Shoot The Flick
Ed Wood (1994)
He did the monster man, it was a graveyard smell, it caught harm and a flash. Hey there, welcome to Shoot the Flick, I'm Frankie Sparks and I'm Scott Eisenberg and we are a married couple who like to shoot the shit about movies, that we do, that we do. And today we are covering another movie in Spooky Month. Yes, I'm excited about this one, this is one of my faves. The other two movies we've covered so far for Spooky Month being Joker and Hellboy, I feel like they definitely have spooky adjacent vibes maybe but this movie is like pure spoop. To an extent I feel like we're warming up. It's definitely, I mean like it's not like a scary movie vibe like a slasher or something like that but it's got like the chill spoop, the sophisticated spoop perhaps would be a good way to put it. I guess we could go sophisticated spoop. It is an Oscar winning film, Scott. Oh yes. We're talking about Ed Wood, released in 1994 and weirdly enough, Scotty, I don't know if you know this because us as children of the 90s I feel like this is strange but this is the first movie we've ever done on Shoot the Flick from the year 1994. Yeah, that's odd. Perhaps we've just both seen a lot of movies from 1994 so we didn't have to introduce each other to a lot of 94 films up till now. Yeah, 94, I only think I have one other movie from 94 and it's just a heavy movie, that's why we kind of have it going on on your list. Yeah, Shawshank. Oh yeah, we haven't done that. Yeah, I haven't seen that. I haven't seen Shawshank Redemption. I know, I'm sorry. What do you want from me? Candy, tricks, treats? Maybe. So another reason why we are doing this movie or why I picked this movie is because not only is the film celebrating its 30 year anniversary but this very year, 2024 would be the real life Edward's 100th birthday if he were still with us. So I just felt like this was very, very cool time to do this movie. Back in the dark ages of Shoot the Flick when our sound quality was a big pile of shit. I showed Scott Plan 9 from outer space which is his most well-known film The Real Life Edward. So yeah, I'm very excited to go behind the curtain as it were and talk about this film. Indeed. Scotty, what are your preliminary overall thoughts on the movie before we get into fun facts and nitty gritty stuff? It's a fun movie, honestly. It's goofy but you kind of expect that with Edward. He's got a reputation. He's a notoriously bad filmmaker. Indeed. Edward was a pretty infamous cult filmmaker in the 50s. His films are quite notable for their campy aesthetics, unsophisticated special effects, terrible dialogue. He's sort of the godfather of the so bad it's good genre of film that freaks like myself quite enjoy but unfortunately he wasn't really recognized fully for his artistic vision until after his death but he is well known as one of the worst directors of all time and Plan 9 which is his most well-known film is widely known as one of the worst films of all time also with some pretty spooky vibes if you want to check it out. Yeah, Plan 9 was an interesting watch. I think we did it in tandem like you showed me a bad movie I showed you Plan 9 so you showed me I think Theodore Rex and I in turn showed you Plan 9. That sounds about right. So I think we properly tortured each other just enough at that time. Yeah you know one of the worst movies ever and one Whoopi Goldberg never wants to remember. But she'll never forget. Now this movie was directed and co-produced by Mr. Tim Burton right in between Batman Returns and Mars Attacks which we also covered Mars Attacks on this show. We also covered Beetlejuice and his original Batman film. We've definitely had our share of Tim Burton on this show. This is personally my second favorite Tim Burton film behind Beetlejuice which I'd never watched until Scott showed it to me. I'll shoot the flick so I mean history is made all the time on this show. Yeah I'd probably say it's probably third or fourth if I have to think about it. Definitely behind Beetlejuice and Batman but this actually feels the least like a Burton movie. Yeah I would say so it's definitely Burton on his like best behavior. Oh his best behavior. It's definitely I would say the most probably critically acclaimed film like as far as like awards recognition and stuff. The other Tim Burton movies have gotten recognition for like effects and makeup and technical things more so. This movie has sort of all around a claim for things. This is the only Tim Burton film I believe that has an acting Oscar win. Makes sense which we'll talk about when we get to our cast but like Scott said it's not the most typical Burton film. No not at all it doesn't have like some of his weirder staples like that we see later on. Like it's creepy in parts but not overly so for no reason. Yeah I think this is more like a passion project for him. He said he really loved the story of Ed Wood which I can understand because he's he was sort of an off-kilter filmmaker who was just kind of feeling his vibe and doing his best to achieve his vision which is very much of a Tim Burton-y line of thinking. A bunch of misfits coming together to make art. I feel like that that falls right in line with something that Tim Burton would love. He also similarly to Ed Wood having a close relationship with Bella Lugosi at the end of his life. Tim Burton had a pretty close relationship with Vincent Price at the end of his life so he saw a mirroring in that relationship which is a big part of the movie so yeah I can definitely see Burton having this sort of love letter type feelings going into making this film. It's also interesting