Ed Wood
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Tim Burton |
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| Distributor | Touchstone / Disney |
| Honors | |
| Edward D. Wood Jr. was an actor writer-director-producer, occasionally in drag, who combined meager bursts of talent with an undying optimism to create some of the most bizarrely memorable “B” movies to ever come out of Tinseltown. Though Wood died in obscurity as an alcoholic in 1978, his films have been considered cult classics for years. He is consistently voted the worst director who ever lived. You would think this an odd subject, but director Tim Burton harnesses the undying hopefulness that made Wood such a character. Shot in black and white, just like… | |
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Amazon.com
Edward D. Wood Jr. was an actor writer-director-producer, occasionally in drag, who combined meager bursts of talent with an undying optimism to create some of the most bizarrely memorable “B” movies to ever come out of Tinseltown. Though Wood died in obscurity as an alcoholic in 1978, his films have been considered cult classics for years. He is consistently voted the worst director who ever lived. You would think this an odd subject, but director Tim Burton harnesses the undying hopefulness that made Wood such a character. Shot in black and white, just like Wood’s creations, this stylized, witty production captures the poetic absurdity of Wood’s films and his unconventional life. Burton’s recreation of Wood’s wonderfully awful Plan 9 from Outer Space looks much better than the original low-budget quickie. Burton tackled an extremely strange subject matter for a biopic, but Wood is presented as naive almost to the point of delusion, so the story works. The pace sags in the middle, as the weirdness starts to wear thin, but Depp proves himself an adroit actor, even while wearing angora and a blonde wig. Wood’s unconventional repertoire company is faithfully reproduced, including an Academy Award-winning Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. Landau is pathetic, droll, and charismatic as the elderly junkie who made his last screen appearances in Wood’s films. —Rochelle O’Gorman
Barnes and Noble
When Harry and Michael Medved proclaimed Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s Plan 9 from Outer Space to be the Worst Movie Ever Made in their 1980 book, The Golden Turkey Awards, the eccentric director attained instant icon status: the Grand Fromage of Cinematic Cheese. The stories behind his movies—shoestring budgets, stolen props, cross-dressing—were usually more interesting than the finished product, so it was no real surprise that someone would make a movie about him. Still, while one still wonders how director Tim Burton talked Walt Disney’s Touchstone Pictures into producing this black-and-white, R-rated, impossible-to-categorize biographical film, we remain glad he did. Johnny Depp portrays Wood, a wannabe filmmaker whose lack of talent is nearly made up for by his boundless enthusiasm. He also has a penchant for cross-dressing and angora sweaters—obsessions that will feature prominently in his movies. After spending the early ‘50s getting rejected by every producer in town, Wood happens on a bit of luck when he meets and befriends onetime horror icon Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), now a drug addict living in a dingy prefab house on the outskirts of Los Angeles. With a known star onboard, he finally gets backing, and he and his entourage of transsexuals, mentalists, professional wrestlers, and other denizens of the Hollywood fringe go about making such classic schlock as Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and the aforementioned Plan 9. Depp jumps in with both feet, playing Wood as a wide-eyed, gee-whiz dreamer who sees every production setback as an opportunity. As Lugosi, Landau is both profanely funny and profoundly sad, and the performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The casting is pitch-perfect, down to the smallest parts: Bill Murray as the flamboyant Bunny Breckinridge; Jeffrey Jones as the psychic Criswell; and Vincent D’Onofrio as Orson Welles. Burton, meanwhile, obviously had a blast re-creating some of the most infamous moments in Wood’s films; but it is the relationship between Depp and Landau that really make this film worth watching. Ed Wood may ultimately be a cult film about a cult director, but it is a near-perfect one that you don’t have to be a Midnight Movie fan to love.
Bill Pearis
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