About the new movie "Bobby"

[T Wolf]

I am curious as to what people here are thinking about this upcoming movie about Robert F. Kennedy and his murder at the Ambasssador Hotel.

Though it has received good reviews and great reaction at the Venice Film Festival, I am torn about seeing it. In 1968, I was an idealistic 16-year old who had his heart torn out over that long weekend. The wounds are still raw, even 38 years later. The violence of those couple of years (Dr. King, Kent State, Jackson State), in my opinion, did more to kill the progressive advancement that we were just beginning to see the start of than anything that Dick Nixon or the repthugs ever did.

I think younger people, who do not have the emotional link to Bobby and what he represented to us old hippies, would do well to see this film. As for me, I am still undecided.

[powergirl]

1. I must see this movie

Robert F. Kennedy was before my generation. I was four years old when he was assassinated. When I was in college and later in law school, the legacy of Bobby Kennedy shaped my politics and my career. He is the single most important influence on me (outside my parents) professionally and morally. (notice my avatar) What I find most remarkable about him is that he was an upper class "blue blood" who did not need to step out of his well groomed bubble. But he did and when he toured the South and saw what our country was doing to humanity, he was struck in the most genuine of ways. He "got it." And so moved was he, that he fought for the remainder of his short life to make everyone equal. No one, and I mean NO ONE, has devoted his life to doing the right thing, the way Bobby did. I will see the movie and I will cry. But it is the nearest I will ever be to that great man.

[bmbmd]

2. Saw the preview Friday night.

I held my head in my hands and wept.

[hedgehog]

18. I saw the trailer on the Web, and I couldn't even speak for a few

minutes. It's amazing how the pain has remained all these years.

[bmbmd]

26. Seems like yesterday, doesn't it?

I still watch PT 109 every time it comes on. What could have been.

[tridim]

3. I wasn't born yet, so I have little emotional attachment

What a strange cast and crew though. I didn't even know Emilio Estevez was a director.

Ashton Kutcher, Heather Graham and Lindsay Lohan in the same movie with Harry Belafonte and Anthony Hopkins? That's craziness.

[mmonk]

4. I'll be there.

[H2O Man]

5. While I will

see it -- probably several times -- it is important for people from all generations to concentrate on Bobby's life, rather than his death. In particular, the last five years of his life are important.

[TomPainesBones]

6. I was originally against this film

I've waited my whole life for a good film about the life of Bobby Kennedy and was disappointed to find that the film we are finally getting after all these years would focus around the day he died.

I'm still not sold on the concept, but it looks like it was done with some heart and respect. If it turns younger people on to RFK then that can only be a good thing. I'll give it a chance. But I'm still waiting for that Bobby biopic. Guess it'll be a couple more decades.

[oldtime dfl_er]

10. That's my opinion too

I would love to see a movie that included the night of Martin Luther King's assassination, when there were riots in every major American city -- except in Indianapolis, where RFK went out and spoke from his heart to the people of that city. Powerful. Powerful.

[Nite Owl]

7. I think I am going to see it

I have some of the same feelings and am from the 'old hippie' generation as well.
I often wonder what we would be like today if he wasn't assassinated? It so tears me up inside to see what has become of his idealism while we go through these past decades, decades filled with such hate and divisiveness.

[Annces]

8. This is a movie by the younger Sheen son

There are the 2 sons of Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen and Emelio Estevez who kept the original family name. (Martin's Father is Spanish (edit)). Emelio made a movie on Vietnam too a while back that was pretty good.

This movie looks kind of like 2 movies, the hollywood and the documentary, so I think it will be kind of distracting. However Estevez is taking on big subjects, which is very good.

[movie_girl99]

11. Martin is not mexican

His dad was Spanish but was denied entry into this country so he worked in Cuba before immigrating here to settle in Ohio.His mother was an immigrant from Ireland.

