Tim Burton's masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (27 August 2014)

An outrageously entertaining and often hilarious tribute to perhaps the worst director of all time. It could also be seen as a tribute to all the little guys in Hollywood who never made it big. Johnny Depp is absolutely fantastic as Ed Wood, whose relentless and infectious optimism, eccentricities and complete acceptance of his friends' many eccentricities make him a lovable protagonist. It's more of a comic retelling of Wood's life and career during the 1950s than an historically accurate biopic and that approach works very well in this case. I thought that it was a wise decision not to make it an outright parody of Wood. I also thought that the use of black and white fitted in perfectly with the film.
Martin Landau is brilliant (and almost unrecognisable) in his Oscar winning role as the fallen star Bela Lugosi. Having worked with his idol Vincent Price, I imagine that Burton knew exactly how Wood felt to be working with Lugosi, giving the film a more personal dimension than many of his other ones. The rest of the cast is excellent too, particularly Bill Murray as Bunny Breckinridge (who played the Ruler in Wood's magnum opus "Plan 9 from Outer Space"), Patricia Arquette in the fairly small role of Wood's incredibly supportive and understanding girlfriend and eventual wife Kathy O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones as Criswell. Sarah Jessica Parker is surprisingly good as Wood's less supportive previous girlfriend Dolores Fuller, who was reportedly far nicer in real life.
The film was a financial flop, making less than a third of its already small budget, but I think that this is Tim Burton's masterpiece. It's one of my top 20 films of all time and my favourite film about films / filmmaking.