Ed Wood (1994)

Halloween Movie #8 (I know, I know...Ed Wood isn’t a scary or supernatural film, although it is the perfect companion to Plan 9 From Outer Space). Please click the links to read my reviews of One Hour Photo, American Psycho, Flatliners, Jacob’s Ladder, BlueVelvet, Ghostbusters, and Lost Highway. Oh – and Happy Halloween!!

Synopsis: World’s worst filmmaker finally receives the respectful, sympathetic tribute he probably doesn’t deserve.

Blurb From the VHS Jacket: “From Tim Burton, acclaimed director of Batman, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, comes the hilarious, true-life story of the wackiest filmmaker in Hollywood history – Ed Wood!”

What Did I Learn?: With a little bit of ingenuity and a whole lot of plucky determination, anyone can turn a few hubcaps, a short recording of Bela Lugosi and several reels of stock footage into a cinematic piece of shit.

You Might Like This Movie If: You wonder what Ed Wood might have accomplished had he continued making movies into the 1980s, with bigger budgets.

Really?: I have to wonder how Ed Wood supported himself when he made those awful films that bombed at the box office. He’s shown moving plants at a movie studio early on, and then things get a bit vague, money-wise.

Rating: Ed Wood is a warm, clever and often-funny look at a heterosexual-but-cross-dressing movie-maker with a great deal of enthusiasm (and not much talent), who assembled a motley menagerie of hangers-on. Johnny Depp and Martin Landau are amazingly good as Wood and Lugosi, and you just have to root for these loveable misfits even as they create some of the most genuinely awful films ever made. 9/10 stars.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109707/