just looking at Ed Wood while he is a bad filmmaker. Edward. Edward. Not Tim Burton. Not Tim Burton. Edward. Though some people might argue later in his script but that's not here and there I'm not doing that right now. Kind of sold out but that's besides the point. I think if you watch this movie you gain a little more appreciation for Ed Wood because of the fact that maybe he was just born at the wrong time. Sure. You think of the thing that he gets really into Bella Lugosi and the horror genre is kind of circled out of the Hollywood at that point. It's not as big as it was so he fell in love with the Universal Monsters but Hollywood is like we're kind of done with that for now and by the time he passed away he hadn't gotten back into the horror genre. Like horror has always been around but not to the extent of what it was with the Universal Monsters and what it would become in like the 80s. I wonder what his career could have been if he was born maybe earlier or later. Yeah later would be interesting because now I mean more modern films you have people like like a Tommy Wiseau or like a Neil Breen that are clearly you know they're definitely off-kilter let's put it nicely and they maybe don't have the best execution but they're very passionate about their art and they're just putting themselves out there and that's definitely an Ed Wood thing and a Tim Burton thing I mean he was originally making the movie with Columbia Pictures and this is post you know Batman and stuff so he had a reputation and they're like we love this idea Tim but we don't want you to do it in black and white and Tim Burton was like oh well then I'm not going to be doing it with Columbia Pictures and he took his movie and went and shopped it around and eventually ended up with Disney through Touchstone Pictures and they gave Burton the creative control that he wanted there's definitely a parallel with Ed Wood there too or it's just like because there is a point in the movie where he's arguing with Ed Wood is arguing with producers and higher-ups and trying to push back on certain notes that will interfere with his vision so yeah I definitely think that this is maybe not the typical Tim Burton that we know with his more populist movies but it's definitely a love letter to filmmaking and you know just making art in general which I enjoy I can't imagine this movie in color yeah I think black and white was absolutely the right choice oh yeah and the cinematography is so gorgeous it's really like despite the fact that there is no color in the movie it's such a interesting film to look at though I was almost expecting and I don't know why I guess part of me was almost expecting like in the artist oh for it to what just like go color at the end yeah that would have been funny because they did end up colorizing plan nine at some point in the line and it's just not the same and obviously they colorized a lot of like those early like 40s and 50s movies as time went on but it's just never the same as the original so I'm glad they didn't do that so the movie was written by a screenwriting duo by the name of Scott Alexander and Larry Karazooski I hope I'm saying that correctly that's a name it certainly is a name they were behind some other pretty iconic biopic-y films like Man on the Moon and Dolomite is my name I feel like now biopics are like a dime a dozen almost they are and they all kind of follow the same formula they do the thing about biopic they follow one of two paths they follow the oh glamorize the person make them look good or you tear the person apart there's like no middle ground sure like the most obvious example that comes to mind is Bohemian Rhapsody where they pretty much just scrubbed any nitty gritty stuff about Freddie Mercury's life and then just like backed up a truck full of Oscars and dumped it on Rommy Malick said and there's one every year now like there's one coming out with in December Bob Dylan's life and I'm actually I mean I'm kind of looking forward to that one because Timothy Chalamet but besides the point oh we had Bob Marley too oh sure the Bob Marley there was an Amy Winehouse one this year there was a Whitney one there was like was it this year or last year I don't know but there was their diamond does Elvis so there's so many of them now but I feel like this one was pretty iconic even Dolomite which was one that came out more recently was really good but yeah this was from a a simpler time I think I think if they're about people who are less well known but have interesting lives they tend to be better because you're like oh I'm actually learning about this person well or you get ones like about Freddie Mercury everybody knows right yeah about Freddie Mercury you can go look stuff up it's not really hard to find stuff but then you get these ones like for Ed Wood where it's like as much as you know plan nine from outer space if you are into bad movies yeah I feel like some people don't even know about that but but it as much as some people know about that they might not necessarily know Ed Wood besides the reputation of being one of the worst directors of all time it's interesting to dive into that and explore like what possibly made this guy tick yeah but like I did mention before this movie was Oscar winning it won two Oscars it was only nominated for two and it won both of them it won for Best Supporting Actor for Martin Landau who played Bella Lugosi which we will talk about his performance it's pretty fucking boss yeah he stole the movie I was so surprised I was actually was going to keep it to myself while we were watching the movie that Landau was nominated