Little details ARE important

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2009)

Some movies are like late Beatles- Songs, you have to listen to them quite a few times to get to fully appreciate their greatness. For example, most movies by the Coen Brothers are like that. Also, Terry Gilliam's work is a little hard to get at the first time. Ed Wood by His Royale Weirdness Tim Burton is another example. When I watched it the first time I thought "Nice movie", now it's one of my all time favorite movies. And I will tell you my reasons: Johnny Depp seems to have lost himself completely in his character. His performance is simply adorable. He maximizes the fun of the screenplay in every scene. Just remember when the baptists tell him that they find the title "Grave robbers from outer space" blasphemies, and they'd rather call it "Plan 9 from outer space". Ed Wood's answer is just "That's ridiculous." The way Depp says this one liner makes me give myself away every time I watch it.
Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi is a blast. It's a miracle how he looks just like him, his accent is amazing and his mimic completes his perfect performance.
Sarah Jessica Parker is also great (her best role till today). Still she couldn't even closely play Dolores Fullers roles in Glen or Glenda or Bride of the monster as badly as the original Dolores (believe me, I saw her).
Bill Murray's performance is a little hard to describe. He actually manages to overact using his usual minimalism, which is kind of weird but still he's fun to watch.
The story itself couldn't be better. Ed Wood is a very likable character. He's so positive and dedicated to everything he does (like directing, writing, acting AND producing) even though his career is one big failure. His movies are considered to be the worst of all time, but in spite of his total lack of talent he somehow manages to raise up enough money to do his next film, of course not exactly without having problems on the way down the road.
If you watch an actual Ed Wood movie you can't deny that there's a certain production value in most cases. It's just the little details (besides the plot, of course) that make us laugh. Just like in "Ed Wood". So if you didn't like, give it one more chance or maybe two.