[Annces]

14. Okay - I fixed it

[springhill]

25. Emelio is actually older than Charlie.

[Annces]

33. I always assumed he was younger

He still looks like a baby.

[TheWraith]

28. Half Spanish, actually.

Sheen's father was from Spain, his mother from Ireland.

[Lautremont]

9. I'm a pretty big RFK fan,

plus we share the same birthday. But this doesn't strike me as the Bobby movie I want. Not the movie's fault, of course, that it's not giving me what I want. But from the trailer and the reviews I've read, it appears to be mostly a kind of Grand Hotel soap opera, with RFK's assassination as a gimmicky background to try and give it emotional resonance it couldn't earn on its own. It seems in that respect to be this year's Crash, which used racism as a theme in order to seem hard-hitting, when it just came off as overly broad, obvious and contrived.

It does look ambitious, and that's great. But I wouldn't mind if a movie called Bobby was about Bobby, not about the ruminations of fictional old bellhops, which is mostly what it appears to be. I may change my tune upon seeing it, of course.

[hedgehog]

17. I think the movie is meant to be less about Bobby than about us.

For a wonderful moment, we were all countrymen, then that moment was shattered.

[gauguin57]

12. Emilio Estavez said he shook Bobby's hand when he (EE) was 5, and at 6, he

woke dad Martin Sheen to tell him Bobby had been assassinated.

There's a great behind-the-scenes show running on Bravo. Lawrence Fishburn's acting, in particular, looks fabulous in this movie. Not to mention Tony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte ... William H. Macy, et al.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. I must see this movie. I was 16 too when Bobby was killed and remember

it as vividly as if it was yesterday. My sister woke me to tell me, and although we are not Catholic, went into Manhattan (NYC) to say a prayer for him at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

I actually campaigned for Eugene McCarthy that summer in Nantucket as he was the clear choice for those of us who were completely anti-war. That did not diminish my affection for Bobby. I have extended that affection and admiration for his son, Robert Kennedy, Jr.

One day, I would love to see a full bio film on him so people can see his

[hedgehog]

16. Metamorphosis is the key word, and I mean that in a good way

Both Jack and Bobby were learning and changing to their dying day, and they brought people along with them. That was why so many people were threatened by them. They represented change. Jack's tragedy is that he was becoming a better man during the weeks and days before he was killed. I believe that if he had survived, his marriage would have evolved into one of our great love stories. Our tragedy is that we lost both Martin Luther King and Bobby just when they were getting ready to address some of the worst injustices to infect the American dream.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

21. Really odd. If you noticed, my last statement was cut short. I have no

idea how that happened.

I was going to comment on how Bobby transformed himself from being a tool for Joe McCarthy, to the icon he is now.

[hedgehog]

39. Even weirder, that was the statement I was responding to.

Computer glitch or ESP?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

43. I am now "hearing" the Twilight Zone theme! eom

[dflprincess]

15. I have to see it

Though it will probably depress me.

I understand the Kennedy family has given it their blessing.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

19. I turned 18 the day Bobby was shot. I was planning on casting my very

first vote for him as President. That whole year was one of awful consequences when you consider that 1968 is also considered "The Summer of Love." Summer of love my ass.

I will have to see the movie. I can vividly remember the anguish of hearing that Martin Luther King had been shot quickly followed by RFK. With the Viet Nam War raging out of control it was a time when you couldn't envision better times in the foreseeable future. Add that Nixon was elected that fall and all in all it added up to a crappy year for our country.

[Hamlette]

23. he died the day I graduated from high school, had to be 21 to vote in my state

then but I we were pretty active in politics anyway, probably because of the war, and we were following the primary closely. (They changed the voting age from 21 to 18 when I turned 21...go figure.)

[kath]

38. I'm pretty sure the "summer of love" was 1967, not 1968.

[VforVicarious]

20. Dunno about this one

It looks like it's gonna be like Crash. A self-important film with so many characters you never get a good feel of any of em

[BootinUp]

22. Being that I was only 5

I will try to see this. Any word on how close it is to the facts?

