Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #7 - Ed Wood

Oh man, this one's fun. Ed Wood is a 1994 semi-fictional, loosely-based, lightly-adaptive re-telling of the life and early career of the alcoholic transvestite Edward D. Wood, Jr. Often cited as the worst director of all time, Ed Wood made some of the worst movies in history. His movies aren't like The Room where its notoriety as a crap-ass shitfest actually immortalized it with the internet for all time, but more like when you go to get a colonoscopy and instead of the tiny wire with the camera, they shove a garden hose up your ass with the help of a leaf blower. Oh and you're awake. For the whole thing. No meds.

Anywho, Ed Wood perfectly and comedically pokes fun at the shithouse director while also simultaneously paying tribute to his work and saluting him and those that worked with him. His first three directed features are chronicled in glorious fashion: Glen or Glenda, Ed's bizarre look into the mind and life of a man who likes to dress in women's clothing. Bride of the Monster, Ed's 1950s schlock mad scientist swill that was so run-of-the-mill for its time, it sank into obscurity. Finally, it ends with his most famous crappy movie, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Ed's sci-fi look at when aliens beam electronic waves into the heads of the recently deceased, resurrecting them.

The movie gloriously pays tribute to his work as well as takes satirical jabs at him. His alcoholism and descent into monster nudie films isn't documented, but his work with past-his-prime horror star Bela Lugosi is. Lugosi is played by Martin Landau and well deserving of the Oscar he got. You forget that it's not actually Lugosi on screen, he did so well. Other real-life friends of Ed Wood chronicled are Criswell (Jeffrey Jones), the psychic who opened Plan 9 From Outer Space; Tor Johnson (George "The Animal" Steele, the famous pro-wrestler who played many horrific looking characters in many of Ed's films; as well as Ed's friends, Paul Marco and Conrad Brooks (Max Casella and Brent Hinkley), Ed's all-around production assistants; Bunny Breckenridge (Bill Murray), Ed's gay friend who is tasked with finding him transvestites for Glen or Glenda; Vampira (Lisa Marie), the famous 1950s TV star who gets fired from her show and gets stuck working for/with Ed. In the middle of it all is Johnny Depp as Ed Wood himself. Also a fantastic casting, because his energetic and bumbling man of desperation and determination is one that is the complete opposite of his work as Jack Sparrow. I love this cast.

If you haven't seen this movie, drop what you're doing now and give it a watch. It's the perfect movie about making movies, a genre that usually has classics in it. The only better movie about making a movie would probably be An American Movie, but this one competes with it. You'll love it. I promise.