and won because it just seems like something that would normally happen for a movie like this oh yeah but Scott literally brought up while we were watching the movie like wow he's killing this he better got nominated and I was like well actually he won I couldn't I couldn't keep it to myself but also the movie won for Best Makeup okay which makes sense because when you're doing makeup for a black and white movie like this you have to really cater it's you know difficult because you have to cater to the black and white and to the lighting and all that and that Oscar went into none other than Rick Baker yeah okay we talked about in the past most notably with American Werewolf in London iconic makeup in that film but yeah he's just an amazing special effects makeup artist didn't we talk about him last week technically too oh yeah well because his studio did the effects the makeup effects for Hellboy as well but weirdly this movie didn't really make any money it kind of bombed despite its 4.1 out of five stars on Letterbox it only made 13 million dollars on its 18 million dollar budget so yeah it kind of makes sense though you have a black white picture in the 90s sure about a director who's not known for anything big sure I mean it definitely seems like a to compare Burton to Martin Scorsese is kind of strange but Scorsese would do these like big budget like studio pictures right and he would make a shit ton of money and then he would take that money that he got and make his own fucking movie that like his own passion project like the you know the Jesus movie that he made or some shit you know that's what he would do he would do big budget big budget big studio and then little like indie passion project and then so on and so forth and that's kind of been his career for a long long time so that's kind of what this feels like it feels like the guy that made fucking huge Beetlejuice and huge Batman movie made all this money from that and got all this clout then decided I'm gonna make this movie for me and no one's gonna care maybe but it's still gonna be good as fuck and that's what we got well yeah that I don't think Johnny Depp in 94 is at the point where he's you know Johnny Depp yet he's still a star but he's not I mean he's been he's he's young Johnny Depp so he is young heartthrob Johnny Depp this time yeah but I don't think he's gone to the superstar yet I mean he's he's in there he's in the conversation this is between Gilbert Grape and Donnie Brasko for him it's 10 years after he got on the scene with Nightmare on Elm Street winky face winky face nightmare on Elm Street winky face okay anyway um but Johnny Depp's hot in this movie well Johnny Depp's hot well yes but Johnny Depp's still good looking Johnny Depp's still hot but the cast is great we're gonna talk about the cast too but okay so yeah I'm excited to talk about this I love movies about misfits yeah she does love a misfit movie I love a misfit movie a bunch of misfits coming together making magic Scotty yes are you ready to get into the nitty and the gritty boo yes oh baby all right we begin our film with kind of a concerning little you know cold open but we're gonna get through it very quickly also I mean like you don't have to have seen plan nine to get this movie but like if you've seen plan nine you catch little things like for example in the beginning of plan nine for outer space it's sort of intro'd in a similar way that this movie is where you have this omnipotent seeming psychic guy uh enjoying the film with a bunch of spook and mysticism and things and this guy is named Chris well and he is played in this movie by Jeffrey Jones yeah um which fucked Jeffrey Jones yeah we've covered a lot of Jeffrey Jones strangely yes I'm so sorry to report um because he was such a big character actor for so long uh huh it's kind of hard because you love these movies you're like sure sure it's it gets harder and harder to talk about movies with creeps in them but we do our best to work around that so um Chris well was a very well-known like entertainment like psychic like Miss Cleo but not really uh because he sucked at his job but he was big in the 50s and the 60s and we open up the movie instantly black and white getting the spooky vibe he comes out of a coffin and then we go into the opening credits and it's in a graveyard and we get all the names on the on those gravestones it's very like 50s-y horror flick well and also it's funny because this cast is actually a very big cast oh sure like there's a good number of people in here you're like oh shit mm-hmm oh shit oh shit so the year is 1952 ladies and gents and we have our aspiring writer-director mr. Ed Wood played by Johnny Depp and he wants to get into the film industry so bad he's putting on this shitty play uh with his friend Bill Murray uh who plays bunny Breckenridge bunny wasn't really supposed to be in a lot of the movie but because Bill Murray was playing him Burton was just like put bunny in there get Bill Murray out there it makes sense I mean this is right around groundhog day time so it makes sense and it's Bill Murray yeah indeed and then we also have Ed Wood's girlfriend Dolores played by Sarah Jessica Parker this was the year after hocus pocus which we also reviewed on this show which I feel like it's just the the penultimate scary movie to watch during October I feel like if I could feasibly do it I would watch hocus pocus every day in October and never get sick of it oh god I'm willing to try out that experiment sometime but not this year because we're already in the middle of October but it's good shit is my point and she was also in