Ed Wood (Tim Burton movie)

          Ed Wood (1994) is a Tim Burton film that I had not heard of before this week. I picked it because it had one of the higher ratings for a Tim Burton movie on IMDb, and it looked interesting. It is a black and white biopic about Edward Wood Jr., a director who is known as the "worst director of all time." To start, this film surprised me. I have never been a fan of Tim Burton films, and coming into this week, I was not excited to watch one. However, this film was one I would certainly watch again.
          To start, the acting in this film is terrific. Martin Landau won on Oscar for "Best male in a supporting role" for his performance in this film and I see why. His character is among my favorite that I have ever encountered in film. He plays the role of Bela Lugosi, who was a real actor most famous for his role as Dracula in Dracula (1930). After reading a short bio on Bela Lugosi, I got an idea of what I thought Bela Lugosi might be like, and Landau captured this perfectly. He did an incredible job in creating a lovable, unstable, and dynamic character. He connects well with Johnny Depp on screen. Depp also is portrayed in a way that makes you believe he could have been the worst director ever. He is far too optimistic for his work and blind to see how bad it is. One scene that makes this clear is when he is shooting "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1959), and he is told that a cardboard gravestone falls over, but he does not care. This movie tells the story so well, that even with the cheap, unawareness present in Wood's films, you cannot help but root for him. It is interesting to see the contrast between his films and the films of Orson Welles-- his idol for the entire film. To further elaborate on acting, Sarah Jessica Parker and Patricia Arquette both do great jobs of capturing women who are unfit and fit for Wood, respectively. Bill Murray's character of Bunny Breckenridge was one of my favorites in this film, and I found myself ready to laugh every time he appeared. In all, Depp does a superb job in creating a picture of a blissfully unaware director whose life we should probably should not celebrate, but find ourselves doing by the end of the film anyways.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to add that this film initially shocked me when its theme of cross-dressing was introduced. When Wood first tells the film company he is perfect to produce a film about a sex change because he is a cross-dresser, I thought it was a joke, much like the film studios in later parts of the movie do. However, when I realized this was a reality in Wood's life, I began to understand a bit more. It is clear that Wood has a bizarre way of living life through this and his work, however, even with this taboo way of living, he is a hard character to dislike.
I would give this movie a 9.5/10 and I would definitely recommend that all see it. A pleasant surprise, and a new favorite.