good and ghoulishly funny, one of Burton's best

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2012)

Original, sweet-tempered and enjoyable movie, one of my favorites out of Burton's oeuvre. Ignored in life, mocked in death, Edward D. Wood Jr. was a real phenomenon in American cinema history, especially famous for his Z-budget filmmaking. Making a biopic about such a schlocky visionary reputed as the worst director of all-time is just a groovy idea, which only Tim Burton dares to do it.
Shot beautifully in moody black & white, the film centers on Wood's most "prolific" period, when he relentlessly churned out one movie after the next, from his 1953 beyond-awful debut "Glen or Glenda" to his "groundbreaking" 1959 sci/fi "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Paying a final tribute to this idiosyncratic director, Burton opts to portray Wood and his misfit menagerie in an over-exaggeratedly sympathetic way, not to depict the darker side of his life. The film ends before his slide into porn, misery and alcoholism. The film charts Wood's tragi-comic career: his flagrant ineptitude as a writer, producer and director; his efforts to beat the bushes for cash; his indifferent, hyper-enthusiastic and over-optimistic disposition against all kinds of professional and personal setbacks; his sheer passion and child-like naiveté; his transvestite tendencies with a particular taste in fluffy Angora sweaters, blond wigs and high heels; and lastly his strange friendship with 70-year old sepulchral Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi.
The film is hilarious and witty from beginning to end, especially the recreation of certain scenes from Wood's original work (e.g. Lugosi's fight with a flaccid rubber octopus puppet and graveyard scene of "Plan 9 From Outer Space") are hysterically funny. But such a film desperately needs a some degree of gravity. The relationship and chemistry between Wood and Lugosi is the emotional core of the film. Johnny Depp gives a sympathetic and charismatic portrayal of Wood. But, this is Martin Landau who really steals the show, and he is the glue that holds the movie together. His performance is dazzling, conveying the ego, pathos, pride and real dignity of the former horror hero Bela Lugosi. This is the role which won him Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and he really deserved it.
To me, "Ed Wood" shows that life is not merely about success, fame or money; but rather about your creative spirit, and how much you cling to your principles and how much you love what you do. Burton portrays Wood as a winner, because he dared to make films yet he had absolutely no gift when it comes to filmmaking. Today, despite the fact that his films are used as a benchmark that the most awful films are measured by, that's not the problem at all.
The wonderful irony of the film is that it won two Oscars with the name "Ed Wood" written on it :)