A great movie about the movies

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2000)

"Ed Wood" is probably the best movie ever made about the movie business and those desperate to break in. It is director Tim Burton's valentine to the cheesy B-movies he loved as a child, and also to those who love films so much that they are willing to do whatever they can to be a part of the film world, notwithstanding their complete lack of talent.
The performances are wonderful - especially Martin Landau's remarkable turn as Bela Lugosi - and Stefan Czapsky's black-and-white cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. What really makes "Ed Wood" work, however, is that Burton and his actors found exactly the right tone in their loving re-creations of Wood's awful movies. Unlike the star-studded cast of Burton's subsequent film, "Mars Attacks!", where it was painfully obvious that everyone was in on the joke, the "actors" in the likes of "Bride of the Monster" sincerely believed they were making great art, and that's what makes these old movies so much fun. Of all the "A" movies that have tried to duplicate this, only "Ed Wood" and 1993's "Matinee" get this right.