Mars attacks which was Tim Burton as well but something happens in the beginning of this movie and I didn't remember it so they're doing this play and Dolores is in it and the play sucks they get shitty reviews yep and they're in this little restaurant all these misfits doing this play together and they're in this restaurant they're chatting and they're looking at the reviews in the newspaper because you know newspapers existed in 1952 and people actually read them so they're reading the new review and Scott lost shit because in the review they said that Dolores aka Sarah Jessica Parker had a horseface and we were like is that where this started where everyone was saying the SGP has a horseface I think it is actually it's gotta be because after this we get sex in the city so a few years later yeah and I feel like she ever does movies ever again no she does she doesn't what are you talking about she really oh stop she does movies sex in the city had movies but anyway Ed Wood is delusionally optimistic about these bad reviews they're like ah they said the costumes were weirdly disgusting I've never had any buddy comment on my costume stuff stuff like that you know let's talk about Johnny Depp's cadence in the move oh it's insane it's really funny like not in a bad way it's just very funny like you know what he speaks like he speaks like one of those old-timey radio guys yes how you would think people talk in the 50s today like if you thought about a person in the 50s well I'll tell you I did this and I went to the store then I got me a cigar and then I went to like you know what I mean he's the only person who talks like that yes everyone else talks totally normal but it's one of those things you're like watching you're like this is the weirdest thing in the world but it it kind of works so Ed is working as a PA on a studio lot and he finds out that there is an upcoming biopic being made a fictionalized version of Christina Jorgensen's life story now Christina Jorgensen was a well-known trans actress in like the 50s I think this movie was being made around that time it wasn't a real biopic because they made a joke in the movie like oh the real biopic is being made by a fancier studio we're just making like a shitty knockoff version of it and Ed wants to direct this picture so he goes to meet with the producer of this knockoff Christine Jorgensen movie George Weiss he's played by Mike Starr yes notorious that guy finally enough he did dumb and dumber the same year he's in that iconic scene where Jim Carrey's like you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world oh god and he's like guys shut up oh that's my star but he's been a bunch of movies a lot of which we've covered on here snake eyes the bodyguard good fellas I think I feel like he's always yelling yeah that's his that's his calling card for sure and he's great in this also so Ed goes to George Weiss to try to direct this movie and he says that he is especially qualified to direct this film and he confesses to this movie producer I like to dress in women's clothing you're fruit no not at all I love women wearing their clothes makes me feel closer to them you're not a fruit no I'm all man I even fought in WW2 of course I was wearing women's undergarments under my uniform and he just likes to cross dress he likes Angora sweaters leave the man alone well it's funny because we had a discussion after this movie mm-hmm we talked about trans representation in movies and stuff sure because he's not always been the best not always been great no it's been great but we were talking about it because he does bring up to his mom used to dress him in women's clothing when he was a kid mm-hmm and that immediately brought me to sleep away camp oh yeah yeah you did mention that sleep away camp okay so for those of you that know sleep away camp is a pretty trashy slasher horror movie yeah from like what was it the 70s or 80s or whatever the 70s yeah where like the big reveal at the end it is actually scary the way that they do it because it's just the ending shot of the movie is pretty iconic but the way they end it is like it's this little girl that's the killer at an actuality it's a little boy who has been made to believe she was a girl right it's yeah and it's a movie that can never be made today ever because it's so it's so it treats the concept of transgenderism very strangely um but as does a lot of movies but what I really appreciate about this movie because Ed Wood is not transgender but there is uh the other character that we introduced is now the Bill Murray character bunny he's gay but he talks several times throughout the movie about how he does want to transition into being a woman and they talk very freely about transgenderism and uh transsexuality and all that stuff and yeah it's the 90s it's not like a million years ago but it does take place in the 50s and also like even in the 90s I feel like trans people were often played as a joke oh of course they were both in tv and movies I mean recently I showed Scott a movie called soap dish yeah that I pretty sure was from the 90s and I feel like nobody knows what it is or a lot of people don't it's it's not like a widely known film I don't think anymore but had Kevin Klein in it's how I feel and it's it's a funny movie but then at the very end of the movie it kind of deflates a little bit because there's a whole like ending joke revolving around a character being trans and it's revealed in a very crass way and it's kind of like well not only that we have one in the same year we've aged from tours this year too oh right oh my god Ray Finkle oh no Ray Finkle