Under appreciated movie, unnoticed film history

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 2018)

This week I watched the bio-dramedy Ed Wood (1994). In this film, Johnny Depp portrays a botanist gone director. Through a wild and crazy series of ups and downs, hard work and luck, Ed learns the movie business. This was nothing like previous Tim Burton movies as the movie was comedic and biographical. I really enjoyed seeing Johnny Depp in this role. I felt like his acting really had the opportunity to shine in a new way. The story was entertaining and engaging. I went into the film not knowing much about it and was saddened to learn that this was based on the real life story of director Ed Wood posthumously named "worst director in the world." I felt like this was a very low blow on Hollywood's part. No one, in my opinion, deserves that title and it is especially low to assign that title to someone after they have departed this world. This movie was a professional work and as such it had very high production values. I thought that Martin Landau played a stellar Bela Lugosi and Vincent D'Onofrio was a convincing Orson Welles. I thought the casting was exceptional as most of the stars looked like the parts they were playing and in D'Onofrio's case even sounded as convincing. I really liked the black and white touch that this movie was given. It really pulled the viewer back into an earlier era of the movie business and the editing and shot style imitated films from those days. As the movie came to a close I found myself wanting more movies of Ed's life. I wanted a part two. All in all, I enjoyed this movie and would definitely watch this again.