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Wednesday, July 20, 2022

ED WOOD (1994)

Director Tim Burton ended his early artisanal Hollywood outlier days with this rose-colored bio-pic (in fantastical b&w) on the infamous life & career of talent-free bottom-feeding auteur Edward D. Wood.  Somehow striking out and reaching a nadir of artistic film immortality plying his talents off the beaten path in fly-by-night Hollywood studios, Wood leverages a chance meeting with barely functioning horror vet Bela Lugosi into a grab at the possible that turns both lives around: Lugosi now able to feed his various addictions; Wood in writing & directing.   Together they made unreleasable (if distinctive) crap; sincere work that played like a put on.  Somehow, all involved here catch Burton’s larky spirit of film as communal group activity for society outcasts, particularly strong in its inclusionary LGBTQ+ cast of characters.  And if the tone punches too broadly in the opening reels, Burton and a super cast (Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Jones, et al.) consistently add layers of humanity between the professional incompetence.  You start out laughing at them (especially over Wood’s hilarious one-take approvals on-set), but wind up laughing with them, even caring about them.

DOUBLE-BILL: Think of this as a Double-Bill WARNING.  Don’t be too tempted to watch a real Edward D. Wood film.  Amusingly inept when seen in clips, Wood’s oeuvre deadly seen whole.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Vincent D’Onofrio, physically convincing as Orson Welles bonding with Wood over film finance troubles, must have come up short vocally.  His entire part ‘looped’ by an uncredited Maurice LaMarche using the same ‘Orson’ voice he brought to the great animated series PINKY AND THE BRAIN.

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