that movie is so good without the Ray Finkle Southman that movie had socks for that movie because that movie is so funny and then it's just like but it's uh it's yucky when you watch like the end part now where it just gives you a little icky feeling but I I definitely do appreciate this movie for not making a big deal about it not making a joke out of it like the movies a comedy I would say but it's not making a joke out of no it being trans or cross-dressing or anything like that no it doesn't really make a joke out of being trans or cross-dressing it kind of just makes it like it's odd for the time period because no one seems to understand it but I do like how they handle that aspect of the movie here I feel like it still holds up today and you can still watch it and not getting icky feelings which for a 90s movie including trans people and then discussions about queerness and homosexuality it's it's a feat I would say well yeah again it did not feel icky it didn't feel icky and it was definitely interesting for this to be 94 again and we have the other side of the chain like it's funny how we have a decent beginning start of a conversation here yeah and then we have the opposite side of the coin with vinkle nine horn oh man eventually ed does get the movie after some uh lying well no not lying swindling not lying some finagling we'll call finagling we'll talk about it the the way that ed manages to get this movie made or get this movie as a director after he gets rejected by the producer he ends up just casually running into hollywood legend bella legosi yes played by martin landow yeah martin landow is a legend who's been around for decades and decades oh for sure he's been around the block many times he unfortunately passed away I think in 2017 but he like I said he did when they ask her for this he beat out for supporting actor sam jackson in pulp fiction oh gary senise for a fucking forest gump all three of these roles are amazing I love sam jackson sure i love gary senise in gump this role he steals this fucking movie but we learn a lot about bella legosi in this picture we learn that he hasn't worked in a while it's sort of you know the the end of the road for him no one really gives a shit about him career wise his wife left him recently he is currently addicted to morphine as well as probably many many much drugs yeah at one point they mentioned methadone yeah there's a lot of shit going on it's so poignant because you think about this is like older actors even nowadays we're like whatever happened to that guy yeah and you're like oh yeah they haven't worked in four or five years and you're like you know their career is basically done like well it's funny too because ed would wanted to give bella like that last hurrah at the end of his career at the end of his life which is something that happens a lot with older actors like you know they have their legendary part of their career kind of fade in the background for a while and then come back for a last hurrah and then you know that's when they get like those big oscar wins like oh my god what a you know that's what ed would wanted to give bella at the end of his life and he in a way kind of succeeded but not really but they hate that said what well he i think what he does for bella here even though again it's in one of the worst movies ever it's another movie of bellas that gets to live forever that isn't just Dracula yeah he even says that at one point he's like oh bella lives and it's like it's a nice sentiment because they do form a friendship it's a really sweet like just genuine friendship that they form together ed and bella and it's it's really nice because you you could have very easily played it off like oh ed's just using bella to get his foot in the door and maybe he wasn't in the beginning but i feel like he definitely admires his career and loves this old fucking crazy man oh yeah well and it's just very sweet i kept joking because bella's talking about like being left in the past and being forgotten and i kept talking about because we're from long island and we're from hicksville oh boy the bill yeah the bill uh bill of hicks exactly uh so i kept talking about billy jole and the song in the entertainer because that's literally like the whole point of the song like once you stop making hits you get put back into the discount rack yeah billy jole doesn't even really say he's from hicksville anymore he just doesn't want to be yeah which is the same fucking thing billy okay cut us some slack another thing i wanted to mention one of the great things about this movie is that it does it it talks about movie making and just movies in general and as movie lovers we get a kick out of that scott and i oh yeah in so much of it mirrors how it still is today like at one point bella and edwood are talking about how like oh the movies aren't the same way as they were they used to be real monsters and now they care about a giant bugs they movies just aren't like they used to be and it's like it's literally the same conversations that every movie person has like yeah with their generation with their generation like now it's remakes and you know ip's it's like everything's got to be an ip everything's got to be based on something else and nothing original anymore like that's the argument people make now generally so it's just so funny to watch it happen like what did what did george lekis say the great george lekis the poet he's like life is poetry rhymes or something yeah life is poetry it's literally that oh well it's also funny because that line was also great because i do know a bunch of those movies like