Auto Focus

Rating:
Summary: John Carpenter was NOT one of Hogan's
Review: Auto Focus is a disturbing though entertaining look at the late Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes), killed in 1978 presumably by his friend John Carpenter. Greg Kinnear gives something of a superficial take on Crane, more an imitation than a multidimensional Crane. William Dafoe however gives a disturbingly intense take on Carpenter. The 2 are depicted as 2 sex addicts during the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s. Carpenter is the video expert on the cutting edge of new home video technology, and Bob the star who attracts the women. Little did they know how relatively commonplace these exploits would become.

The on the set Hogan's Heroes recreations remind me of the Taxi recreations of "Man in the Moon", but watching the imitation Klink and Schultz is a bit too much to bear. And the "Richard Dawson" was pathetic. Anyway the film concentrates on the sex as if that was all Bob Crane was about. It kind of forgets his talent as a musician, actor, and comedian. But again the most compelling performance is Dafoe's. Especially at the end when he's cracking up, he really nails the build up of anxiety, frustration, and anger.

So in the end it's worth seeing, but by NO means the definitive Bob Crane portrait.

Rating:
Summary: A long night's journey into addiction
Review: "You tell them Bob Crane is normal. Tell them sex is normal." -- Bob Crane in "Auto Focus"

Sex addictions typically invite a smile, and maybe envy. "Auto Focus," which chronicles the traveling sexual misadventures of the television star Crane, is a very funny movie, but, to its credit, inspires none of the latter emotion. If Bob Crane's life was perfectly normal, as Crane seemed to believed for a time, than "normal" is one hell of a raw, tiring deal.

In a year of virtuoso male performances, Greg Kinnear was overlooked for his portrayal of the "Hogan's Heroes" star, but Kinnear delivers the performance of his still young career. He has Crane's look, his bemusement, his bewilderment, his shallowness and his greed.

But at the outset of "Auto Focus," Crane is still a LA radio disc jockey and a bit of a goof -- a "cut up" as he calls it -- and still a reasonably devoted-if-vacant family man.

And then Crane lands the "Hogan's" gig. He meets the 1960s version of a tekkie in John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), who hangs around stars and peddles new gadgets, like the Sony Video Tape Recorder. Crane, it turns out, is a gadget man himself. Together, they use the VTR to record one another having sex with women.

Carpenter is the creep to end all creeps, but Crane is so locked into being affable that he bypasses the unseemliness for Carpenter's universal interests in naked women and booze. When he starts drumming late nights at a strip club, it's clear that his high school sweetheart-turned wife, Anne (Rita Wilson) won't be seeing him much any longer. There is one break when Crane discovers Carpenter is probably gay -- "It was a group grope!" Carpenter pleads -- but the rift is mended when Crane's home VTR player breaks, and only one man can fix it. It's a match made in porn from that moment forward.

I mentioned the movie is funny, and it is: Crane is likable but halfway hapless, and certainly dim-witted. Upon discovery of Carpenter's gay tendencies, Crane affects a deep hurt and betrayal he actually buys into. It's a sad joke, but humorous nonetheless, that Crane thinks he's operating with a full deck of cards: He knows charm like the back of hand, but not any other kind of deception -- he has pictures of naked women on his car seat for any passerby to see. He delves so deep into his addiction that he meticulously films and catalogues his escapades, only to watch every other aspect of his life crumble around him; he can't find work because his addiction is the murmur of the town, and the addiction puts him into a fog of bliss that neither his first wife, nor his second, Patti (Maria Bello) can ever bust through.

Carpenter can hang out, because he's the equipment guy, although at some point, Crane sees him as a drag, too. And then Crane sees the women as a drag, existing mainly to be filmed and viewed later, while Crane and Carpenter masturbate on the couch.

The movie's final act is a predictable, long ugly spiral toward Crane's mysterious murder in 1978. The world, aside from Carpenter and faceless women, has shut him out. A day without sex has become a day wasted, so much of the night is spent fulfilling the "mission."

