From My Netflix: Ed Wood by Meagan Flannery

I love films that make fun of Hollywood. It is especially satisfying when a Hollywood studio makes them, and I don’t know why. Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994) takes the point of view of the writer/director/producer Edward D. Wood, Jr. (played by the lovely Johnny Depp) and his struggle to make his own films in the Hollywood setting. It is very clear early on that he’s completely incompetent, clueless as to how to make a good film, but his heart is in all the right places.

I loved how there was a subtle focus on the power of marketing in this movie. As Wood goes in to try and win his first studio directing job (a biopic about Christine Jorgensen), he asks, “Is there a script?” – “No. But there’s a poster!”

This film is incredibly funny – it pokes fun of all the different aspects of Hollywood and draws a caricature (or maybe a realistic?) picture of all the players. A Baptist Church funds his last picture in the film and their censorship makes his struggle even more comical. However, there are some underlying issues in this film, the major one being gender and sex. Ed Wood (even in real life) was an honest-to-God cross-dressing, angora sweater-obsessing director. He would don women’s clothing on and off screen, and referenced transvestites (and angora!) in most of his movies. In the film, women would ask “so, you don’t like having sex with women?” Keep in mind, this is the 1950s, a decade in which gender roles were incredibly strict. This aspect of the film, for me, gave it realism and at the same time surrealism. It made the film interesting and the characters even more interesting. If nothing else, please watch this film to see Bill Murray as a stunning homosexual socialite.

I ended up loving this film, and I regret that I never watched in sooner. As a film artist myself, I have intense anxiety around my work being accepted or not (Will people like it? Will they even see it?). Ed Wood chased his dream, much like I do now. Maybe I’ll have a huge following after I’m dead!

I highly recommend this film, if you haven’t already seen it. It has great acting, and one of Burton’s best films. I’ll leave you with these wise words of Orson Welles (played by Vincent D’Onofrio): “Visions are worth fighting for – why spend your life making someone else’s dreams.”