giant ants oh sure didn't they have one with giant bunnies too they're giant bunnies they had 60 foot amazonian women jesus i think they're remaking the 50 foot woman yeah something like that like they're making that too it's like it never we went through a weird phase where it's like oh giant monsters giant people um or just animals as monsters like nature killing people yeah this is the thing about being like a horror movie guy yeah you would know this a horror person horror is such a weird genre because it does go in waves and that's why i was when i went talked about ed wood before i'm like if he was ten years earlier or like 15 years later like i would love to see where his career would have been like would he actually have been the worst director ever because as much as plan nine is crazy yes so he would have been well maybe yes but maybe i mean people i don't know maybe in time people would have uh appreciated his vision more but can't continue i don't know so land out here being the aging actor going back to him it's just so well done because you feel for him the entire movie yeah he's so good and he really is like he's the heart soul of this movie really like ed wood is the main character but ed is pretty straightforward i don't feel like ed changes a whole lot throughout the movie no modern land out going from being so bitter in the beginning to going on basically this journey that ed wood allows him to go on as bella legosi to the end where he passes you're like it's such a great little journey into that that's what kind of captivated me about this movie is marlin landow so ed goes back to george weis and convinces him that he can direct the movie and we can get bella to star in it because we don't charge him much money he'll just he'll basically do it for free yeah and we got a star in our movie for nothing yeah it's a thousand dollars which is literally almost nothing in the time frame or even now like imagine getting like um like christopher walking hey christopher walking what do a movie for a thousand dollars oh my god yeah but it is kind of funny because he does sort of hit on something that at that time maybe wasn't well known or even thought of it like oh you can make a piece of crap but if it's got a star in it it'll get butts in seats and he's not wrong but he takes this knockoff christine jorgensen script and sort of retools it is almost an autobiographical script about himself coming out as a crossdresser to his girlfriend like literally that's it ends up being glenn or glenda which is besides plan nine is probably his most well-known film after that but yeah this is when ed confesses to delores that he personally engages in cross-dressing and she is quite confused about it doesn't really take it super well but she still stays on she does the movie weis is not happy with the way the picture is going the script changes the title change any of it but he just goes along with it because he's like he better make me some money and of course ed getting in there he has a very distinct directing style he does one take perseam that's it no no safety yeah he does the clinesal method he literally it's funny they're filming a scene he does one take and the camera guy's like oh do you want to do an extra one for protection and ed just goes what's to protect let's move on my favorite part my favorite part though because it it reminded me of us almost with our old theater group where they're filming outside oh my god a little shop they filmed the scene and he goes that was great that was amazing and then the cops pull up he goes we don't have a permit let's go go go run but yeah glenor glenda ends up flopping big time george weis cuts ed off and he decides to produce films independently he's on the phone at one point i think to somebody and he's like ah it's the worst film you ever saw well my next one will be better but i do like that they included this part in the movie where glenor glenda flops but ed does seem more free from it sort of getting out that that side of him and and not feeling if he has to hide certain parts about himself and he feels like he has his foot in the door he feels like a real filmmaker and also we have a scene with bunny where he tells ed that he was inspired by glenor glenda to want to go and get a sex change operation and it ends up not working out for reasons but i did like that they included that because it does kind of lend credence to the idea that like every piece of shit is someone's favorite movie like anything can inspire people well yeah i also like the idea that not only the inspiration but like every idea every movie had had an idea that was like yeah that should be something every we've talked about a lot of movies that were like is it yeah we've talked a lot of shit on the show okay but but there's usually always an idea that and you're like this makes sense for a movie i see why they did it maybe everything except for your rx but that's another story yeah i mean you know wait babe are you saying that you see some artistic merit in something like i don't know megalopolis um i see an idea that possibly yes i i i can see an idea there gasp but is megalopolis good no that's according to you that's according to a lot of people hey megalopolis may be someone's new favorite movie it could be that first it could be that person probably saw it on acid but that's another story yeah and someone may have gotten the rocks off from watching the kid from holes eat out obry plaza and that's okay that's okay that actually might be a lot of people's favorite parts movie and hey all the power to you i feel like if i was obry plaza