Wood Work.

 "Is there a script?" - Edward D. Wood, Jr.

It's November. And that means the month of the turkey.  And while there will always be YouTube videos of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes and bad movies with bad directors will continue to surface long after we're all gone, none will be as infamously known as Edward D. Wood, Jr.  and Tim Burton's masterpiece biopic, Ed Wood.

Ed Wood is hands down, Tim Burton's best film.  It is Johnny Depp's greatest performance (an Oscar nomination was due way before Jack Sparrow ever swashbuckled up on the screen).  For 17 years, Ed Wood has sort of sat dormant while Burton continues to capture his once bizarre and twisted magic within his filmography.

He hasn't done it.  No movie that Burton has ever made since 1994 has even come close to the brilliance of Ed Wood, even though this blogger has thoroughly enjoyed his later films.  So why praise Ed Wood so much?  Because its element of ridiculousness is the key.  Ed Wood was a clueless idiot who loved film so much but yet had no idea how to even conceive making one.  His ineptitude is what made him a legend.  If Burton had approached the film with a serious tone, it wouldn't have worked.  The element here is that the "cheesy" and campy nature within all of Wood's films is present within Burton's film, being played out superbly by professional actors.  Sure, Burton could've used a bunch of no-name novices for the picture, and perhaps it would've worked, but the fact that the performances of his cast is so amazing (particularly an Oscar-winning Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi) shows that Burton can exhibit himself as a gifted director.

We all know by now that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton share the same brain, but this was only Depp's second collaboration with Burton after Edward Scissorhands, so their approach still appeared fresh and original.  Depp plays the role of Ed completely over-the-top which is exactly what we would expect from a director who gave us such garbage masterpieces as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Bride Of The Monster.  The essence that is remarkable about Depp's performance is that he stays in a mood of complete positive thinking throughout 95% of the movie.  He's somebody that won't ever give up.  

And yet, he's also clueless.  He doesn't have a single idea about how to make a movie, but that's really not the point.  He's passionate about the filmmaking process itself, regardless if he knows anything about it.  And it some strange way, we cheer him on all the way through the film and want him to succeed.  And when the story takes the bizarre turn and we find out Ed's secret of dressing in women's clothing (with a severe fetish for angora sweaters), well...it just adds to the campiness that his films so greatly resonate.

Burton also gets fine performances from his supporting cast, with Bill Murray, Jeffrey Jones, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, and an absolutely brilliant Martin Landau so perfect as horror legend Lugosi.  Landau's interpretation of a sad, washed-up, drug addled has-been is played to the hilt, with amazing comedic timing and bizarre nuances as evidenced in the following scene:

It's scenes like this that are present throughout the whole picture and make the film such a treasure.  And while some people may find the movie not to their tastes because of the severe absurdity of it all, those familiar with auteur Wood's filmography will be endlessly entertained.

This blogger never saw Ed Wood in the theater, and it's a deep regret.  This biography of the original "midnight movie man" is an amazing display of filmmaking, and something that Tim Burton has never recaptured.  Unless you count the Planet Of The Apes remake, which this blogger found entertaining in a "so-bad-it's-good" way.  I guess Wood was whispering ideas into Burton's dark, demented subconscious while he was filming that simian disaster.  

Damn him all to hell.

Ed Wood, (1994), Directed by Tim Burton

Grade: A+