Rating: 
Summary: A review from the author of YEARS OF RAGE
Review: I admire AUTO FOCUS very much.
The film is fascinated with moral depravity and self-debasement in the way that Schrader's other films were, but its thesis is much different: PERVERSION IS NORMAL. The normalization of sexual perversity is what AUTO FOCUS is all about (the title resonates with "auto-eroticism," as well as "self-focus"). The film says: Scopophilia is NORMAL. Voyeurism is NORMAL. PERVERSITY is, paradoxically, NORMAL.
The film says: there is no contradiction between the smiling, good-natured, all-American persona exemplified by Bob Crane and the voyeuristic pervert with a videocamera.
You would be hard-pressed to find a more audacious mainstream American film.
Why? This film takes the viewer places to which no other film has dared: into the basement of the pervert, without any kind of moralism or redemptive judgments.
The film is unusually claustrophobic and narrow in its focus: it is preoccipied solely with the sexual obsessions of Bob Crane and John Carpenter.
When the dream sequences occur, they cast the rest of the film into sharp relief.
A work of intelligence that exerts fascination over the viewer from beginning to end.
Joseph Suglia, the author of YEARS OF RAGE
Rating: 
Summary: 3/5
Review: Paul Schrader, the director of this movie is, best known as a screenwriter for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation Of The Christ-- just to name a few, naturally spiced up the release of this movie. With a name like his, the movie is bound to create some kind of a buzz. Even though Auto Focus did not get a wide release, it still did fairly good as a limited release in select cities. While I'm at it, it's important to say that Bob Crane's family has been trying to fight this movie for quite some time, as you can see, they did not succeed. I can honestly understand why they wouldn't want this movie to see the light of the day, but I also understand how Hollywood works with juicy stories hence the making of this movie.
To be quite honest, this movie would be extremely boring if it wasn't for this juicy subject matter.. what juicy matter you say? Well, it seems that if late Bob Crane has this *wild* idea to videotape himself having sex with various women across the country. I can't imagine anyone else wanting to do this (yea right), but Bob Crane did and he had a lot of fun doing it too, naturally. As interesting this story is, it seemed a bit dull because of the time period, not of the time period when it was shot but period of time that it was released in, meaning now. After all, we've seen everything and this movie is really not all that shocking but I do give it the credit it deserves, it looks absolutely great and it was wonderfully acted by the cast.
I think in this movie was released many years ago it would have done much much better, all in all, enjoy this biopic, it's fun to watch!
Rating:
Summary: One man's descent into a fatal addiction
Review: Bob Crane was to borrow a current pop phrase, "at the top of his game" when a friendship with a shady pervert / electronics buff named John Carpenter led him into the world of "swinging" and amateur porn films using the forerunner of today's home video equipmt.
The uncontrollable lust for porn and the sex addiction it fed were never revealed until after Crane's murder. This film and the documentary trailer tend to point to Carpenter as the perp of Crane's killing.
Crane died in 1978. It is eery how even now many fans say what he did in his private life had no bearing on his public persona and his career as an actor. This seems a bit reminiscent of defenses given for a former disgraced President. Yet in no way could Bob Crane be equated with Bill Clinton at his worst.
If there truly is such a thing as "sex addiction" Crane is its poster boy. And as the late serial killer Ted Bundy himself said, with this film we see how porn reaches out and "wraps itself around one man's life".
I found this an interesting film. The character John Carpenter as depicted by Wm Dafoe oozed with sleaziness yet more background info about him might have lessened his villainy. We know he grew up as a poor Amercian Indian and had actually served in the military (Crane's actual wartime service--if he had any--goes unmentioned). At one party scene Carpenter the seemingly normal Korean War vet goes to fisticuffs against long-haired presumed peaceniks who question the Viet Nam war. That incident served to show how the much heralded sexual revolution of that swinging era had participants from even the pro-war, conservative "silent majority" which Carpenter no doubt typified.
Kinnear's performance as Crane superbly depicts his descent into the swinger's life and his fetish for filming and then later viewing his sexcapades (while, we're led to assume) masturbating with good buddy Carpenter doing likewise, albeit at a "safe distance" from Crane.
Even at the film's idyllic "perfect family" outset where Crane's wife (here the quite attractive Mrs Tom Hanks) confronts him about his porn stash in the garage, we see the minute cracks/fissures in Crane's persona which later metamorphasize into the pathetic, sex-obsessed twice divorced itinerant dinner theater actor. The film might have been better served with additional detail about Crane's pre-California deejay experiences and Connecticutt youth/childhood/upbringing. We know from various websites that he was a good enough percussionist to play with a symphony yet he was let go for not being "serious enough" about his musicianship.
Having seen my own brother's marriage and family disintegrate due to infidelity, it was sad to see Crane's selfish sex pursuits alienate him from his children and wives. Even when meeting his son for a visitation, Bob apparently couldnt resist remarking about his girlfriend's looks-- to the son's chagrin. As the guest on a celebrity cooking show, his comments about a well-endowed audience member could today be standard stand-up fare served up by Dice Clay or Kennison, but seemed odd coming from a man who'd developed a wholesome clean cut persona on film and stage.
The film's interview with Crane family and Scottsdale police who hamhandedly investigated his murder was an additional benefit.
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: 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 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.
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