Emilio's Bobby & the Ambassador

[VivianRegan]

Will anyone screen Bobby if just for the renderings of the Ambassador Hotel?

I know it's beyond the period-scope of the Lounge, but I am curious to see the '60s-set film for the Ambassador's appearance. It wasn't too long ago that some of us discussed the destruction of the hotel at the hands of the LA school district.

I could care less about Sharon and Lindsay... but that building!

 

[katiemakeup]

I will definately go see it...

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I had read that it was filmed while the hotel was in the process of being destroyed and since it was a low budget film, the art director couldn't recreate the hotel completely, so they filmed as much as they could in the actual hotel. Can't say how much is true, but it's still interesting.

 

[VivianRegan]

There'll probably be a lot more stories out there as we get closer to wide release.

If that's the case, I'm there.

 

[Hondo]

While it was a good idea for a film, problem is there are too many cameos from peoples lives, and not enough about "Bobby" If you want to see so many current or so called famous faces go see it else save your money.

As one reviewer noted “Bobby" introduces so many famous faces in its first half-hour -- Anthony Hopkins! Lindsay Lohan! Harry Belafonte! -- that it's hard to tell whether it's a movie or a telethon.
Add heavy use of archival footage to a parade of stars so long that Hopkins and Belafonte do little but hang out in a hotel lobby, and you begin to wonder when the movie will start.
That question lingers until nearly the end, when director and writer Emilio Estevez's overpopulated, overly earnest film finally comes together in cohesive fashion. But by then it's too late, even though "Bobby" has offered some satisfying moments on the way there.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I just came back from seeing Bobby.

The movie starts off galavanting around with the characters, from Lindsay Lohan, to Harry Belafonte, to Anthony Hobkins, and the other characters that will all come together sooner or later. This is a hint, not a giveaway.
They do use archival footage, but I found they used it very well, since they do not actually have someone visibly playing Robert Kennedy. Believe it or not, every character has something to say, something to show, and are all a part of the obvious ending.

They do give you a bit of cliche history of 1968, like racism, the insides of the feminine mind, drugs, hippies, among other things, but it is all for your enjoyment, though for someone who is not familar with the time, they might not understand this. It basically is a movie for adults who were living then and still live, but it is really for anyone interested in the story, whether or not they know this "senator/soon to be president" was shot.

There is comedy relief, as many serious movies have, they want you to enjoy them, not feel uncomfortably serious. The movie progresses among each of the cast, up until that moment that "he" arrives. They gave it both fictional, believable, and historically accurate transitions. This is no classic Hollywood movie where everything is perfect like the sunshine and the stars. The situations are normal ones, some a little meldramatic, but good.

The only real trouble I personally had in this film was a montage of the memory of Robert Kennedy. I know why they did this. It was a tribute to the man, and his short lived life, but this is not a biographic documentary, this is a biopic "movie" of a tragedy that was not expected. This was a typical yet useless move, even though that is what the movie is about. Robert Kennedy was not the center stage, but he was the purpose of the story, so even when you were not seeing him, or hearing him, you were thinking about him. At least I was. It was just another day at the famous hotel.

This was a good move for that, because really, he was running for president, and was not around from the morning until the evening of the fatal day at the Ambassador Hotel. If we had been following him, it would have been an ad campaign movie. We were following him, though not phyisically. We followed him from the commercials, we followed him from the interviews, we followed him in the photos and the posters and the hats and flags, everything except he himself. They kept him in eyes view throughout the film. Believe me when I tell you that when you are making a film about a specific person and do not center on them, it's a very difficult task.

I'd give it 4 stars. I think they did a good job. Also, from what I had said earlier, they actually filmed in the hotel while it was being destroyed. Their budget was not fit for a full blown movie set, so filming in the real thing was probably the next best thing.