On A List of Movie Reviews
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Auto Focus (2002)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
3/26
3/26:
Two main ways of knowing who Bob Crane was are Hogan's Heroes, which is really a
Stalag 17 spinoff, and any book that covers Hollywood scandals.
Naturally, most people aren't familiar with the actor or the sordid details that led to him being bludgeoned
to death; therefore, Auto Focus was a box-office disaster. It's a somewhat slow movie with lots of
repetition. The public never knew Bob Crane was leading that sort of life, so this is a major revelation.
Greg Kinnear is okay but has been largely saved by Willem Dafoe as his sidekick named John Carpenter (not the
director, of course). Both play creepy guys who are completely addicted to sex. The latter was tried for the
former's murder but got acquitted. To this day, the case is unsolved. By the way, the jacket Greg Kinnear
was wearing is the same one worn by Bob Crane that was first donned by Frank Sinatra in
Von Ryan's Express.
Yes, one of the characters is the same Richard Dawson of Family Feud fame. Believe it or not, he was
Bob Crane's best man for his second marriage to Sigrid Valdis (Patricia Olson). Also not mentioned is that Bob
Crane had his own TV sitcom called The Bob Crane Show in 1975, but it failed and was thus taken off
after fourteen episodes.
All in all, one reviewer captures Bob Crane perfectly to describe what Auto Focus is about:
"All he thinks about all day long is sex...watching sex, having sex, and filming sex."