Rating: 
Summary: Johnny Makes Ed Great
Review: ED WOOD(1994). This is the story about a man who made junk, turned into a fable that becomes sophisticated entertainment. Credit the the crew and cast(especially to the opening credits)...
Rating: 
Summary: He He He
Review: I really loved this movie and it kept me laughing all the way from beginning to end. I just love the way he directs. Crap! but I think the story of his movie is just great.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This is a deeply personal film by Tim Burton, and so he has put a great deal of time and trouble into making it. It shows. The acting is superb, the story engaging, and the 'feel' of the movie is unequalled in modern cinema. It makes you feel so much for Ed Wood Jnr. that you almost wish that he had succeeded in making it big. Glorious.
Rating:
Summary: a wonderful, over-looked sleeper
Review: Although the story is about famous Z-writer/director Edward D. Wood Jr. and his many mishaps while trying to become a well-received mainstream filmmaker, the heart of the story is the touching friendship between Ed and Bela Lugosi. Excellently acted, written, directed, photographed, and scored, Tim Burton's ED WOOD is certainly the auteur's best, personal works next to VINCENT and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS: all the stories of misunderstood outsiders. Martin Landau's Oscar-Winning, scene stealing Bela Lugosi is not to be missed: PULL THE STRING! PULL THE STRING!
Rating:
Summary: No really this is good, honest
Review: Watching Ed Wood movies and watching Ed Wood there is an alarming thing - Ed Wood's life was better suited to a movie than he was as a director! And as he tried woefully to express this side of his personality to the public with the woeful Glen or Glenda ( " Did you see the movie? Uh huh. Worst movie you saw in your life? OK but how about.....hello hello! ) Johnny Depp is hilarious as Ed and really plays the part extraordinarily well. You almost feel sorry for him as he gets rejected from everyone because he seems to have his intentions right no matter how skewed they end up being. Of course Ed has a fetish for women's clothing which would make itself known in the film Glen or Glenda but Dolores wouldn't know about this until she read the script. Let's just say she doesn't take to it as well as Ed's rather naive script would like her to be! Although I have to admit that Sarah Jessica Parker is not exactly that easy to like in the movie Martin Landau is the one who I think plays Bela Lugosi and I have to say that the resemblance is uncanny that you almost feel like singing the line from the Bauhaus song Bela Lugosi's Dead -" Oh Bela, Bela's not dead " indeed! Bill Murray is fantastic in his role. As ever, he has the best lines in this movie. One of the best roles I've seen him in I've seen this film - it must be about nearly 7 or 8 times and it's so funny that some of the lines in it are implanted in my head. One that has to be watched for those interested in seeing something a little unusual
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating biopic of "the worst director of all time"
Review: I knew nothing of Ed Wood going into this film, and came out somewhat of a fan. Not of his movies - apparently they're Z-class quality - but of Ed Wood himself. There is something remarkably infectious about a man who has a powerful vision, minimal talent, but refuses to give up fighting. To be honest, I wish I had his optimism - although I don't begrudge his apparent blind-eye that he turns toward his own talent.
Burton's direction was perfect, and his recreation of Plan 9 from Outer Space was absolutely hysterical. Who couldn't laugh at tiny hand made circular spaceships held aloft by fishing poles and hovering over the Hollywood sign? Especially when one catches on fire. Think of it - a metal spaceship on fire. That's a laugh-out-loud moment.
Johnny Depp proved, yet again, his impressive depth as an actor. I have no idea if he was playing a tongue in cheek Ed Wood, or if Ed Wood really did have that silly smile plastered on his face while trying to sell his pictures, but even if it didn't, it worked - brilliantly. It conveyed Wood's optimism, as well as his blindness.
Moreover, there was Martin Landau. His performance as Bela Lugosi was unparalleled. The film would not have been as tangible and believable without it. The Oscar he won for Best Supporting Actor was perhaps one of the most deserving in recent history.
Rating:
Summary: Depp's Best Work
Review: I'm a huge fan of Tim Burton films - every one of them has been entertaining in it's own quirky way, and he really seems to know how to bring out the best performances from actors that generally don't impress me a great deal. I have to say that Johnny Depp never fried my burger until he started working with Burton. That said, I couldn't tear my eyes away from him in this particular film. The humourous audacity and the parallel tradgedy of Ed Wood's life came out effortlessly, not only through Depp's performance, but that of everyone else, particularly Martin Landau. The fact that it's in black and white escaped me at times too, I was so engrossed in "the moment" in just about every scene. This is what I love about Burton films, you get so engrossed in the worlds he creates you forget you're watching actors. And the fact that this was based on real life events made this film even more engaging. If Burton doesn't win an Oscar soon, I'm gonna have to have a chat with the Academy myself. He is a truly entertaining director. If you love movies AT ALL, you have to see this film.
Rating:
Summary: "Vissions are worth figthing for..."
Review: Thusly, Orson Welles (possably the greatest director of all time) sends Edward D. Wood Jr. (possably the worst directer of all time) into the world to make his mark.
The fact that this exchange between the two film-makers probably never took place, is irrelevent. This is a story about blind enthusiasm, not talent, and it is told with unlimited talent by Tim Burton.
There is not much I can say about this film, that has not been said by my 5star colleagues. I would only like to stress that this is a story of the heart. Those who love it tend to be a bit more sentamental than those who do not.