Paul Schrader directs, and after his brilliant "Affliction, the cinematic equivalent of a icewrap around your head, "Auto Focus" is a film, though entirely different in source material, essentially in the same vein: Bob Crane is not without talents or virtues, but his delusions are stronger. Schrader's movies are a little cool to the touch, which has put off some critics (David Edelstein of Slate) but I like the approach -- "Auto Focus" is hardly your run-of-the-mill addiction movie. It's a little less hopped up and a lot more creepy.

Rating:
Summary: A Mediocre Biopic
Review: Paul Shrader's "Auto Focus" should have been a better movie than it turned out to be. For starters, it's hard to get past the fact that Greg Kinnear looks nothing like Bob Crane; Kinnear's narrow face and aw shucks expression mismatches Crane's boyish demeanor and beguiling, if smug, looks, and the hair is styled and even parted the wrong way. In fact, everyone except the chunky actor portraying the late Werner Klemperer just seems coarse and bony when compared to their real life counterparts. My, how times have changed. In much the same way, the rest of "Auto Focus" is anemic somehow, mostly because the script focuses on the broad strokes of Crane's tragic life, without subtlety or nuance. Further, the sex and nudity are devoid of spark, which seems odd in a film designed to explore the lure of sexual addiction. Clearly, it's a low-budget film, and while the re-creation of the "Hogan's Heroes" sets are nostalgic, the other elements seem a parody of late 1960s through mid-1970s fad and fashion, like the more recent "Brady Bunch" sets and costumes. The result is that "Auto Focus" never quite feels enough like a docudrama to elicit tears and never quite enough like a parody to elicit laughs, which left me unsatisfied. Even the presence of Willem DaFoe--appropriately pathetic here--can't quite lift "Auto Focus" to the heights it seeks.

Rating:
Summary: Bob Crane, the tragedy...
Review: Auto Focus is a tragedy based on Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) who was a radio personality before he became the star of the 1960s television show Hogan's Heroes. Through Bob's success on the show of Hogan's Heroes he meets John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a technology guru. John introduces Bob to stripteases and later the easy access that Bob has to women. In addition, John demonstrates the video camera for Bob which becomes a tool for the two friends as they begin a sexual escapade with countless numbers of women. This leads Bob on to a road of difficulty as it isolates him from a public life, which he has grown accustomed to. Auto Focus offers a solid cinematic experience as the Bob Crane story unfolds, which is supported by a terrific cast and solid camera work.

Rating:
Summary: A sad, fascinating study of sexual pathology.
Review: Paul Schrader's "Auto Focus" marinates us in the sad, sordid cheesiness of the lives of two men: Bob Crane, star of the hit sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," and John Carpenter, Crane's buddy, guide to the sexual underworld, and probable murderer. Schrader has made a career of limning sexual pathology, most famously in the screenplay for Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." But as a director he lacks Scorsese's subtle elegance, and he sometimes mistakes prurience for moral probity. At times his unrelenting earnestness makes for some howler scenes, such as the one in "Auto Focus" in which Crane imagines Klink, Schultz and other "Hogan's Heroes" characters muscling in on one of his sex tapes. But the greater part of "Auto Focus" makes compelling viewing, thanks particularly to the performances of Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe as Crane and Carpenter. Assured, finely nuanced and courageous, Kinnear's performance has Oscar written all over it. If Dafoe's ravaged, feral performance seems less amazing than Kinnear's, it's only because we've come to expect ravaged, feral performances from Dafoe, whereas Kinnear's is new and different for him. There are some breathtakingly shocking scenes in "Auto Focus," such as Kinnear and Dafoe joylessly masturbating to one of their homemade sex tapes, or Kinnear making blatantly sexual remarks to the audience of a TV cooking show. Schrader does compelling things with the look of the movie, taking it from bright sitcom pastels in the beginning to monochromatic, hand-held jittering toward the end. Bluenoses be warned that the sex in "Auto Focus" is graphic, though not quite as explicit as it could have been; in a few places Schrader electronically fuzzes the action, probably to avoid an NC-17 rating.

Rating:
Summary: Another Hero goes down in flames
Review: As a teenager, I loved watching HOGAN'S HEROES, a late 1960's sitcom starring Bob Crane. Ah, the innocence of youth.

