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Video/DVD: New Releases: Video killed the TV star
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 20, 2003
Auto Focus (R)
[Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]
Greg Kinnear, as Bob Crane, and Rita Wilson, as his wife, Anne, in Auto Focus.
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Pop culture fans will get a kick out of the re-creation of Hogan's Heroes characters in Paul Schrader's alternately funny and sad Auto Focus, the tale of TV star Bob Crane's fatal descent into his own obsessions. But the rest of the movie, a disturbing examination of celebrity culture, sex addiction and the self-reflexive nature of home video, may make a viewer want to take a shower.
Greg Kinnear (Nurse Betty) is magnetic as Crane, a Los Angeles disc jockey and occasional jazz drummer whose rise to TV fame coincides with his friendship to John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe, the picture of sleaze), a video-equipment guru. Carpenter, a Sony rep and onetime gadget supplier for Hogan's co-star Richard Dawson (Michael Rodgers), introduced the married Crane to the world of strip clubs, pick-up joints and, finally, swingers.
Schrader, never one to shy away from controversial subject matter, casually implicates "Carpy" in the murder of Crane, who died in bed, his head smashed by a tripod, in 1978. But the director is more interested in the codependent relationship between the actor and his "main man." It's as creepy, quirky and compelling as anything released in 2002.
Rent it if you enjoy: Boogie Nights; The People Vs. Larry Flynt.
DVD extras: Schrader offers amusing tidbits about the production (Kinnear wore Crane's jacket from the show, footage was shot on vintage video cameras), and insights into the subject matter. A documentary on Crane's murder is filled with gruesome photos and fascinating details on the investigation. Also featured are deleted scenes and a making-of-the-movie feature.
8 Mile (R)
[Photo: Universal]
Eminem, right, earned critical praise playing a white rapper struggling with his social status in 8 Mile. Kim Basinger plays his alcoholic mother.
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Eminem successfully makes the transition from hate-filled rapper to screen star, according to some observers, with this story about a white hip-hop kid struggling to beat the African-American competition in inner-city Detroit. Curtis Hanson (Wonder Boys, L.A. Confidential) aptly captures the milieu, and the cast includes Kim Basinger as the rapper's alcoholic mother, and Brittany Murphy as the romantic interest.
Rent it if you enjoy: Turn It Up and other rap-related movies and concert films (Backstage, The Show). DVD extras: Reality-style rap battles between Eminem and Detroit unknowns; uncensored version of the Superman video; making-of-the-movie documentary.
Abandon (PG-13)
Observant viewers will see the whodunit twist coming long before it's revealed in this wannabe psychological thriller, the disappointing debut feature from Stephen Gaghan, an Oscar winner for his Traffic screenplay. Katie Holmes (Wonder Boys, TV's Dawson's Creek) does what she can as a beautiful, driven college student whose boyfriend disappears. Benjamin Bratt, as a local cop on the case, and Charlie Hunnam, as the long-lost beau, deserve A's for their efforts in this contrived drama.
Rent it if you enjoy: A poor man's Alfred Hitchcock.
DVD extras: Commentary by Gaghan and cinematographer Matthew Libatique; deleted and extended scenes; making-of-the-movie feature.
Roger Dodger (R)
Campbell Scott (The Impostors) gave one of last year's finest performances, as Roger, an arrogant Manhattan advertising-agency employee with a reputation as a ladies man. Roger and his teenage nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) cruise bars and parties, and the older man's mask is gradually removed: Inside, he's a hunk of burning anger, an almost pitiable creature who can't communicate honestly with women.
Eisenberg, as a kid whose lack of sexual experience makes him more appealing than his jaded uncle, is a marvel. The supporting cast, including Isabella Rossellini, Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley, is first-rate.
DVD extras: Commentaries by Kidd, cinematographer Joaquin Baca-Asay and the two leads; deleted scene; walking tour of Manhattan spots seen in the film.
Rent it if you enjoy: Stories about the war between the sexes.
The Grey Zone (R)
[Photo: Lions Gate Films]
Mira Sorvino is among Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners in The Grey Zone.
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The third film directed by actor Tim Blake Nelson (Oh Brother Where Art Thou?) flickered briefly on the big screen, playing Tampa's Jewish Film Festival and other festivals before it disappeared to home video. The short run was probably for good reason: Nelson's film is one of the most bleak, pointedly grim movies ever released, the story of a group of Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners given privileges -- better food, clean bedding and cigarettes -- for manning the gas chambers and crematoriums.
The drama, first staged as a play, follows these men, called the Sonderkommandos, as they plan an armed attack on their captors and the death houses in the fall of 1944. David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Mira Sorvino, Natascha Lyonne and Daniel Benzali give hardy performances as prisoners. So do Harvey Keitel as an alcoholic Nazi officer, and Allan Corduner as a Jewish physician who cooperates with Dr. Josef Mengele. The camera lingers on piles of ashes, chamber walls splattered with human refuse, corpses being pushed into flames, a room filled with long braids of hair. The horror is vivid.
DVD extras: Nelson's commentary; separate commentary by cast and crew.
Rent it if you enjoy: Schindler's List; The Pianist.
Empire (R)
[Photo: Universal]
John Leguizamo, left, and Vincent Laresca star in the drug-dealing tale Empire.
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Franc Reyes apparently assumes that his target market -- young, Hispanic audiences -- will gravitate to fare that's dark-spirited, relentlessly profane and sprinkled with gratuitous sex and violence. The stereotyping is ugly, too: The men are motivated by a lust for cash, preferably obtained illegally, and the women are needy, promiscuous and/or predatory.
Those offenses are committed within a familiar framework, as Reyes charts the rise and fall of a drug dealer, Victor Rosa (John Leguizamo) from the South Bronx. He puts himself and his fortune at risk when he hooks up with a yuppie investment banker (Peter Sarsgaard). Leguizamo, Sarsgaard and Denise Richards (as an evil-vixen girlfriend) do okay by their characters, but Reyes doesn't quite know how to handle the rest of the cast, which includes Isabella Rossellini, Sonia Braga and Ruben Blades.
Rent it if you enjoy: Blow; Scarface; Goodfellas; Carlito's Way.
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