Word: woode
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Currently there are no less than three movies playing in the Square that address this time-honored and classic cinematic subject: that old standby, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and two new entries in the cross-dressing cavalcade, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and "Ed Wood...
...Wood script, by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (based on Rudolph Grey's excellent 1992 biography, Nightmare of Terror), posits Wood as a classic American optimist, a Capraesque hero with little to be optimistic about, since he was also a classic American loser. That's a fine start, but the film then marches in staid chronological order: Ed made this bad film, then this one, then a third. It focuses on the director's curious cast of hangers-on (played here by Bill Murray, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie and others). They were all, as Wood's psychic sidekick Criswell intones...
Primary among these was the aging, decrepit but still majestic Bela Lugosi. Martin Landau does a handsome turn as Lugosi -- so strong that when he disappears, Ed Wood loses its momentum and continues its death march on the shoulders of Johnny Depp, in the title role, an exemplary actor who can't do much more than smile heroically in the face of every humiliation. Sometimes this is funny. "Really?" Depp says, sounding like Jon Lovitz's Master Thespian on Saturday Night Live. "Worst film you ever saw? Well, my next one'll be better...
Most of Burton's films have been better than better. One wonders why this one is so dishwatery -- why it lacks the cartoon zest and outsider ache of Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands or Batman Returns. Could it be he gave the material too much respect? The real Ed Wood would have known how to do it: with oddball twists and goofy stock footage, with no brains and a lot of heart. It would have been dreadful, and it would have been better -- more desperate, more daring. But this Ed Wood is dead wood...
Cinema: Schlock auteur Ed Wood is now a brand name...