On 12.1.05, a story about Emilio Estevez and the making of his film Bobby , a portrait of Robert F. Kennedy through the eyes of his supporters and admirers just before, during and after his assassination on June 4, 1968, at L.A.’s Ambassador hotel, ran in the New York Times. Staff writer David Halbfinger covered the basic points — Estevez’s struggle to get at least a portion of the film shot at the Ambassador before it was torn down, how he broke through on the writing of the script (i.e., by absorbing the recollections of a former Kennedy volunteer, a desk clerk at a Pismo Beach motel where Estevez just happened to be staying, who was at the Ambassador that night in ’68), his finding financing through the curiously-named Bold Films and “its Belgian principal” Michel Litvak, etc. But if you want a real lip-smacking account, you have to read Nikki Go‘s rundown of the Bobby situation (“What Have They Done to Bobby?”) in the current issue of Esquire. (It’s not on the site — you’ll have to buy a copy.) I have it on good authority that “Nikki Go” is actually screenwriter John Ridley (U-Turn, The Night Watchman), who briefly worked on the Bobby screenplay. (Ridley tries to obscure things on page 169 by writing that Bobby producer Gary Michael Walters “concedes that novelist John Ridley, who’s got a producer credit on the film, also did a ‘polish’ on the screenplay.”) Ridley’s piece definitely pushes a sassy, smarty-pants attitude about Estevez and his film, which has a huge “name” cast (Anthony Hopkins, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore, Christian Slater, William H. Macy, Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt, Lindsay Lohan, Heather Graham, Lawrence Fishburne) and is described by a Bobby crew member as “an episode of Love Boat ’68 .” What’s especially funny is the way Ridley describes the disputes over finance and script-trimming between Estevez, 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), and a scrappy, budget- conscious producer named Edward Bass, who has since left Bold Films. The story says that Estevez was “faking heart attacks left and right” as a way of gaining a psychological advantage during budget battles. It also says that when Estevez triumphed over Bass after a late-inning sitdown with Litvak, his “parting salutation” to Bass was “checkmate, asshole!”. The IMDB says that the Weinstein Co., which picked up Estevez’s film for “an undisclosed amount,” is intending to release it on 11.22.06. Does opening a film about Robert Kennedy on the 44th anniversary of the assassination of his older brother, President John F. Kennedy, strike anyone as (a) a blatant swipe at the younger Kennedy’s reputation and (b) a wee bit tacky?