AUTO FOCUS depicts the professional self-immolation of Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear). And caused by what? Drugs? Booze? Gambling? Twinkie over-indulgence? Nope, just sex. Lots and lots of it. (Come to think of it, isn't that every teenage boy's fevered fantasy?)

As the film opens, Bob is a talented, radio talk-show host on the Los Angeles airwaves. His (apparently) happy family includes a pretty wife and kids. They're devout Catholics, going to Mass every Sunday.

Bob's agent (Ron Liebman) lands him the starring role as Colonel Hogan in the WWII prisoner-of-war farce, HOGAN'S HEROES. It's during this period that Bob befriends John Carpenter (William Dafoe), an obsequious salesman who haunts the studio lot trying to interest stars in the emerging technology of home video taping/playback. Bob, an avid photographer, is hooked. John, a sexual satyr, introduces Crane to his world of promiscuous women. Bob's growing fame as Col. Hogan attracts even more. For Crane, a typical night on the town with pal John soon involves having sex with multiple partners, all the action recorded with still or video cameras for Bob's later enjoyment. Crane even begins a torrid affair with the Hilda character (Marla Bello) of HOGAN'S HEROES. (Remember Klink's secretary, Hilda? She was a Babe.) Needless to say, Bob's marriage fails. And then things get progressively worse.

Kinnear is wonderfully creepy and as the self-destructive Hero who jeopardizes everything he holds dear just because he can't keep it zipped. (As Crane asserts, "A day without sex is a day wasted.") Even then, he might have gotten away with it if he'd been the least bit discreet. But soon, the rest of the Hollywood entertainment Biz regarded him as nothing better than a porn star. And porn stars don't get "legitimate" gigs. Crane's only good luck was that this was pre-AIDS.

Dafoe's performance as the sleazy, pimping Carpenter is chillingly good. With a friend like that, who needs enemies?

Crane's sordid end in a Scottsdale hotel room remains one of Tinseltown's greatest enigmas.

The film contains full-frontal female nudity, and certain scenes miss an X rating by the narrowest of margins. It's probably not a movie you'd pop into the DVD player to show the extended family after next Thanksgiving's feast.

I'll never again watch a HOGAN'S HEROES rerun from the same perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Ho-Hum
Review: It is kind of a drag to watch your favorite TV sitcom stars dragged through the mud in various Hollywood biopics. Turns out, shockingly, that the stars of the sixties weren't as wholesome as we all suspected they were. Case in point, Bob Crane, aka Colonel Hogan, the loveable foil to the brain dead Colonel Klink(...). Crane, a family man and a struggling actor, got his big break when he was cast as the star of the wildly successful show. All seemed to be moving along well until Crane met a man named John Carpenter, a shady fellow who made a business of hanging around movie sets and installing custom electronic devices for various Hollywood stars. Carpenter, an early video genius, had a much darker side, filming all kinds of X rated material. (...)

What follows is the customary Hollywood treatment of a man on the fall. Be it drugs, drink, or in this case, sex, they are all pretty much the same. Crane is obviously naturally attractive to the horde of Hollywood starlets, which enables his friend Carpenter to further indulge in his strange sexual obsession. The addiction quickly takes over Crane's life, and he loses his wife and family. At the same time, his career disintegrates as Hogan's Heroes ends, and it becomes known that Crane is definitely not a morally upstanding member of society. He remarries, goes on the road with a low rent theater troupe, but these alterations just play further into the growing reliance on frequent sex and the filming of it. Carpenter also begins to get unhinged, as he feels that Crane, who he is strangely attracted to, is slowly slipping away. The movie hints at an explanation for Crane's mysterious ending, but doesn't lay total blame.

This movie did not work for me. The performances were satisfactory, Kinnear as Crane has a certain charm and sneering perverseness that was interesting to watch. Dafoe, an expert at playing creepy characters, does the same right here, delivering a skin crawling type role as voyeur Carpenter. The story though struck me as just a tired retread of Hollywood fall from grace pictures. I did not really care about the characters, and their faults did little to grab my attention. All in all, it's just a new interpretation of a movie we have all seen before.

