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| Johnny
Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette,
Jeffrey Jones, Bill Murray |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Edward D. Wood, Jr.: [on phone]
Ah ha... The worst movie you ever saw? Well, my next one will be
better! Hello?...
A biographical account of the career
of 'all-time worst director' Edward D. Wood, Jr. and his unusual
friendship with ailing horror star Bela Lugosi.
 After
the first two Batman movies and the highly successful fable
Edward Scissorhands, director Tim Burton's credentials as
an accomplished visual stylist with a remarkable golden touch at
the box office were firmly established. But critics were still skeptical
about his competence in regard to basic storytelling and character
development, as his first five features were first and foremost
visual experiences in which narrative took a back seat to Burton's
elaborate, often brilliant visual fantasies. Sadly and somewhat
ironically, the movie in which he proved himself to be much more
than a compulsive visual filmmaker was also the first to strike
out dramatically at the box office, recouping a mere $2 million
of its $40 million budget. It was a defeat Burton has had great
difficulty putting behind him, finally finding favor with cineplex
audiences only with the soulless pastiche of Sleepy Hollow
and the anonymously directed Planet of the Apes remake (for
which he might as well have requested a 'directed by Alan Smithee'
credit).
Its crushing commercial failure notwithstanding, Ed Wood
remains a triumphant and joyful vindication of Burton's unique talents
as a filmmaker. Finding just the right tone with its moody, evocative
use of black-and-white bringing the movie's seedy setting to startling
life, the film is also blessed with a screenplay that's funny, dramatic
and very touching. The performances also are uniformly excellent,
with an inspired, generous supporting cast surrounding the incredible
double act of Johnny Depp and Martin Landau. Their scenes together
reach that rare level of film acting in which their broadly stylized
mannerisms click together so naturally, it becomes a near-transcendent
experience to watch them work together. Once Landau disappears from
the film, some of the life does go out of it, but this most personal
work of director Tim Burton's still remains a terrific and compelling
experience to the very end. |
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Long the only Tim Burton film
missing on DVD, Ed Wood was finally announced for
release in the summer of 2002 for an August Region 1 release,
but was subsequently
dropped off the release schedule by distributor Buena Vista without
a new release date. It has since been released for Region
2 in late 2002, while the Region 1 release finally followed
in October of 2004, its features identical.
The anamorphic widescreen image
is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.85:1. The gorgeous black-and-white
cinematography is rendered in a superb transfer that exhibits great
contrast and very deep blacks. Fine film grain remains visible throughout
most of the film, but rarely distractingly so, and the source print
isn't wholly free of damage, but otherwise this is an outstanding
presentation.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix provides Howard Shore's evocative score
with a terrific platform, yielding an excellent mix that offers
good separation and high fidelity with solid bass presence.
When Ed Wood was finally announced for release on DVD,
it looked most likely to be bare-bones al the way. But rumor has
it that Tim Burton stepped in himself to ensure that his richest,
most personal film would get the treatment it deserved for its
long-awaited DVD premiere. And fortunately, Buena Vista truly
went the distance on this one, producing a wide range of formidable
supplements.
The audio commentary starts off in just the right spirit, with
a short introduction from Martin Landau, speaking in-character as Bela
Lugosi, with whose voice he continues to pop up throughout the track,
identifying the various speakers wherever necessary. It adds a fittingly
droll touch as well as being helpful. The main speakers besides Landau (who
also adds some comments in his 'own voice') include director
Tim Burton, screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and
costume designer Colleen Atwood. Together, they cover an enormous amount
of ground, with terrific editing yielding many screen-specific comments as
well as informative and highly entertaining anecdotes about the production
history and the screenplay development (Alexander and Karaszewski are the
real standouts here). A well-produced and immensely lively track that's
sure to please any fan of the film.
The rest of the extras are made up of a large selection of featurettes
covering quite a number of different subjects. 'Let's Shoot This
$#@%!' is a highly eccentric behind-the-scenes look shot while
the film was being produced. Johnny Depp acts as a kind of deranged
host, more or less in-character as Ed Wood and dressed in the bizarre
outfit he wears during the wrap party sequence for Bride of the
Monster. The 15-minute item includes quite abit of footage,
both in color and in black-and-white, of Burton working with cast
and crew on the set. The other three featurettes were all
produced especially for this DVD release. Each takes a good look
at one specific aspect of the film's production. Pie Plates over
Hollywood is the most elaborate, with a running time of just
over 15 minutes, focusing on the challenges of shooting in black-and-white,
working with miniatures, and the specifics of recreating the uniue
look of Ed Wood's movies. Cinematographer Stephan Czapsky is on
hand for comprehensive elaborations on all of these topics. The
Theremin runs about ten minutes, and features new interview
footage with composer Howard Shore, who discusses his work on the
score in great detail, and demonstrates the theremin, an early electronic
musical instrument that is played by waving one's hands around in
the invisible magnetic field above the theremin itself. Its sound
is typical of Hollywood-produced science-fiction movies of the 1950s,
and it plays a key role in the film's excellent, varied score. Recreating
Bela Lugosi is a short featurette with Martin Landau and Rick
Baker, in which the make-up process that helped Landau win his Best Supporting
Actor Oscar is revealed. When Carol Met Larry has nothing to do with
the actual production of Ed Wood, but offers some relevant
interview footage with a cross-dressing couple. Finally, the theatrical
trailer rounds out these excellent extras. The
animated menu screens feature a movie theater crowd, with the camera
dollying through the aisles as viewers await the start of the film.
The curtain then draws back to reveal the nicely animated main menu
options up on the screen. Nifty transitions (including the audience
booing as the film reel gets stucki in the projector) lead into
the following screens.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: November
18, 2004
Click
here for IMDB info on Ed
Wood .
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to return to the front page.
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