Ed Wood

"Ed Wood" is such a gloriously brilliant film. It's the perfect meshing of the unique talents of director Tim Burton and an almost surreal Hollywood story that probably needed to be told. Fact is indeed stranger than fiction, and "Ed Wood" embraces this lovable (and seedy) story of the underbelly of 1950s filmmaking.

Most of what you see in "Ed Wood" is true, and if Burton bends the tale for his own sensibilities, well, I doubt Mr. Wood is turning in his grave. Edward D. Wood, Jr. has long been considered the worst filmmaker in history. His resume is stocked with horror/sci-fi films from the late 50s so inept they cause unstoppable laughing fits. Churning out "Glen or Glenda," "Bride of the Monster" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space," Ed Wood created Drive-In turkeys replete with staggeringly horrid dialog, cardboard sets and atrocious acting. These outrageous films are applauded today by bad-movie connoisseurs.

Burton, whose love of old horror films is well documented, was the perfect man to make this movie. The casting choices, most notably Johnny Depp as Mr. Wood, Martin Landau as a decrepit Bela Lugosi and Bill Murray as John Breckinridge, are inspired. There's some bittersweet elements in "Ed Wood," as our obsessively positive protagonist recruits one Hollywood castoff after another, forming the most unlikely repertory company in history. A drug-addicted Lugosi, wrestler Tor Johnson, a recently fired Vampira and other misfits attempt to create films from shoestring budgets, bonding due to their own failures in life.

Burton, filming in black and white with a great eye for detail, has produced a heartfelt anthem to not only the wonder of filmmaking, but to lost souls wishing to create but lacking the gift to do so. This odd troupe may be a gang of talentless hacks, but for a brief moment their club breeds kinship.

"Ed Wood" is a tribute to sad failures within an unforgiving industry. As we see Landau's Lugosi standing in filthy water preparing to battle a rubber octopus, we realize how tragic his life has become. This one-time superstar has reached a surreal low, sinking into a Gothic Norma Desmond mire. It's a haunting snapshot, as profound as a Shakespeare tragedy. The souls of "Ed Wood" died struggling with dark addictions, as forgotten as paupers. Burton has given them their fairy tale of glory.