Film #44 of Project 90

” We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.”

Making a biopic about someone who is known as “The Worst Director of All Time” looks like an easy task, there is a reason that people call him the worst so if you want to make a funny and entertaining comedy you only need to show his “style” of film making and his childish passion for his own works. His life gives you enough material to make at least a couple of parodies, but Tim Burton chooses another way. He doesn't see Edward J. Wood as a talentless man who can be laughed at,…

This story's gonna grab people. It's about this guy, he's crazy about this girl, but he likes to wear dresses. Should he tell her? Should he not tell her? He's torn, Georgie. This is drama.
-Edward D. Wood, Jr.

This is probably my favorite Tim Burton film now. Most of his films of the last few years have been style over substance, but like I noted with Frankenweenie, he seems to be at his best when he's passionate about the subject matter. You can clearly see this is a personal film for Burton made with a lot of heart.

You can tell from the get-go that this is not a factual based biopic of Ed Wood, but rather a tribute…

80/100

Faulting this movie for whitewashing Wood's life is goofy—no one could possibly mistake its cartoonish exaggeration for a traditional biopic. Instead, it uses the broad outline of his career as the foundation for an affectionate, heartfelt paean to cockeyed optimism, with Depp as the poignant personification of drive and passion divorced from talent. Making this funny and even borderline heroic rather than cruel was no small feat, and ultimately I don't care that Lugosi was actually married for the last year of his life, or that Wood was a skirt-chasing drunk from an early age. And has there ever been such a non-judgmental portrait of tranvestism? (Even if there has, I bet it's comparatively dreary.) Stunningly beautiful, too—maybe the…

What's this? A Tim Burton film with substance, whoa!

Ed Wood is a tribute to misplaced dreams, being a very sympathetic depiction of art gone astray. There's no mockery here. The script's structure is clunky and this is a very phoney film, but given the context it works perfectly. Ed Wood does capture the "magic" and "heart" at the centre of Ed Wood's films. The visuals are also amazing, probably Burton's best effort that I have seen, being restrained and only overdone in a deliciously reverential sense. There's many referential shots and music cues, underlying the idea that films are a reflection of life. It's about friendship and love more than anything, something that can be seen in Wood's films.…

“Ed Wood” is a charming celebration of filmmaking and a tribute to a fascinating and unique artist, B-movie director Ed Wood, also known as the “worst director of all time”.

The film is sympathetic and respectful towards its quirky characters and beautifully captures Ed Wood´s passion, dedication, optimism, and endearing enthusiasm that make him a very inspiring person in spite of his lack of talent. He´s just extremely positive and likable and Johnny Depp plays him perfectly. Nevertheless, the standout performance is delivered by Martin Landau, who plays the aging horror film legend Bela Lugosi, an eccentric, theatrical, but also quite tragic and depressed character. The heartwarming friendship between Wood and Lugosi is the emotional core of the film (besides…