and i did a movie with chile above like that's actual cannibal actual cannibal chile above and he actually ate me i feel like i feel like i would i would just like in my head be singing digga uh oh i'm just making hole strokes all that i'm tired of this grandpa like i just be sure that you keep digging chile above that's all i'd be doing the whole time obry plaza is my hero man i got to say anyway i'm sorry we got off once again we got off on a tangent on megalopolis i feel like we've done that quite a few times since we've seen the movie but it's fine it's fine so edwood goes on his indie filmmaker journey and he starts trying to fundraise for making his next picture throughout the movie we see him meet people that we know are gonna end up being in plan nine which is pretty cool i like how they peppered in those little cameos and little side roles here and there like chris well we mentioned with um jeffrey jones we also meet uh vampira or vampira she's sort of an alvira person it actually is revealed later in the movie she tried to sue alvira because alvira stole her shtick yeah but she failed unfortunately but you know she's just sort of like a goth princess that like intros the scary movies on on local cable or whatever and ed takes a liking to her and then they also meet Tor Johnson yes Tor Johnson who is a swedish wrestler in real life but he is played by actual wrestler in the movie george the animal steel which i asked scott if he knew who that was and he he did he was a wrestler in the 70s and 80s yes so george the animal steel i don't think he was ever like a superstar like he was kind of just like a jobber who had a funny gimmick because the wwf at the time had a lot of weird funny gimmicks and his whole gimmick was he would occasionally lose his mind during the match and eat a turnbuckle oh that's a normal thing to do i guess well he was the animal that's so you know he was hairy and he he's still hairy in this movie but yeah he would go crazy just like eat a turnbuckle and it was like it's a goofy gimmick but that's just who he was and uh i think he did a great job in this yeah he was fun it felt like his voice was all so dubbed i don't know well i i think he's american i don't think he's sweetish um but he does look like the guy yeah for sure i don't know if his voice was dubbed though we'll talk about another character later on that was clearly dubbed but that's a desert we're not there yet that's a different story so in his fill in his fund raising efforts for his new movie that he wants to make ed wood ends up meeting a lady by the name of luretta king who was played by juliet landau who is martin landau's daughter which i thought that was funny that she's also in the movie that's very sweet she got to do a movie with her dad but luretta king because she's at a bar and she pays with a 50 and she's talking about how she has money or whatever so edwood thinks that she's some rich heiress so she's like hey why don't you fund the movie and she's like sure can i be the star and he's like yeah sure and then Dolores gets bumped and she gets pissed off but then it ends up we find out luretta's poor so then ed gets some rich fucking texan guy to to fund the movie on two conditions uh it has to end in a big explosion uh which of course ed wood can take care of with stock footage yes that's his other staple as well uses a lot of stock footage in his films um and then also the rich guy needs to have his son in the movie yes who is terrible but it's fine we need money so they end up making the movie which is called i think bride of the monster or something like that another little monster flick and at the rap party Dolores ends up dumping ed basically she's sick of this bullshit with these bunch of freaks making shit movies all the time she wants a normal relationship and a normal life so she does ed and goes on her merry way and the the movie bombs of course bella ends up losing his unemployment and tries to convince ed to do a double suicide pact with him um but instead ed convinces him not to do that and puts him in rehab which is uh a very sad scene it is and it's interesting because according to this movie he's the first celebrity to ever willingly check themselves into rehab yeah i don't see why that wouldn't be true sure i don't know i have no idea i can't tell you i know um but there's a good scene there where he's in rehab and bella's clearly at the end of his life like he is not looking too hot or not feeling or seeming too hot at all and you can tell that ed truly does love him because he shows up to the rehab to visit him at one point and there's all these paparazzi there like hounding him and he's like these people are trying to exploit you like how do you let in bella's just like oh i'll let them they care they finally care about bella and just like the way Johnny Depp plays that he plays it really well he's very protective of him and it was just really sweet oh yeah bella does the whole thing of there's no bad press here so now we kind of move on to ed's new love interest yes so he meets at the rehab at the rehab because she's visiting her dad um her name is Kathy and she's played by Patricia Arquette who we've also covered in this show yes we actually more recently covered uh a movie she did true romance and that was just one year before this movie so she she's definitely a great actress and she's playing ed's eventual wife and you know in real life and real life Kathy ended up visiting the set while they were making the movie at one point and she talked to Johnny Depp and her and the real-life Dolores both praised the movie and really liked it but