an interesting piece in today’s Los Angeles Times focusing on Harvey Weinstein’s go-for-broke strategy with regards to garnering Academy Awards attention for  Emilio Estevez’s Bobby. The gist of the piece is about how Weinstein is flogging a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Ensemble Cast — the new Crash model for darkhorse success — and hoping that, along with TV and print ads touting positive rank-and-file audience reaction, yields some Oscar noms.

Though we’ll doubtlessly be subjected to the trotting out of both Charlie and Martin Sheen, in an effort to score some sort of familial goodwill, there won’t be any Bobby surprise upset at the Golden Globes — the competition in the dramatic film category is too strong. Still, don’t discount Weinstein’s shrewd (and devoted) strategy, or place the film on ice just yet. I’ve said before that Bobby is basically a movie that’s as good as one allows it to be, meaning that as things get worse in Iraq and abroad, people are more receptive to the plaintive chords of hope that Bobby strikes. Any Oscar nominations would be reflective of this.

Still, I have a friend who can’t fathom any continued awards talk, and rants that Bobby is, and I quote, “TV-level filmmaking… like Cold Case: The Movie. It’s all two-person set-ups, lacking cinematic scope and nuance.” And for the record, he voted for Bush once, but not a second time…