Alexander Payne is the writer-director who turned Ferris Bueller
into a pathetic, adultering, bumbling high school professor, and
abortion into the subject for a screwball comedy.

Todd Haynes has been on the fringe of Hollywood, but never quite
in the spotlight. Credit that to his idiosyncratic movies, which
include the stylish and experimental films “Safe,” a
portrait of a housewife who might be allergic to society, and
“Velvet Goldmine,” a bombastic picture of the 1970s
glam-rock scene.

In the lobby of the arctic air-conditioned Melnitz Hall are
posters of films on which UCLA alums worked.
Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula” sits
black-framed on one side of the hall; on the opposite wall is
Alexander Payne’s “Election.” Both of Brad
Silberling’s efforts (“City of Angels,”
“Casper”) are framed as well, making him giddy.

If ignorance is bliss, then Bob Crane, subject of Paul
Schrader’s film “Auto Focus,” was probably the
gosh-darn happiest man in the universe.
As the star of the television hit “Hogan’s
Heroes” during its brief but popular run, Crane was privy to
all the women fame brings, and he documented his sexcapades through
still photography and then-new video technology. He shared his
escapades with John Carpenter ““ a man who would become the
focus of an investigation into Crane’s eventual murder in a
hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz.