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Bookmark this pageEd Wood (1994)
Director: Tim Burton
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Burton's biopic of the man often described as the world's worst film-maker (Glen or Glenda, Plan Nine from Outer Space, etc) may offer a somewhat favourably distorted account of the man and his films - it ends before his slide into porn, penury and alcoholism and, while recreating certain scenes from Wood's work with astonishing accuracy, manages to avoid showing his most tiresomely nonsensical sequences - but it certainly succeeds as a funny, touching tribute to tenacity, energy, ambition and friendship. Affection shines through warm and bright, aided no end by Stefan Czapsky's evocative b/w camerawork, and by a host of spot-on lookalike performances. Landau, especially, is superb, bringing fire, acid, pathos, wit and real dignity to the role of the pitiful, occasionally deranged former horror hero Bela Lugosi; and, in the film's most conspicuous, outrageous but surprisingly appropriate bit of fictionalisation, Vincent D'Onofrio makes a notably beleaguered Welles. Depp himself, all innocence, bright-eyed zeal and itchy obsession, never really lets us get beneath Wood's skin, but gives such a good-natured performance that it's hard not to end up rooting for someone who was talentless, naive and misguided in virtually everything he did.Author: GA
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Cast & crew
Director: Tim Burton
Producer: Denise Di Novi, Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio, GD Spradlin, Lisa Marie, Juliet Landau, Bill Murray, George 'The Animal' Steele, Mike Starr, Max Casella, Brent Hinkley full cast
Duration: 127 mins
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