ED WOOD (1994) **** The greatest biopic ever, and the subject would have applauded, I'm sure, that it's even greater than the greatest of his works. "That's because my ideas were timeless and perfect," he might say, "and perfection can only exist by eternally improving itself." It's a tale of vision, giant octopuses, vampires, friendship, the gentler side of punk rock, mad scientists, all sorts of marriage, interstellar domination and angora sweaters. It's about the joy of art, definitively; and the joy of wheeling and dealing, the aesthetic necessity of theft from the vulgar and debased, tandem swimming with rubber animals, and the flexibility of any meaningful formulation of Existenz. For Ed Wood must be perceived as an existentialist hero, as well as a great artist. Oh, yeah, really, you've ever seen footage of Da Vinci or Beethoven looking so profound and happy as the footage of Wood when Bela Lugosi ad-libs an impressionistic line of surrealist subjectivity? And Ed Wood was a complete package before even opened-he knew precisely which stock footage of buffalo to superimpose on the scene before the line was even completed. Some people worship McDonald's, but even it can't get things done any faster than that. Johnny Depp and Martin Landau offer performances for the ages. Depp catches every nuance of the bizarre psychological concoction of desperation, exaggeration, embryonic largesse, humility, sensitivity, impatience, self-promotion, bewilderment, spiritual accessorizing and lack of inhibition with which Wood greeted absolutely everything, in some measure or another, it's not important, it's a wrap, it's perfect, let's move on. And who's to say that isn't right? It's very similar to what Spinoza came up with, actually. And Landau, in what may rightfully be considered the most complete representation of Lugosi, including Lugosi. The formidable dignity in a veritable cesspool of iniquity and disease in its many forms (Hollywood), battling through bus stops and drug addiction to reach his own artistic nirvana (the electron formation of maladjusteds surrounding Wood). So those guys are perfect, but there's no denying absolute brilliance on only a slightly lower magnitude (if indeed magnitude is a capable measure of anything relating to brilliance, which it probably isn't, cut!) on the parts of Max Casella, George "The Animal" Steele, Lisa Marie, Jeffrey Jones, Patricia Arquette, Bill Murray, and Sarah Jessica Parker. In that order, or another one, keep it rolling. Tim Burton stays out of the way, except for the occasional daub and splash of Wellesian duotone pathos in the rain and night. Brilliant, great, give him another camera! If you watch this film, and are not inspired to begin a spectacular and brilliant project of universal import and proportion, you must immediately (for your own good, but mainly everyone else's) go join either an insurance firm (in the appropriate capacity, for they too are flexible, no really) or the army (don't worry about it, they'll tell you).
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