Rating:
Summary: A long night's journey into addiction
Review: "You tell them Bob Crane is normal. Tell them sex is normal." -- Bob Crane in "Auto Focus"

Sex addictions typically invite a smile, and maybe envy. "Auto Focus," which chronicles the traveling sexual misadventures of the television star Crane, is a very funny movie, but, to its credit, inspires none of the latter emotion. If Bob Crane's life was perfectly normal, as Crane seemed to believed for a time, than "normal" is one hell of a raw, tiring deal.

In a year of virtuoso male performances, Greg Kinnear was overlooked for his portrayal of the "Hogan's Heroes" star, but Kinnear delivers the performance of his still young career. He has Crane's look, his bemusement, his bewilderment, his shallowness and his greed.

But at the outset of "Auto Focus," Crane is still a LA radio disc jockey and a bit of a goof -- a "cut up" as he calls it -- and still a reasonably devoted-if-vacant family man.

And then Crane lands the "Hogan's" gig. He meets the 1960s version of a tekkie in John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), who hangs around stars and peddles new gadgets, like the Sony Video Tape Recorder. Crane, it turns out, is a gadget man himself. Together, they use the VTR to record one another having sex with women.

Carpenter is the creep to end all creeps, but Crane is so locked into being affable that he bypasses the unseemliness for Carpenter's universal interests in naked women and booze. When he starts drumming late nights at a strip club, it's clear that his high school sweetheart-turned wife, Anne (Rita Wilson) won't be seeing him much any longer. There is one break when Crane discovers Carpenter is probably gay -- "It was a group grope!" Carpenter pleads -- but the rift is mended when Crane's home VTR player breaks, and only one man can fix it. It's a match made in porn from that moment forward.

I mentioned the movie is funny, and it is: Crane is likable but halfway hapless, and certainly dim-witted. Upon discovery of Carpenter's gay tendencies, Crane affects a deep hurt and betrayal he actually buys into. It's a sad joke, but humorous nonetheless, that Crane thinks he's operating with a full deck of cards: He knows charm like the back of hand, but not any other kind of deception -- he has pictures of naked women on his car seat for any passerby to see. He delves so deep into his addiction that he meticulously films and catalogues his escapades, only to watch every other aspect of his life crumble around him; he can't find work because his addiction is the murmur of the town, and the addiction puts him into a fog of bliss that neither his first wife, nor his second, Patti (Maria Bello) can ever bust through.

Carpenter can hang out, because he's the equipment guy, although at some point, Crane sees him as a drag, too. And then Crane sees the women as a drag, existing mainly to be filmed and viewed later, while Crane and Carpenter masturbate on the couch.

The movie's final act is a predictable, long ugly spiral toward Crane's mysterious murder in 1978. The world, aside from Carpenter and faceless women, has shut him out. A day without sex has become a day wasted, so much of the night is spent fulfilling the "mission."

Paul Schrader directs, and after his brilliant "Affliction, the cinematic equivalent of a icewrap around your head, "Auto Focus" is a film, though entirely different in source material, essentially in the same vein: Bob Crane is not without talents or virtues, but his delusions are stronger. Schrader's movies are a little cool to the touch, which has put off some critics (David Edelstein of Slate) but I like the approach -- "Auto Focus" is hardly your run-of-the-mill addiction movie. It's a little less hopped up and a lot more creepy.

Rating:
Summary: "Bob, I said I'm sorry. It's a group grope!"
Review: The title "Auto Focus" relates to "self-involved", not the operation of camera lenses (which were not around in Bob's day.) The movie covers the period of 1965-1978 in the life of actor Bob Crane.

"But why Bob Crane"? you might ask. Good question. Bob Crane is best-known as "Colonel Hogan" in the hit TV sit-com "Hogan's Heroes" which aired for 6 years. Previous to that, Bob did mostly radio work, and some minor acting. After "Hogan's Heroes" was abruptly cancelled, he had a hard time getting much meaningful work, mostly because of his reputation for having an addiction to sex and pornography, which is the main thrust of the movie.

