Ed Wood (1994)

When you see an Indian organist playing in a meat-house with the meat still cooling in it, while a transvestite is performing a belly dance without his teeth and is making Bela Lugosi swing, you know it...you're watching a Tim Burton movie.

The movie brilliantly tells the story about Edward D. Wood Jr. widely know these days as the worst movie director of all time. It tells the story with lot's of humor but it never gets disrespectful, or makes fun of Wood. Instead you actually will gain lot's of respect for his passion and his will power to make just that one movie that he would always be remembered for. The story of Edward D. Wood Jr. is tragic but the movie never becomes sad. It is the perfect homage and tribute to this unfortunate director. You can see by watching this movie that Tim Burton in a way really admires Wood's life and his work.

We get to see Wood as a filmmaker and as an individual. We get to know his weird lifestyle and his eccentric famous friends

OK the movie might no be a completely fair biography about Wood. It takes lot's of liberties with telling the story and it only shows the bright days of Wood's life but as movie it works really well and is next to "Edward Sciccorhands" Burton's best movie till date, truly a masterpiece!

The cast is terrific. Johnn Depp in a Tim Burton movie is always jackpot. Sarah Jessica Parker impressed me and Martin Landau truly is perfect as Bela Lugosi. Bill Murray does what he can best, acting crazy! The Danny Elfman like music by Howard Shore is really great and also great as an homage to the 50's horror soundtracks.

The movie works both as a comedy and as a drama. It knows to find the perfect balance but mainly still the movie is just extremely fun to watch. The movie really has tons of laughs and is filled with some incredible crazy character's but like I said before, it never becomes disrespectful to anyone.

I must say that "Ed Wood" really changed my life. It got me interested in not just only Ed Wood movies but 50's horror movies in general. It also made me a big fan of the famous Hammer film's.

A brilliant, strange, tragic, fun homage to the man who will always be remembered as the worst director of all time.

10/10

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Fmovies: It's truly ironic that Tim Burton was able to make such a great masterpiece out of the life story of Edward D. Wood Jr. The least you can say is that his life wasn't. What makes this film so great is that Burton never makes fun of Ed Wood. His way of film-making, his lifestyle and his vision of things are always shown with respect. It's obvious that Burton didn't intend to make a comedy about Hollywood, but a drama about a man with a dream to make films. And he won't give up that dream, no matter what. I'm a great fan of Tim Burton. Especially when he casts Johnny Depp in the leading role. Edward Sciccorhands, Sleepy Hollow and this Ed Wood can easily make the top 50 films of ALL TIME. There's chemistry on the screen, when those 2 work together. And Johnny is not alone this time. The Oscar that Martin Landau received for his role of Bela Lugosi is perhaps one of the most deserved ones in the history of the Academy Awards. He's very creepy as the washed up actor, but very pathetic at the same time. It really is an outstanding performance. Patricia Arquette is just adorable as Kathy, the woman who stays with Edward in good and bad days. She's always giving him support, believes in him, accepts him as he is ( his confession to her in the spook house is really heartbreaking ) Lisa Marie is really sexy as Vampire. People can think she receives all her roles because she sleeps with the director, but she really can act. Very well as the matter a fact. One little disappointment maybe, I was hoping the role of Orson Welles ( played by Vincent D'Onofrio - one genius plays another one ) would have been a little bigger. "Ed Wood" is one of the best films of the 90's... what am I saying ? One of the best films EVER !!!

The theatre wasn't exactly filling up fast: so far my husband, a friend and myself were the only ones seated. Just before the movie began, a young couple walked in. And shortly after the movie began, they walked out. I wonder if they asked for their money back. I hope they didn't get it.

The movie was ED WOOD, Tim Burton's homage to trash-film director Edward D. Wood Jr., which only played in Greenville for two weeks and did not show up at the second-run movie houses. Apparently no one wanted to see it. Their loss.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on those who don't appreciate the subtle nuances of Eddie Wood's movies. To me, Eddie was a glittering bead hanging on Hollywood's lunatic fringe. However, Eddie, a transvestite who often directed his masterpieces wearing high heels and an angora sweater, was not exactly your mama's director. He was no Frank Tashlin, who tried to make Jayne Mansfield respectable in THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT. He was no Norman Taurog, who made Elvis look like a dork in countless girls-cars-and-guitars flicks. He wasn't even Russ Meyer, whose exploitation films are legendary in their trashiness. No, Eddie just never seemed to get a break. He wanted to be Orson Welles. He didn't even find the measure of fame accorded to Orson Bean! He remained a pathetic outcast, forever a fringie.

Perhaps it is appropriate that Johnny Depp was chosen to portray Eddie Wood. Depp has a long history of playing outcasts and fringies -- Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, Hunter Thompson. Depp makes it clear that Eddie's angora-covered heart was in the right place. He worked hard on his scripts, he gave important roles to spectacularly talentless actors like Vampira, wrestler Tor Johnson and Eddie's own main squeeze, Dolores Fuller. And he was very kind to the drug-addled has-been Bela Lugosi, even dissuading the drunken Drac from committing suicide (which wasn't entirely altruistic, perhaps, as Lugosi had threatened to take Eddie with him). Depp makes Eddie appear almost human.

