Ed Wood (1994)

Hollywood’s very own Tim Burton pays homage to Hollywood’s worst director, Ed D. Wood Jr. in this very uniquely dramatized memoire. The film follows Ed D. Wood Jr. (Johnny Depp) in his ambition to be a spectacular and well-known moviemaker as he writes and directs failure after failure. The cross-dresser Ed Wood surrounds himself with a crew of Hollywood misfits. However the real story in this noir movie is Ed Wood’s friendship with an elderly morphine-addicted, Bela Lugosi played by Martin Landau. Landau gave an impressive Oscar-winning performance in his role where his character, Bela Lugosi, was trying to make a comeback with the ‘help’ of Ed Wood. The way I see it, there were two ways of making this film. Tim Burton could have easily made a film mocking this clumsy director however Tim Burton took a look at the other perspective of Ed Wood and decided to dedicate the film to his passion for making movies and his ongoing perseverance even while being practically laughed and booed out of the business. I would have to say that I found the relationship between Wood and Lugosi quite moving as Burton empathically portrayed Wood’s loyalty and dedication to Lugosi; Burton showed genuine sincerity between these characters, as was Lugosi’s last speech “I have no home”. But I have to say, as bad as “Bride of the Monster” was, his speech was clearly an emotional representation of Lugosi’s life and a final accomplishment of his spirit. To conclude this review of the very captivating yet tedious movie of Ed Wood, it is something I definitely enjoyed watching, although would not consider, if given the choice, to watch again.