Posted on 11/24/2006 11:01:01 AM PST by Fiji Hill
BOBBY
Bobby uses an all-star cast to follow more than twenty characters through one of the most fateful days in American history.
CLIP: “Senator Kennedy, welcome to the Ambassador Hotel.” “Thank you very much.”
That’s Anthony Hopkins as a hotel doorman who joins Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Lawrence Fishburne, Christian Slater, and many others to dramatize the night of Robert Kennedy’s assassination at his LA victory celebration in 1968.
CLIP: “What if Kennedy loses?” “We can all forget it now. I’m 19, Jimmy, I don’t want to go to Vietnam.” “Do you?” “Now that Dr. King is gone, I don’t have nobody.”
This is a particularly moving film for me because I was there as a young Kennedy volunteer on that June night when Bobby was shot. I can confirm that director/writer Emilio Estevez gets most of the feelings of the occasion right. But, the melodramatic, multi-character format proves somewhat uneven and distracting. Rated R for language, violence, and drug content…
THREE STARS for the intriguing but imperfect Bobby.
That’s a wrap. I’m Michael Medved for Eye on Entertainment.
Another Kennedy legend non hero. However, they all got to enjoy Marilyn, probably not fatass though.
Well, of course in their own day, they weren't. But John Kennedy -- at least in part -- followed the Harvard consensus of his day, and he'd follow that consensus where it went -- though maybe not on all issues. JFK wasn't entirely a liberal in his own time. He certainly wasn't a gay liberationist. But if he were still alive today, I doubt he'd be a part of the Christian Coalition or the Moral Majority.
Moreover, Democratic ex-presidents and ex-presidential candidates, do tend to go left in retirement. At least Carter did. It's the same phenomenon that drives television ex-anchormen like Walter Cranked further left.
The things that kept JFK more conservative than some other Democrats in politics (his Irish background, Catholic distrust of liberal Protestants and Protestant liberals, his father, etc.) wouldn't have been as strong a force on him had he lived out his term.
Kennedy wouldn't have been a liberal saint had he been reelected -- Vietnam and Cuba separated him from his liberal critics -- but out of office he would have done what he could to satisfy the liberal establishment, because as with Carter or Clinton, they'd be the curators of his reputation and the people he interacted with most.
"Heck, there is a letter floating around on the net that JFK wrote to Colt thanking them for the AR-15 rifle they sent him. He enjoyed firing it when he was out on his boat.
Not sure if it is true or not though."
If someone dug into the Boston Globe's archives, they could probably turn up a photo that I recall from the late 60's:
Ted Kennedy at his desk with a nicely framed display model M-16 on the wall behind him while he's expounding on the associated military contract for his district........
Wonder how long that took to "lose". /mega sarc/
Wonder if the Glob has managed to "lose" all record of that picture and the article. /hyper sarc/
Thanks for the ping, beaversmom. I don't go to the movies anymore; however...
I mourn the loss of the Ambassador Hotel. It was unique and beautiful and a treasured part of my growing up in L.A. Enjoyed lunch at the coffee shop many times and just strolling the grounds.
I thought Cronkite's Leftism was simply because the American Establishment is really secretly behind Communism, making all plans at the annual Bohemian Grove meetings of old Republican money (where Cronkite once served as "the owl").
Hey, that would explain universal Leftist anti-Americanism as a cover for the fact that Communism is really an American plot to take over the world (as well as why there isn't a single "revolutionary" in the world who advocates the armed overthrow of the US government).
But I still wonder who's the secret number one man now that David Rockefeller is ninety years old.
One of my favorite locations to take a photograph in Los Angeles was in front of the hotel looking north. Across the street was the Brown Derby restaurant, which was shaped like a derby hat, and above it one could see the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign on Mt. Cahuenga. Unfortunately this view is gone--blocked by a high rise that stands where the Brown Derby once stood.
My heart aches remembering those old days, the lovely times we had strolling in the area. There was also a hotel across the street from the Ambassador, a bit to the west, where the grounds covered a few acres... there were privates cottages and such. Many VIPs stayed there, even lived there for awhile, and I cannot remember the name.
There were other hotels, large and small, and elegant apartment buildings in the area, with classy restaurants on the ground floor. The Sheraton Townhouse comes to mind. There are several Christian churches in the neighborhood of cathedral quality and the Wilshire Blvd. Temple.
We had I. Magnin department store as well as the incomparable Bullock's Wilshire. Everything had an ambiance that made you want to stay awhile.
But all became shabby 2-3 decades ago, and is now worse than shabby.
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