Christian Slater isn't too bad as a racist kitchen-employee supervisor. Laurence Fishburne actually does pretty well with a couple of decently written scenes about racial politics. Elijah Wood is tolerable as a draft-dodger. Freddy Rodriguez does a decent job as the Latino bus boy who cradled Kennedy's head as he lay on the kitchen hallway floor with a 22 calibre bullet in his brain.
Demi Moore is...well, not bad as a drunken lounge singer. William H. Macy plays a randy but fair-minded hotel manager with a certain sensitivity. Sharon Stone overacts as a hairdresser with false eyelashes and loads of mascara. Helen Hunt is a pampered wife of an older rich guy, played by Martin Sheen. Lindsay Lohan and Heather Graham give passable performances also.
Ashton Kutcher's hippy-dippy drug dealer gives the only really bad performance, although "silliest" or "most embarassing" is a more accurate way to put it.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 14, 2006 at 2:31 PM
comment #1
Joshua Mooney
says ...
"Much of Bobby is treacly and mediocre and some of it might make you shudder, but it's not altogether grotesque."
WOW!! That sounds grrrreat!
Posted by Joshua Mooney
at September 14, 2006 4:10 PM
comment #2
tholl-yung
says ...
Can anyone provide prospective on why TWC put this film "in contention" for Academy Award noms? I'm working on some theories.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 4:13 PM
comment #3
tholl-yung
says ...
PERSPECTIVE rather
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 4:13 PM
comment #4
L.B.
says ...
You're just saying that to piss off Poland, huh, Jeff?
Okay then. I've heard this movie is the cause of cancer, not so grotesque, and the hit of Venice.
Which means I'll catch it on cable. Parts of of it. Here and there. Eventually I'll have seen it all. I promise.
Posted by L.B.
at September 14, 2006 4:30 PM
comment #5
tholl-yung
says ...
Apparently it's a perfect cable movie, so why the hell did TWC push it out there?
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 4:33 PM
comment #6
Roddy Reta
says ...
If an old liberal lion like Jeffrey Wells doesn't like it, then I can't see it succeeding.
Posted by Roddy Reta
at September 14, 2006 5:01 PM
comment #7
zoey
says ...
Kind of sounds if Bobby weren't in it and the earth were shaking, it could be Earthquake II. Of if Bobby weren't in it and the building was on fire, it could be Inferno II. Of if Bobby weren't in it and the ship turned over, it could be Poseidon II...uh Poseidon III.
Posted by zoey
at September 14, 2006 5:08 PM
comment #8
L.B.
says ...
"Apparently it's a perfect cable movie, so why the hell did TWC push it out there?"
Ask somebody at work. Surely the people you rub elbows with every day could fill you in on the deepest, innermost workings of the film industry.
Posted by L.B.
at September 14, 2006 5:19 PM
comment #9
tholl-yung
says ...
What the frig are you so bitter about L.B.?
Emilio Estevez answers a question during a news conference for the film 'Bobby' at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Thursday Sept. 14, 2006.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060914/bobby_060914/20060914?s_name=tiff2006
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 6:03 PM
comment #10
Dixon Steele
says ...
T.H.,
If this was YOUR movie, and the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals invited you to show it, would your response be "Nah, I think I'd rather have it on Showtime"?
Posted by Dixon Steele
at September 14, 2006 9:07 PM
comment #11
Hallick
says ...
Phew. In the last couple of weeks "Bobby" has catapulted from the bottom of my "who cares" list all the way to...somewhere near the middle of the same dumb list.
I don't understand the interest in "Bobby". It seems like Estevez came at this about 15 years past due. It looks like a TNT movie to me even more than Showtime at this point.
Maybe ABC Family. Or the Biography Channel.
Posted by Hallick
at September 14, 2006 9:35 PM
comment #12
LoKee
says ...
Can the free world now please, please, please be done with Bobby? Half the decent things that have ever been said about it are only because HW deemed them so. He's like the Don Rumsfeld of Hollywood - everything's fine, folks. It's just brilliant. Best movie ever. Now gimme my Oscar, please!
PS - Can somebody pls post this Ridley article? I'm dying to read it.
Posted by LoKee
at September 14, 2006 10:35 PM
comment #13
tholl-yung
says ...
At your service.
http://esquire.mondosearch.com/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&EXTRA_ARG=&CFGNAME=MssFind.cfg&host_id=42&page_id=3276&query=john%20ridley&hiword=ridley%20JOHNS%20JOHNSON%20john%20
Dix, I don't really think any of this is up to EE, there's a PR staff at TWC handling where it's submitted and how it's positioned. EE does what press he's told to. Chances are, once he submitted his director's cut, he hasn't had that much to do with anything -- until playback and timing, which he'll be invited to out of tradition and courtesy, maybe even DGA rules, not sure. Sorry to be such a know it all, and not, it's not inside info.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 11:36 PM
comment #14
tholl-yung
says ...
Oh and for mixing too, I think that's guild mandated, but I'm not sure, because you can imagine it's uncomfortable if a director arrives for mixing and sees locked picture for the first time.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 11:46 PM
comment #15
tholl-yung
says ...
And I guess Bold Films is still very much involved being that they produced the thing. EE worked for them, not TWC.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 14, 2006 11:54 PM
comment #16
Arran
says ...
"Not altogether grotesque..." Another sterling Wells recommendation! Up there with "kinda sorta passably entertaining" (for SoaP)...
Posted by Arran
at September 14, 2006 11:59 PM
comment #17
D.Z.
says ...
"Elijah Wood is tolerable as a draft-dodger."
Would Elijah even be tall enough to meet the requirement...?
"Freddy Rodriguez does a decent job as the Latino bus boy who cradled Kennedy's head as he lay on the kitchen hallway floor with a 22 calibre bullet in his brain."
WTF?! Why doesn't Esetevez make a movie about Budd Dwyer while he's at it?
"Sharon Stone overacts as a hairdresser with false eyelashes and loads of mascara."
So how is that different from her non-hairdresser roles?
T.H.: While we're at it, why is Harvey producing a "comedy" about a Bosnian war criminal? Is he hoping to milk the "Life is Beautiful" crowd or something?
Posted by D.Z.
at September 15, 2006 12:00 AM
comment #18
sassy
says ...
Another description for this movie on par with Love Boat '68 from EW:
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Assasination
Posted by sassy
at September 15, 2006 11:08 AM
comment #19
Dixon Steele
says ...
T.H.,
When I wrote YOUR film, I meant if YOU were making the decision.
And if you were able to launch it at these two festivals, would you really have passed and gone to cable?
Posted by Dixon Steele
at September 15, 2006 2:57 PM
comment #20
tholl-yung
says ...
If I were submitting it, that would mean I didn't have a distributor yet and I'd be looking for a sale, so yes I'd go to Venice and Toronto, unless I wanted to hold back for Sundance. Hopefully, I'd know what I had and my team would steer me to the right fest. Jeff interviewed John Anderson here on an incredible book called I Wake Up Screening: What To Do Once You've Made That Movie which deals with this, as well as to go to cable or not.
http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Up-Screening-What-Movie/dp/0823088987/sr=1-1/qid=1158362629/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2715666-4520760?ie=UTF8&s=books
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 15, 2006 4:27 PM