While at first blush this may not seem to be much of a story, it is strangely compelling. It was directed by Paul Shrader, who wrote Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, so he is no lightweight when it comes to dark subjects. However, the movie is pretty quite bright and cheery for the first third or so. Then by design, as we see more and more of Bob Crane's degrading life and lifestyle, the colors get darker and drabber, different film-stock is used for a grungier feel, the camera becomes hand-held rather than having smooth pans, etc.

Bob met up with a man named John Carpenter, who was sort of a video enthusiast/merchandiser, when video was just getting going. There is a fair amount of retro-video technology shown in the movie - big bulky cameras (VTR's - video tape recorders)- which produce reel-to-reel tape, then big bulky cassettes, etc. In fact, like modern men, these two characters sometimes would be more interested in the working of the technology than the ladies they have brought home.

These two men struck it off and became good friends. With his TV show on the air, Bob had no problem getting women, and John reaped some benefits as well. Although rather conservative, and a Catholic, Bob divorced his first wife and married an actress from "Hogan's Heroes". He continued his decline with videotaping and cataloging his sex adventures up until the end.

Bob's murder is still unsolved, mostly due to the fact that the majority of evidence is circumstantial, and the DNA testing abilities back then (1978) were somewhat rudimentary. Therefore, although there was a trial, the accused was acquitted.

Greg Kinnear plays Crane, and Willem Dafoe is John Carpenter. In many respect Kinnear's career is similar to Crane's - radio background, not very large acting roles, etc. Both actors do a fine job. Some notables also show up in the supporting roles, including one of Bob's sons as an interviewer.

Director Paul Shrader says he was not a fan of "Hogan's Heroes" and the movie was not an attempt to revive any warm-fuzzies of that show. He simply saw an intriguing story. In one scene, in order to avoid an NC-17 rating, the central portion of the scene of oral sex was pixellated. At first, you think "that's odd", but Shrader explains that he wanted to show the actual hardcore videotaping that Crane was doing so we would know this wasn't just a little cheesecake stuff he was doing on occasion. Had the scene just been cut, then we would not really know how deep Bob was sinking. There are other scenes of sex, but most is on the old video tape played on a TV with low resolution and image quality.

Director Paul Shrader's commentary is very good and interesting, mostly about technical aspects of the film and story. The second commentary by the writer and two producers is only for the first hour due to space, and is mostly about the script development, though it too was interesting.

There is an excellent documentary about the investigation into Bob's death including graphic photos of the bloody body. The police, prosecutor, defense attorneys and family members all contribute. There is footage for the trial, which as I mentioned, resulted in acquittal. If the available evidence had been analyzed with modern technology, I'm quite sure the accused would have been convicted of manslaughter at least.

Very well-made movie of an off-beat subject. There are some comical aspects to offset the darkness. The short and shallow behind-the-scenes was the only disappointment. Recommended - but not as a first date movie.

Rating:
Summary: kind of mediocre
Review: I guess I would rate this in the middle. Bob Crane died when I was young. I loved watching the repeats of Hogan's Heroes before going to kindergarten. I was shocked by his death and could not understand why or how it happened. I was hoping this movie would give some info that I missed as a seven year old in 1978. I was looking for more clues/hints than a documentary would give seeing this was full blown motion picture. So much of the movie seemed to be about his sex life. It was too creepy to imagine that someone could know so much about his sex life so many years ago. So with those parts of the film most likely made up, it was hard to believe the movie at all. Why did they not report this stuff earlier? Finally in the end it kind of reminded me of one of those books an angry family member writes after their famous celebrity relative dies. I doubt any of his wives waited 25 years to give information. I guess I expected more facts and true plot. It was not so easy for me to believe the information as it was told. More of a biography about Bob Crane would have been nice with a little less sex and less topless women at the end. I missed information about the Hollywood Talent Scouts show and his mental state while his career fell apart. More women had their tops off than on from the middle to the end of the film. That took away any hope for me that the film could be realistic. It seemed like the writer's main topic was sex and tried to squeeze the rest of the film around it. Maybe see it once if you have the time. The acting was done well enough but Bob Crane's character might have been more believable if the actor was as good looking as he was. It was hard to imagine women so wild and crazy for two not so good looking men.