[hedgehog]

29. Sometimes facts aren't enough.

Sometimes artists use lies to tell the truth.

That's from the movie V.

[BootinUp]

31. You did't help write

Path to 9/11 did you.? :sarcasm:

:)

[hedgehog]

32. I was thinking more in terms of Oliver Stone's JFK.

[BootinUp]

35. Well I thought of that too

but the other example was funnier to me. Actually I never saw JFK, but has been pretty well dragged through the mud, no? I don't agree that this is a good way to tell the truth. Its a good way to spread conspiracy theories that have little basis in fact though. Don't take it personally just my opinion.

[hedgehog]

37. I understand your ambivalence.

At the very least, even if Oswald was a lone gunman, the villains in Stone's JFK did do their damnedest to destroy JFK's legacy. Conspiracy or no, that much at least is true. In the case of the movie Bobby, if it catches the emotional resonance, it will be telling the truth regardless of any mistakes with the facts.

[LanternWaste]

44. I remember Roger Ebert once saying to the effect that

I remember Roger Ebert once saying to the effect that "...movies are never supposed to teach us history, they are there to remind us of the emotions we felt at the time..." He had said that in regards to JFK, coincidentally enough.

[virgdem]

24. I feel the same way that you do...

My experience is very similar to yours - I also was an idealistic 16 year old whose world was torn apart after Bobby was assassinated. I have mixed feelings about reopening old wounds that have not fully healed over the last 38 years. Part of what happened is still very fresh in my mind. However, I think it is still a very important film and in the end, I will probably go to see the film.

[SusanaMontana41]

27. I will see the movie

and probably will cry. Became interested in him when I was a kid after my older brother off-handedly remarked, "If Bobby had lived, we wouldn't be in ______ (fill in the blank)." Also, I was born on RFK's 39th birthday and will raise a glass to him, as I always do.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

30. I look forward to seeing it

I was only 17 and rather apathetic, still in HS. My dad, a staunch Republican, liked him and that impressed me. I agree with Estevez that something died in America with him, even more than with JFK.

However, I think he was a complex man and not a saint at all. But I'm fine with him being portrayed kindly because he was a good man and we need all the heroes we can muster.

[maveric]

34. Do they go into any conspiracy theories?

Or do they nail Sirhan as the "Lone Gunman".
Just curious.

[kath]

36. I have similar feelings. T. Wolf.

I just said to hubby last night, that even though it's been almost 40 years, I don't think I could bear to see this film. So, so much died with Bobby. The US would have been very different if he hadn't been killed.
I was only 12 at the time. Mom woke us up in tears the morning after he was shot. I will never forget the image of all his little kids and pregnant wife lined up in the front pew at his funeral. (i've looked online for photos of the funeral Mass, and haven't been able to find any)

(I also have very vivid memories of Kent State, hearing the news of MLK's assassination, etc.It ws a terrible period. And of course the anniversary of JFK's assassination is a week from tomorrow.)

[hedgehog]

41. I saw so many bad things then that I find it hard to react strongly

enough to bad things now. I can remember how shocked my younger brother was during the Rodney King riots. I barely noticed them, because I can remember when a businessman was pulled out of his car and murdered during riots in DC and I remember the shoot to kill orders that went out in Detroit. I remember the day my dad dropped me off for classes and I saw cops all over the campus. I called my dad at once to arrange to meet him off-campus if anything bad started.

[hopein08]

40. I want to see it mostly because Ethel Kennedy has said that she supports it...

and thanked Emilio Estevez for keeping the memory of RFK alive for a new generation (which would be me). And I figure, if a Kennedy endorses it...it must be good and stick very closely to the truth.

[EC]

42. Emilio Estevez has been doing quite alot of movies

about this era and the war and peace movement...most have been indies but this one looks major...with him directing it'll be good and progressive...