Depp's portrayal is just one of several that are outstanding: George "The Animal" Steele as Tor Johnson, Jeffrey Jones as Criswell, Vincent D'Onofrio in his cameo of Orson Welles and Bill Murray as Bunny Breckinridge -- one of the rare times Murray has immersed himself in his character and not been merely Bill Murray with someone else's name. Also delightful is a brief appearance by organist Korla Pandit, 1950's television personality once billed "The Prince of the Wurlitzer."

However, all the performances in ED WOOD are overshadowed by Academy-award winner Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. For those enough old enough to remember Landau in TV's "Mission: Impossible," it perhaps isn't surprising that Landau was able to hide so completely behind a spookily accurate makeup job; seeing Landau's Lugosi watch himself on television was eerie because Landau looked enough like Lugosi to make it seem real.

The film ends on a high note, which Eddie's life didn't -- he died in his sleep, watching a ball game, just a few days after he'd been evicted from his apartment.

ED WOOD is not a family film. Some of the language is strong, drugs and drink are abundant, and many of the characters are a shade on the bizarre side. It might be hard to explain to one's children why this apparently virile man loves to raid his girlfriend's closets.

Unfortunately, ED WOOD hasn't exactly bur

Ed Wood fmovies. It's appropriate that Tim Burton would direct this and even more appropriate that Johnny Depp would play the lead character as this story profiles an unusual subject: the worst director of films, perhaps, in Hollywood history....and one of its strangest characters.

As interesting as the story is, I found the black-and-white photography to be the best aspect of the film, but that's no surprise since Burton usually excels in making great visual films. Depp was hilarious as "Ed Wood." The eternal optimistic attitude and silly smile on his face in this film always makes me laugh and actually is inspiring in parts. You can't help but like poor Ed.

The most dramatic figure is Bela Lugosi, played memorably by Martin Landau, who deservedly won many awards for this performance. What a tragic figure.

To no surprise, there is a cheap shot against Baptists, who are made to look like meddling fools, something Hollywood loves to portray when it comes to any Christian character. Other than that, it's a fascinating film and portrait of a weirdo that only real-life weirdo Johnny Depp could do justice!

I am a Johnny Depp fan, and this film only reinforced my enjoyment of his genuine talent. He's whatcha call a real actor. He's on record ("Inside the Actor's Studio" & elsewhere) as saying that his characterization of Wood was a mixture of "the blind optimism of Ronald Reagan, the enthusiasm of the Tin Man from 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939) and Casey Kasem." Well, I must add that either he left out channeling Jon Lovitz or that's where Lovitz got his inspiration, too. It is at moments positively eerie how well it works, and without feeling like Depp stole Lovitz's act--his overall character is so much more, so much else, that the Lovitz echo becomes a small part of a larger coherent whole, although it never disappears entirely.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Patricia Arquette as the principal women in Wood's life are each endearing and effective in their own separate ways. Bill Murray is fun as always, and the secondary and bit players are very well cast.

Martin Landau . . . well . . . Martin Landau simply left me awestruck. Depp is all over the screen doin' his best wacky movie guy and chewing the scenery, Parker, Arquette, Murray, and the rest are obviously having a real fun time backing him up, and Martin Landau is shuffling around in the foreground muttering in Romanian and writing a book called "How to Steal a Movie." Mind boggling performance, and absolutely deserving every award it got him in 1995, which included a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG Awards, and the American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. (Incidentally, his daughter Juliet, better known to millions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans as the vampire Drusilla, is one of the supporting players.)

If I weren't already a Tim Burton fan this movie would have made me one. He here makes an almost perfectly crafted period piece (anachronisms noted--see the "goofs" page--and dismissed), half cheesy fake scifi B movie and half period noir thriller, as a cinematic biography about the quintessential cheesy fake noir scifi thriller B movie guy. This film goes beyond pastiche, and beyond homage to a genre, although it is both. With this film Burton genuflects--no, prostrates himself--before the gods of 1950s low-budget black and white, and the gods are pleased indeed. It seems like he must have watched every movie made in America for under a million dollars between 1948 and 1962. I lost count of the echoes and parodies and pastiches and mini-homages that fill, I think, every darn frame of the movie, and which by no means are mostly of Wood and his work.

As with, I think, every movie biography, there's the odd gratuitous fact changing (see the "goofs" page again)--you know, the "Why'd they do that when the truth wouldn't make any difference?" kind of stuff, and as glowing as this review obviously is I must also say that it is in some ways an imperfect film--it glosses over Wood's later career, for example. But it it so obviously a labor of love and joy for all involved that in my opinion its imperfections are inconsequential. Ed Wood stands proudly, with that slightly odd gleam in its eye, with the best movie biographies made.

This was the movie that Johnny Depp should have been nominated for! He was amazing! And seriously, this movie deserved so much more than just make-up and best supporting actor. "Ed Wood" is a terrific movie that every film fanatic will love. It has humor, drama, and romance. The thing is, I had heard a lot about Ed Wood, and was curious on what his life was like. My sister recommended this movie, and I think I might steal it from her. Just kidding! But it's worth not only a watch but a buy as well.

Everything about this movie is perfect. I don't think there is a way you can change it to make it any better. I would highly recommend this movie any time. Especially if you want to learn about the crazy and interesting life of "Ed Wood".

10/10