Review: Bobby

UK release date: 26th January

Despite the title, this is not a biopic of US presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy but a snapshot of a precise time and place in history. The drama unfolds in a single momentous day in 1968 at the Los Angeles hotel that acted as Kennedy’s campaign headquarters.

Director Emilio Estevez personalises the story with glimpses into the lives of hotel staff, guests and members of the senator’s campaign team, played by a starry ensemble cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore and Elijah Wood. But it’s Sharon Stone who impresses the most, barely recognisable as the hotel stylist whose manager husband (William H Macy) is having an affair with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham).

With so many characters on show, the movie tends to lack a little in narrative drive (and the dialogue sometimes seems heavy and self-important), but what it does brilliantly is re-create the mood of the time. The real Bobby Kennedy is seen in archive footage and while he’s seemingly reduced to a supporting player in the film that bears his name, the promise he represented infuses everything. Of course most viewers will know how it ends, but that does not make those final scenes any less heart-rending

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 116mins

Review by Brian Pendreigh

News: Sigourney Weaver

After this week’s outing in Infamous, Weaver will barely be off the big screen this year, with another four due out over the next 12 months, from the (apparently rather poor) attempt to do a Shrek by taking the piss out of fairy tales in the animated Happily N’Ever After to the rather more promising Vantage Point, a rashomon-style tale of an assassination attempt on the US President told from five different perspectives.

Along the way she’ll team up with Kate Bosworth for The Girl in the Park, with Weaver a woman whose daughter went missing while a toddler, who thinks Bosworth could well be her little girl – it could sound a bit like a remake of Vertigo from that, but other details are as yet unclear. There’s also The TV Set, a comedy based around the creation of a TV show pilot (which makes the title a truly unforgivable pun), co-starring David Duchovny and Ioan Gruffudd, before she tries her luck at another fairy tale-based animation next year, The Tale of Despereaux, alongside the voices of Robbie Coltrane, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Kline, Christopher Lloyd, William H Macy, Justin Long and Tracey Ullmann.

News: Elijah Wood

The voice behind the CGI penguin star of this week’s Happy Feet really is doing a good job of maintaining a career after his success as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. No Mark “Luke Skywalker” Hamill-style fall from the spotlight for this young actor, who has already appeared as an underwear-obsessed stalker in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a sadistic psycho in Sin City, and a violent hooligan in Green Street since he returned from his quest to Mordor.

Frodo – sorry – Wood’s next few projects are yet more deliberately eclectic, yet decidedly interesting, movies, that should once again show that there’s much more to this chap than furry feet, wide blue eyes, and a tendency to look a bit pathetic while evil ghost-like things on massive flying dragons whizz around the shop.

Though it came out in France in May this year, and is scheduled for a US release in April 2007, sadly no UK distributors seem ready to put out Paris, je t’aime – a quirkily ambitious project that counts cult favourites the Coen brothers and Gus Van Sant, Scream‘s Wes Craven, French superstar Gerard Depardieu, Children of Men‘s Alfonso Cuarón and Wong Kar-Wai’s cinematographer of choice Christopher Doyle amongst its many directors. Broken into 18 five-minute segments, each overseen by a different directorial team, Wood appears as a young American tourist in “Quartier de la Madeleine”, written and directed by Cube‘s Vincenzo Natali. Co-stars include the likes of Bob Hoskins, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Faithful, Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson, Juliette Binoche, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell and Natalie Portman – so quite why this has yet to hit our screens is anyone’s guess.

Wood will also be cropping up in the hugely impressive ensemble cast of former brat-pack actor turned director Emilio Estevez’s Bobby, revolving around the 1968 assassination of US presidential hopeful (and brother of the assassinated President JFK) Robert Kennedy. Due out in the UK on 26th January, the cast is padded out with the likes of Estevez’ father Martin Sheen, as well as Lawrence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, William H Macy, Lindsay Lohan, Demi Moore, Freddy Rodriguez, Christian Slater and Sharon Stone. Nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival this year, it’s definitely one to look forward to.

As for Wood’s other projects, again they are typically diverse and interesting. He’ll voice the young dragon Spyro in the latest in the popular computer game series – alongside Brit favourite Gary Oldman – The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, and take on the role of a young man forced in to the US army as the draft is re-introduced in the timely exploration of duty in time of war that is Day Zero. Then, due for release in 2008, he’ll play Albert Einstein in the film adaptation of comic Steve Martin’s successful play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, alongside another impressive cast that includes the likes of Martin himself, Kevin Kline, Juliette Binoche, Sienna Miller, Jason Biggs and Ryan Phillipe. Pretty soon Wood’s going to beat even Kevin Bacon for a Hollywood six degrees of separation…

News: Dustin Hoffman

The veteran star may well have been taking smaller roles in recent years, as in this week’s supporting turn in Stranger Than Fiction, but looks all set to return to the leading parts which should be his by right – he’s even talked about his desire to do sequels to his early hits The Graduate and Tootsie – though to what extent he was joking remains somewhat unclear, as he’s also recently said that he’d like to be the next James Bond…

Next up is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, based on the novel by Patrick Süskind. Set in 18th century France, the film follows a young man with an extraordinary sense of smell who, having apprenticed himself to Hoffman’s master perfume-maker, embarks on a killing-spree in pursuit of the ultimate scent. It is set for release on Boxing Day.

Due in July 2007, Hoffman will take the title role in the entertainingly-named Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. As the 243-year-old owner of the world’s most wonderful toy store hands over his business to his nervous manager, played by Natalie Portman, there may well be a fair few Charlie and the Chocolate Factory parallels. But, directed as it is by the writer of the distinctly unusual Stranger Than Fiction, there’s bound to be more to it than that…

Then, in 2008, Hoffman will try his hand at animated comedy, providing voice duties on two big-budget, all-star cast extravaganzas featuring – as seems to be the rule with CGI films these days – a bunch of oddball talking animals. First will come Kung-Fu Panda, alongside Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Ian McShane, and then The Tale of Despereaux, from Corpse Bride co-director Mike Johnson, alongside Robbie Coltrane, Kevin Kline, Christopher Lloyd, William H Macy, Tracey Ullman, Sigourney Weaver and Justin Long.

Hardly much that could land him another Oscar for the shelf, but still – not bad.

News: Justin Long

Accepted‘s Justin Long – probably best known to date as Britney Spears’ boyfriend in the dire Crossroads or Linsay Lohan’s bloke in the not quite as awful Herbie: Fully Loaded – is a bit of a workaholic. Already completed is Idiocracy, for director Mike Judge (the creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill), with Long in a relatively small role alongside Luke Wilson, who plays a bog-standard American frozen for 500 years, awaking to find himself the most intelligent person in the country, and Long is currently filming alongside Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4.

Long will also be taking the lead in Patriotville, as a lone guy fighting against his small town’s plan to build a casino on their historic battlefield, and voice the title character alongside in animated comedy The Tale of Despereaux forMike Johnson, co-director of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. Considering Long will be the lead alongside a voice cast that includes Robbie Coltrane, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver and William H Macy, it could yet prove to be the film that puts him firmly on the map. Shame we won’t see his face, really…