What keeps me coming back to this film is the friendship that develops through the arc of the story between Bela Lugosi and Ed Wood. It's the heart and soul of the experience. Everything else that has been knitted together to form this movie is of the highest caliber and could not have been improved upon, but if you miss the emotional cruxt of this truly magnificent experience you probably won't return to it as so many of us have, so very often.
A movie that will only increase in prestige over the next fifty years, forget about intelligence, and embrace the niave, with Ed Wood!
Rating:
Summary: Truth is still stranger than fiction!
Review: In order to appreciate this film, I think you have to have some innate sensitivity to, and ability to laugh at, the absurdities of everyday life. "Ed Wood" really resonates with many people, but leaves others totally mystified. I know many people for whom this film is an all-time favorite. Others to whom I have recommended it, who I think will flip for it, find it strange or incomprehensible. For me, however -- and I am speaking as a long-time resident of Poughkeepsie, mind -- I think that the fact that Edward D. Wood Jr., once acclaimed The Worst Film Director Of All Time, was a native of Poughkeepsie shows that the universe is operating correctly on some unseen fundamental level.
"Ed Wood" (the film, not the man) is presented much in the style of Ed Wood's (the man's) own movies: In black & white, and taking itself totally, absolutely seriously. Nobody holds up a "LAUGHTER!" sign; you have to see the absurdity of the situations for yourself. We see how it came to pass that the financing for Ed Wood's magnum cinematic opus "Plan 9 From Outer Space" was put up by the Baptist Church; how most of the spoken dialogue in "Plan 9" ends up being given to a Swedish pro wrestler who can barely pronounce English; how actor Bunny Breckenridge (Bill Murray) went to Mexico for a sex-change operation and came back with a Mariachi band instead.
My favorite scene has to be: The cast arriving for the premiere of an earlier Ed Wood film (before Plan 9), at a theater in a very, very rough part of town. They are extremely late, and the audience is hostile. Within minutes of their arrival, the audience becomes a full-blown murderous mob, and Ed and co. flee for their lives. They emerge from the theater to find that their car has been stripped. They save themselves by the leading lady literally throwing herself in front of a passing taxi to force it to stop. They pile into the taxi and it peels off, bricks bouncing off the rear window. Once they manage to catch their breath, Bela Lugosi deadpans, "Now THAT was a premiere."
Lugosi -- played by Martin Landau, who deserved every ounce of that Oscar statue, he might as well have been channeling Lugosi's spirit, his portrayal is uncanny -- has a complex relationship with Ed Wood (Johnny Depp). On the one hand, Ed has a genuine love and appreciation of Lugosi's work, at a time when the rest of Hollywood has written Lugosi off. The two of them grow to become true friends and colleagues, with much mutual respect, and Ed cares for an ailing Lugosi and helps him overcome a debilitating drug addiction. On the other hand, all of these positive vibes between the two have a twist added, one that colors their relationship as actor and director, which is that Ed Wood is a total idiot.
Other people who might find familiar territory in this film are those who have ever been involved in any kind of theater themselves. Whenever I am with a community theater cast, gathered around our review in the local paper, I always think of Ed Wood's girlfriend Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker) looking up from the newspaper to ask, "Do I really have a face like a horse?"
So, depending on your sense of the bizarre, you may or may not "get" this film, but unlike Ed Wood's real-life output, it is not for any lack of ability in the film. The casting is superb, and the whole atmosphere of the film is perfect right from the word go, with The Great Criswell (Jeffrey Jones) rising from the coffin to deliver his classic, wonderfully overacted introductory remarks, followed by Howard Shore's brilliantly weird opening title music with the funky bongos and the eerily wailing theremin.
The very first time I unwrapped my own laserdisc copy of "Ed Wood" and heard the abovementioned Howard Shore bongo/theremin music, I was so weirded out by it that I called my best friend afterwards (at two in the morning, I might add) and played it for him over the phone, saying, "Isn't this the most bizarre thing you have ever heard?" My friend forgave me. I urge you, dear reader, to visit the world of the incomparable, almost unexplainable Ed Wood at least once, and I hope that you also forgive me. --JMF
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I finally got around to seeing this movie recently and found it quite remarkable. Perhaps Tim Burton's most conventional movie ever, this biopic explores the life of B-movie director Ed Wood, who, according to conventional wisdom, is the worst filmmaker ever. An oddball prone to dressing in womens' clothing, Wood is fertile ground for the always-interesting Johnny Depp, who endows his character with great enthusiasm and likeability in spite of his eccentricity. Depp's, though, is only one of many stellar performances: Martin Landau, of course, as Dracula star Bela Lugosi; not to mention Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, and many more. Landau won a deserved Oscar for his effort as the pathetic one-time star, which is alternatingly funny and poignant. The scene where he "fights" the octopus has got to be one of the most riotous ever filmed. One also senses cutting satire behind the story: when Landau's character enters rehab, he remarks that he is the first celebrity to do so, and his comment about there being no such thing as bad press is especially meaningful when a hotel heiress becomes famous for taped romantic escapades. Also, the movie evokes a time when even bad films were made by passionate filmmakers, instead of in corporate boardrooms. Burton keeps the material interesting and resists the urge to go over the top, and the result is the perfect biopic.
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