Cinema Gadfly – Episode 22 – Bob Roberts

My guest for this month is Herb van der Poll, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1992 American-British satirical mockumentary film Bob Roberts. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

• The cast is seriously insane, with Tim Robbins, Giancarlo Esposito, Ray Wise, Gore Vidal, John Cusack, Peter Gallagher, Alan Rickman, and Susan Sarandon
• Oh and also James Spader, Helen Hunt, Jack Black, Jeremy Piven and his sister Shira, and Bob Balaban
• Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know we have an election happening
• The film shows some strong parallels to the presidency of George W. Bush
• Ray Wise, of course, was famously Laura Palmer’s dad on one of my all time favorite shows, Twin Peaks
• In this film, he and Alan Rickman play Dick Cheney and Karl Rove type figures
• Folk music is often in the service of liberal causes, and the subversion of that idea is one of the reasons this film is so compelling
• Specifically the music here is in the style of Bob Dylan, with Bob Roberts naming his albums The Freewheelin’ Bob Roberts, and Bob on Bob
• The Alan Rickman character also has a distinctly Oliver North vibe to him
• Strom Thurmond was a terrible human being
• This film feels like a satire of Ronald Reagan’s America
• Bob Roberts himself represents a response to the JFK and RFK eras
• The 24-hour news cycle is designed for 9/11 level attacks, not the daily news
• I still haven’t seen Toy Story 3, much to my shame
• The Mass Psychology of Fascism, by Wilhelm Reich, is the book I was referring to
• If for some reason you haven’t listened to Hamilton yet, you really should, it’s phenomenal
• Herb may be right that most people know Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad, I know him from Do the Right Thing, School Daze, The Usual Suspects, and King of New York
• This film is very different from other Tim Robbins directed projects, like Dead Man Walking or Cradle Will Rock
• The film has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, built on 36 positive reviews
• The Simpsons episode that is named for this film is Sideshow Bob Roberts, from 1994’s season six
• James Spader’s current show Blacklist is about to start its fourth season
• Technically Miramax is still a studio, but it’s changed hands several times in the last few years, and I don’t think they’re producing new films
• StudioCanal uses Lionsgate for their US distribution
• I think the involvement of Robert Altman and Gary Trudeau is probably why Criterion released Tanner ‘88
• This film was an influence on another of my favorite television shows, The West Wing
• I’ve never seen Tapeheads, so I’ll have to take Herb’s word that “Retake America” from this film came from it

Buy the film from Amazon