Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

headhunter46 I have not been able to find this movie at any of the local stores. I would sort of like to see what Hollywood is showing regarding the star of Hogan. I have always gotten lots of laughs from the show but sometimes got the feeling Hogan was overdoing it.I go to youtube to get my Hogans fix every once in awhile.When I saw that Maria Bello was playing Hilda (Sigrid Valdis) I was skeptical. I have liked her in everything I have seen of her but to put her in the role of Hilda? Oh boy that is a stretch. Hilda was a healthy, curvy hunk of woman, while Bello is considerably thinner.I found the movie on netflix, so I just have to wait for it to arrive, then I'll come back and edit this review.

krocheav Unless your as morally bankrupt as Bob Crane, this movie should leave you feeling so grotty you may find yourself wanting to scrub yourself clean. Perhaps this film is as much an expose' of producer/director Paul Schrader as it is of Mr Crane - the two faced TV star in denial of his real-life condition. Schrader, sometimes a fellow collaborator of Scorsese, who like Scorsese, is drawn to these stories of people wallowing in their own carnal excesses, seems to be enjoying it far too much. Some have written that they think Schrader is on a moral crusade but his work overflows with so much perverse detail it tends to paint him as little more than a fellow pornographer (as with Pasolini and Bertolucci). 'Auto Focus' also has too much fiction amongst its facts. Unfortunately, as with many based on 'fact' productions - speculation creeps in - especially where two people are in particular situations alone - film makers and writers use these opportunities to add their own suppositions as how the events may have actually played out.Here, Bob Crane, a relatively 'B' grade performer who becomes the star of the 1965 TV sit-com "Hogan's Heroes" - is painted as a regular church going family man - according to his son he was not. Crane ruined two marriages with his perverse sexual addictions. The script also follows an obvious bias by setting-up his fellow partner (involved in numerous pornographic photography sessions) John Carpenter, as the only suspect for Crane's murder - this also was not so. This 'set-up' is too obvious and somewhat weakly developed - it just doesn't work all that well. We end up knowing more about the vile exploits of Crane and Carpenter than we really need and not enough of what else was playing out at this time.Crane, for all his amiable outward persona, made many enemies - any could also have been involved with his murder. The DVD includes a documentary covering the two subsequent investigations and court cases that may (or may not) help to shed light on this brutal murder - a murder that to this day, remains unsolved. Maybe all you need to see (if interested in this sordid case) is the doco. Apart from good performances, sleazy (and maybe not for all the right reasons) is the overall feeling left following this show.

classicalsteve The whole Hollywood/Entertainment scene in Los Angeles has to be one of the most surreal in modern culture. Actors who play "cool" and "suave" characters are often thought to be those characters in real life, but often they are not. Their creations are fantasies designed to entertain. Among the few name acting talents who receive accolades from both audiences and critics, some of them played characters which have become nearly iconic. Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock on Star Trek is one, Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker is another. And who could forget George Reeves as Superman in the 1950's. And Bob Crane playing the quick-witted and shrewd but lovable Colonel Hogan on the sit-com "Hogan's Heroes" is another. (Interesting that so many iconic television characters appeared from the 1950's to 1970's.) Bob Crane was one of the most recognizable of television stars from the mid-1960's to the early 1970's as the title character of "Hogan's Heroes". "Hogan's Heroes" was a light-hearted fantasy set in a POW camp in Germany during World War II. During the show, Hogan and his fellow "prisoners" out-witted and out-smarted their incompetent German captors in light and mostly inoffensive farce, of course unless you were possibly of German descent. In particular Colonel Klink who was almost as lovable as Hogan was often the butt of Crane and his compatriots' schemes who ran an underground communications system inside the camp. (It is one of the few sit-coms from its era which has withstood the test of time more or less.)Hogan's Heroes aside, the film "Auto Focus" paints a darker picture of Bob Crane. Although the finer details of his "other life" were slightly altered according to his sons, Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) is depicted as a sex addict. When he was not in the studio playing Hogan, he would avoid his family and engage in sex-capades with a video tech rep, John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe). At first the two spend hours at strip clubs in which Crane would sometimes sit in as a drummer, and Crane would claim long hours at the studio as his excuse to his family.Carpenter then introduces Crane to the wonders of home video technology, first reel-to-reel then video cassette tape, nearly 10 years before it would be widely available on the consumer market. They can not only watch pre-made videos, but they can produce their own. Crane and Carpenter would pick up young women at a club and invite them to Carpenter's place where he video tapes their sexual encounters. They were almost never rejected because of Crane's star status which would be too much for young girls to resist. Later Crane and Carpenter would watch their videos as yet another way to achieve stimulation and gratification. Soon, Crane's wife since high school discovers some of his tapes and videos and his appalled at his extracurricular activities. To add insult to injury, Crane begins seeing one of the actresses on the set of "Hogan's Heroes".Probably the two most tragic television actors who enjoyed their biggest successes during the era from circa 1950 to 1970 are George Reeves who played Superman and Bob Crane who played Colonel Hogan. George Reeves was found dead in 1959 just after his stint as Superman ended, apparently having committed suicide. Bob Crane was found murdered in his bed in an apartment in 1978 while engaged in a theater play, "Beginner's Luck", in Scottsdale, AZ. Both struggled as actors after their respective shows ended. They may have suffered from "type casting" in which the characters they played were so fused with themselves they couldn't find acting work as different characters in other productions. Unlike Reeves, Crane did receive some work after "Hogan's Heroes", such as appearing in two Disney films. However, his career would never equal the success he had playing Hogan. The murder of Crane is still regarded as unsolved but the film implies who probably committed the murderous deed.

MovieHoliks I saw this movie the year after it was released (2002), and I can't believe I've never gotten around to reviewing this. I got out my DVD and watched again last night. "Auto Focus" is writer/director Paul Schrader's ("Taxi Driver", "American Gigolo") biopic about "Hogans' Heroes" television star, Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear), and his descent into sexual mayhem and addiction, plus his relationship with electronics expert, John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), who is the prime suspect in his murder to this day (although was never found guilty in a court of law).The producers of this movie also were responsible for some other not-so- likely biopics of Andy Kaufman and Larry Flynt, among others. I was surprised to see this movie had gotten overall good reviews from critics, but only mediocre reviews from general movie-goers. I see that Crane's son was not too pleased about some misinformation (which is pretty normal in any given Hollywood biopic) about his dad. He points out that his father was a sex addict long before he met Carpenter, and really got heavily involved in Hollywood's seedy underbelly. He also said his dad rarely went to church- like maybe three times in his whole lifetime- including the funeral!Well, anyway, facts aside, I really enjoyed this film- thought Kinnear and Dafoe were both brilliant in a couple of the best roles of their very versatile careers. I liked also how the film displayed a sorta electronics history lesson down through the decades- going from the VTR (video tape recorder) proto-type, to that big huge first video-tape proto-type, eventually making it's way to the VHS/Beta-max tape we remember in the '80s! Rita Wilson, Maria Bello, Ed Begley, Jr. and Kurt Fuller round out the cast.