A Love Song for Bobby Long
By andara on Jan 2, 2005 in Love Song
Product Description
Upon chance of her mother’s death, teenaged Pursy returns to her hometown to springy in her mother’s home, attempt her past. She is shocked to encounter digit of her mother’s friends, an boozer past academic and his teen prot?eg?e, already inhabiting the house.e house.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-JUN-2006
Media Type: DVDAmazon.com
A misfit episode in the noble Southern (by artefact of Hollywood) tradition, A Love Song for Bobby Long takes its stimulant from environmentalist McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Re-establishing his indie-cred, Evangelist Travolta adds Bobby Long to his room of flaming characters. Hobbled by an pussy toe, the 50-something Bobby is a white-haired, unshaven, vodka-soaked mess. But he’s also a past arts professor, and the piles of books in his ramshackle house, and the authors he drunkenly quotes provide him a injured dignity. Just how injured module be revealed over the instruction of this part tale of purchase and penance. Bobby lives with Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht), his past doctrine supporter who is composition a aggregation most his mentor, a send delayed by drinking, movement around with the locals, or attractive in excerpt oneupsmanship. Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Ghost World) holds her possess against Travolta (”You are much a unashamed ham,” she chastises the loquacious Bobby) as Pursy, the unloved woman of Lorraine, a fresh person singer-songwriter in whose concern Bobby and Lawson reside. A effort of wills between the digit men and the disobedient teen woman gives artefact to the manufacture of a unsettled kinsfolk unit. Pursy agrees to convey to broad edifice if Bobby and Lawson depart drinking. There module be the due revelations, recriminations, and hammy confrontations, but what makes this Love Songresonate are the performances by a patch that rarely hits a simulated note. –Donald Liebenson
Popularity: 1% [?]
On Jan 2, 2005, Terence Dollard said:
The dialogue that falls out of some talented actors’ mouths is awful and expected. At times, I thought I was watching regional theather, without the charm. This film is watchable, but in a Mystery Science Theater way. Travolta picks some of the worst scripts written which is a shame because there are moments when he is utterly brillant as Bobby. It’s a shame he’s delivering such predictable drivel. Scarlett Johanson goes over the top a few times too many and rarely seems real. It seems like she picked the script for the number of scenes she had lines in. Still, glad to see a movie that doesn’t have a car chase, an explosion or Vin Diesel.
Rating: 2 / 5
On Jan 2, 2005, Anonymous said:
I saw a preview for bobby long a while ago so i planned on renting it when it came out on DVD. the trailer for this movie made it look a lot better than it actually was. The movie was also predictable. i suspected from the start that Bobby was Pursy’s dad. And more than likly Pursy and lawson were gonna get together. some of the parts are slow, and the “big secret” that lasted the entire film was dull. but other than that, it’s a great movie. well worth the rental.
Rating: 4 / 5
On Jan 2, 2005, sinisterfiend666 said:
I liked the outcome of the movie, the story was ok, but this movie was just way to slow. If it wasn’t for John Travolta this movie would have been a complete flop. He manages to play his character well, and bring comic relief to a very dry movie. As a matter of fact, If it wasn’t for john Travolta, I don’t think anyone would be renting this movie. It is a dull, New Orleans based, broken family drama with hardly any memorable scenes. It is not something I would watch again, or care to sit through. A very boring, predictable red neck drama. I was torn between giving it 2 or 3 stars. To me, it was definitely not Travolta’s best work.
Rating: 2 / 5
On Jan 2, 2005, EugeSchu said:
A good waste of 2 hours. First of all, the movie doesn’t have a reason for being. Another story about alcoholics, please?
Just as needed in the film cannon as another gangster flick.
The casting is extremely poor. Scarlett Johansson apparently has very limited range, as she’s always playing the same mopey,
aimless soul. John Travolta seems like he could have made it here (something like his misplaced genius performance in Phenomenon), but he comes across flat. Even when reciting real poetry, he doesn’t sound like a poet, and the rest of his dialogue is very uninspired. The emotional logic in the movie poor, as it’s not very beleivable any of the characters motivations for their actions (except maybe the rock bottom “poet” living in a dump, but that’s no reason for a movie). The scenes around finding the lost letters are very vague and confusing, and the characters don’t respond as emotionally as they should. Anyways, the whole idea is contrived. Furthermore, the dull speech by Travolta on graduation day is very trite, and not the least beleivable or sincere. Just another way for him to have a day in the sun as he continues his down-and-out ways. There is no reason to feel sorry for this character (even though an accident from his past is supposed to excuse him); a self-absorbed, philandering bore.
And the whole thing about New Orleans being romantic and entrancing, please, who’s going to be entranced about living year after year in a ghetto. Oh, and the whole timeline of the past doesn’t make sense, I couldn’t reconcile the end run about
his paternity w/ the chronology of him leaving Auburn with his little apprentice. Save your $3 and go buy a beer at a bar if you want to see some drunks with nothing to say. Geez.
Rating: 1 / 5
On Jan 2, 2005, Kristopher Haines said:
I eagerly awaited “A Love Song For Bobby Long” because I held out some vain hope that it just might be Travolta’s second come-back. It’s not. It is better than “Ladder 49″ but that’s not saying much at all.
It’s just hollow, NONE of the characters leave an impression. And the most intriging character the unseen departed mother and friend is spoken about ONLY in the fondest of terms, nothing is said that goes beyond the superficial. Who was this apparently nomadic woman who despite her wandering and detached nature seems to leave a mark on every one she meets?
I know a big part of the movie’s plot revolves around these three people who must live in a house together and forge a friendship or go insane, but it’s NEW ORLEANS and if I have learned anything from watching films it’s that photography of The South can save a mediocre movie. “Heaven’s Prisoners” for instance, or the more recent “Undertow”. “Love Song” spends too much time indoors.
It’s not a terrible film, in fact there are some laugh outloud lines, but that not enough to support the films narrative flaws.
Rating: 2 / 5