Auto Focus (2002) |
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Auto Focus (2002) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-City Audio Commentary-Director's Commentary Audio Commentary-Writers And Producers Commentary Audio Commentary-Cast Commentary Featurette-Documentary: Murder In Scottsdale Part 1 Featurette-Documentary: Murder In Scottsdale Part 2 Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes-5, With Optional Commentary Theatrical Trailer-2 Trailer-Sniper II, xXx, Spider's Web |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2002 | ||
| Running Time | 101:27 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (59:48) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4,5 | Directed By | Paul Schrader |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Greg Kinnear Willem Dafoe Rita Wilson |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Angelo Badalamenti |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English French Dutch Arabic Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Norwegian Polish Slovenian Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | Yes, Sony gets plenty of airtime | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Auto Focus, directed by Paul Schrader (Forever Mine, Affliction, and the screenplays for Taxi and Raging Bull), is primarily based on the life of actor Bob Crane. Crane is best remembered for his role as Colonel Hogan in the TV series Hogan's Heroes which was produced from 1965-1971 and has barely left our TV screens after multiple repeat screenings.
This film is based on the book, imaginatively titled The Murder of Bob Crane, by Robert Graysmith and details Bob Crane's (played somewhat two-dimensionally by Greg Kinnear) descent into sleaze, guided by his friendship with techno-guru John Carpenter (not the director!) played strongly by Willem Dafoe. The story culminates in Crane being clubbed to death, perhaps ironically, with a camera tripod by an unknown assailant.
The title, Auto Focus, doesn't refer to the type of camera lens (which didn't exist at the time), but is meant to imply 'self focus' or self-centred which is pretty much the path that Bob Crane's life took as he descended further into pornography, fuelled by Carpenter's own interests and video recording equipment. It is interesting to see the development of video recording equipment from reel-to-reel, enclosed tape, and timer recording as the film itself progresses.
This is an interesting film, with some reasonable performances by most of the cast. It is also impressively filmed, with an intentional and clear change in style towards the end.
"A day without sex is a day wasted" is the catchcry of the two protagonists, and pretty much sums up Crane's life and to some extent what the viewer is offered in this film! As a warning to viewers who may be offended, there is plenty of frontal nudity.
The transfer on this DVD is immaculate, in keeping with the film's very recent vintage. The transfer is presented in the original ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
It is a crisp picture throughout and interestingly seems even crisper in the last half hour. This was no doubt a directorial choice in conjunction with greater use of hand-held cameras and muted colours which help paint the picture of increasing confusion and impending doom.
Shadow detail is good, although some scenes, such as the bar scene at 18:30, appeared to lose the detail a little in the shadows; I suspect the film was shot this way. There was no visible grain at any stage of the film.
The colour in the early part of the film was very rich and almost, but not quite, oversaturated in some scenes. Examples of this included the red cardigans at 2:52 and the very blue sofa at 4:17. Flesh tones in the early part of the film were a little too red. According to the director, in his commentary track, this rich colour was intentional to capture the 'happy' 60s feel in which the film starts off. Towards the end of the film, the colour is comparatively muted to help paint the circumstances that Bob Crane finds himself in.
I could see no MPEG or film artefacts at all nor any transfer artefacts. In fact, there were many scenes in which the usual culprits for aliasing, such as tweed jackets or Venetian blinds, were very well handled in the transfer.
There are a large number of subtitles offered on this disk. I sampled the English, French and Hindi subtitles. In general they were well synced to the onscreen dialogue and were around 90% accurate.
This is a dual layer disc with the layer change occurring at 59:48. This was reasonably well placed at the end of a scene but still resulted in a 1-second pause. Perhaps the film's own 'black screen' scene at 77:50 might have been a better place if that were feasible.
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The film's soundtrack is provided in English and French in Dolby Digital 5.1. The three commentary tracks are in Dolby Digital 2.0.
The dialogue is clear at all times and is in sync with the actor's lip movements. There was slight distortion in one of the commentary tracks when one of the producers frequently raised his voice in excitement!
The music, by Angelo Badalamenti, was well suited to the onscreen action and was dramatic where appropriate, and yet light where it needed to be. There were also a large number of songs from the 60s and 70s.
This being primarily a dialogue-driven film, the soundstage is predominantly across the front three speakers. The rear channels mostly carry ambient noise or music, although there were a few scenes featuring directional effects. These included 49:02 in which there was reasonable front-to-rear panning, 61:30 in which an aircraft was heard flying overhead in the rear left surround, as well as 90:23 in which the actor's voice circles around the surround speakers.
The subwoofer is called upon to support the music on many occasions, especially during the frequent depictions of live stage performances.
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This single disc is packed to the rafters with extras. Why is it that the low-budget, small release films, often get loads of extras? Perhaps to get people to buy them in store?
The main menu is animated and has music from the film playing in the background. It was presented in 1.85:1 ratio and 16x9 enhanced.
Dolby Digital Trailer - City - why is it that films that don't have much 'surround' sound, always seem to have a Dolby Digital trailer? Perhaps just to show that the surround speakers do work?
This is presented in 4:3 full-frame and with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround sound. Subtitles are available in English, French and Dutch. There is the option to play the 2 parts separately, or together.
This documentary recounts the investigation outlined in Robert Grayson's book The Murder of Bob Crane. As Auto Focus is based on this book, one would expect close correlation between the facts as presented in this documentary and the event depicted in the film. There are plenty of interviews with police officials, various members of the judiciary, as well as some of Bob Crane's children, and John Carpenter's widow. This feature was obviously made for this DVD as much use is made of scenes and even props (such as the prosthetic corpse) from the film itself.
This is presented in 4:3 full-frame with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround sound. It's the usual modern-day 'making of' which doesn't show any real background to the making of the film, but is more a self-congratulatory extended advertisement for the film! This one is perhaps a little better than some as at least the interviewees aren't sitting alongside a poster for the film!
There are 5 scenes that were deleted from the final film. This is well presented as it offers the option of listening to the original sound (sometimes very rough), or to the director's commentary. They are all in 1.85:1 letterbox format.
There are 2 trailers for Auto Focus:
There are also 3 trailers for other films:
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The R1 version appears to have a link to the website as the only difference.
Consequently the R4 release is the recommended one for its PAL transfer.
A nice blend of sex, rock n' roll, and a parallel history of the VCR (!), with a more than a glimpse into the questionable benefits that TV stardom brought to the life of Bob Crane. This film shows, though not in great detail, the effect that his increasing addiction to all things related to sex had on his life, his relationships and his work. Auto Focus doesn't go into great depth into much beyond Crane's actual exploits, but is helped by strong performances from Willem Dafoe, as well as some of the other cast members. The story itself is interesting and the film is well paced and holds the viewer's attention till the end.
The video transfer provided on this DVD is very good, with very few artefacts, and a rich colour palette.
The audio transfer, while not one to utlise all surround speakers extensively, is still good, and importantly, has clear dialogue right through.
The extras provided on this single disk release are very comprehensive, with no less than 3 commentary tracks, deleted scenes, documentaries and trailers!
Although it doesn't appear to state it as such, one could consider this the "Collector's Edition".
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-344 Multi-Region, using Component output |
| Display | Sony KV-XA34M31 80cm. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. |
| Amplification | Denon AVR-2801 |
| Speakers | Main: Mission 753; Centre: Mission m7c2; rear: Mission 77DS; Sub: JBL PB10 |