Auto Focus (2002)

[Mr_Vindictive]

Caught this flick on Max On Demand last night, and it is a fantastic film.  

The movie revolves around Robert Crane (Greg Kinnear), the title character from the 60's sitcom 'Hogans Heroes'.  The film shows his slow rise to success and his rapid and disturbing fall into pornography and debauchery.  

While on the set of Hogan's Heroes, he meets a man named John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe).  Carpenter is an A/V wizard and is also a swinger.  He gets Crane hooked on the idea of the first video camera, and they then use it to video tape orgies at Carpenter's home.  This leads Crane into a world of homemade pornography and to an unhealthy relationship with Carpenter.  

*Spoilers Ahead-If you don't know anything about Bob Crane that is*

The film of course concludes with the murder of Crane in an Arizona hotel room.  It is pretty much laid out here that Carpenter kills Crane, eventhough to my knowledge the case is still "unsolved".  

*End Spoilers*

Overall, this is an amazing film.  The subject matter is handled very well.  Eventhough the film is about pornography and there is quite a bit nudity throughout, there is nothing truly graphic about the film.  Kinnear gives a great performance as always, and his portrial of Crane is actually quite creepy.  He looks just like the man!

Dafoe also is fantastic as the strange pervert who is in love with Crane.  I have yet to see a film where Dafoe did not give an absolutely stunning performance.  


Overall, if you have Cinemax, wait for it to come on and watch it.  If you don't have Max, go out and rent this one.

[Chopper2]

I thought this was an excellent film also. Schrader did a real good job of directing a creepy portrait of this actor's life. There were moments where the movie could have gotten very exploitational, studio-like, and ridiculously melodramatic, but Scharder and the writer's totally avoided this making the film as realistic as possible.

[Neville]

I liked it as well. I dont use to like biopics, but this had a very original premise and, as Skaboi said, it was very well handed. Nice to see Dafoe and Kinnear in very different roles than usual, as well.

Schrader's next movie is the long expected "The Exorcist IV". Last nerws are that Schrader has been fired from it after refusing to add more horror into it. If everything keeps on like this, it would be interesting to see the result, if only for the people involved (John Frankenheimer was the original director, but after he died the producers hired Schrader to complete the filmmaking).

[Ash]

I saw it as well but about halfway through, friends arrived and we all started talking and not watching the movie so I only remember bits & pieces of the 2nd half.
Gonna have to rent that one again.

[jmc]

Saw this in the theaters and really enjoyed it, especially some of the bizarre dream/fantasy sequences.  

I picked up the true crime book [that had been written long before the film] about the case but it was less about Crane's life and more about the investigation of his death.

[Eirik]

This one is a must see IMO.  I really like the way the early scenes (when Crane was a straight laced) were shot very steadily with very bright colors in the scene and crisp edits...  and later, as Crane descended into his selfmade hell, the camera started to wobble a lot and the colors on screen got dark and dusky and the edits were made very choppily.  Masterful.

Another interesting scene was the very brief shot of the actor who played Lebeau having makeup put on his real-life concentration camp tatoo so that he could play a prisoner of the Nazis.  Ironic, and true.

Definitely catch the DVD which has an extra documentary called Murder in Scotsdale which is all about the evidence and the trial of John Carpenter and why various people involved think he got off.  They even interview Carpy's wife.  A real good documentary doubles the value of the rental.