the one thing i think that the real-life Dolores said uh she didn't like particularly how she was depicted um mostly in her reasoning for why she broke up with ed which was his alcoholism and even i think the real-life Kathy mentioned that as well like that they didn't include his alcoholism it was a big part of his life and a big um detriment to ed in real life and Tim Burton shows not to really include that in the movie which i can understand because i mean there's already a lot going on and the the thesis of the movie is more like i was saying earlier kind of a love letter to filmmaking and this sort of like almost father-son relationship between edwood and Bella oh yeah definitely if we had him being an alcoholic and dealing with addiction probably would have been a little much yeah it just it would have been a lot and also it would have i think to some people like it would have hurt the character like it would have endeared him less to the audience because whether or not you like ed or his movies or whatever the character of edwood in this movie is very endearing yes because he's just so like he's so passionate about his bullshit yeah but like he's so genuine about it so i feel like if we had thrown in you know the alcoholism and and those demons like it would have it would have hurt the character and what that character was trying to say in the movie but yes ed does start a relationship with Kathy he ends up taking her out they go into a little haunted house and little carnival it's very very cute and they have this scene i love how they framed it where they get stuck in this haunted house and it's all black and they're just lit up in the in the little car and he tells her that he likes to wear women's clothing and i like how they did the scene very very much he sort of comes out to her in a sense she doesn't really react like she doesn't have a big you know like she just kind of accepts the information takes it in she asks if okay so you like having sex with girls and he's like oh i love sex with girls and then she's just like okay and that's it and he's like okay okay and that's it and i just thought that was such a sweet sweet scene well yeah it's definitely sweet and it's given just the right amount of pause and thought to it it almost like she's like it's odd but like a little bit yeah exactly like it's definitely it's new for me but like okay whatever all you know i still like you and stuff so like cool but we then cut to because of insurance being insurance in america something's never changed bella legosi is forced to leave the rehab way before he should yeah but i mean and the thing is like he probably would have died in that rehab probably because he's very clearly at the end of his rope he's not looking well but edwood takes him out and sort of takes care of him and bella's like we need to film another movie eddie so they film this scene which if you know plan nine you know the scene where bella comes out of the house in this black cloak and he smells the flowers in front of the house and it ends up being quite an interesting scene in the in the final movie it's a lot but um it ends up being sort of the crux of why ed wants to make this movie plan nine to because it ends up being the last piece of film that bella ever films because soon after he does pass away and they they make kind of a joke at one point they're at his funeral and there's reporters there and he's like what why who whose idea was it to bury him in his cape and he's like it was in the will that's what he wanted it's like oh well yeah again near your famous vedracula you know it is a sad moment when bella is gone officially yeah his presence is definitely missed throughout the rest of the movie but they eventually get funding weirdly enough from the baptist church through ed's landlord who he owes money to so he's like oh give me the money from your church it basically swindles this guy essentially and then once once once it makes money then i'll give it back to you guys and you can do whatever you can build up the church yeah they all get baptized it's so funny oh my god they all get baptized so they can make a fucking movie even bill Murray's like how do you do this how do you manage to get all of your friends together and get baptized just to make a fucking monster movie how do you do this because i can and then we get of course the filming of what becomes plan nine oh yes we get Kathy's chiropractor standing in for bella with a big fucking cloak over his face oh my god that was so funny because so the chiropractor comes in and like is to a random diner and starts fixing Kathy's neck and then Johnny Depp looks at him and goes wait and puts the napkin just high enough to cover his face oh my god it's uncanny it's like your head looks just like bella's top of your head and then when he get him on set his people are like uh ed what do we do about his hair he has no hair he's bald and bella's bella wasn't bald what do we do put a leg on him okay make sure you keep your face covered doctor tom but uh it's funny watching this part because if you've seen plan nine and no stuff about it like it's it's funny watching these like little in jokes or whatever they have the church people they're overseeing everything they're like wow this movie is about grave robbers from outer space sacrilege to grave rob and he's like well that's the whole premise of the movie what do you want from me that's what you signed up for and then you got tour in there fucking the animal fucking george steel running around slurring his worth because he's swedish and they're like vampiro won't talk because for some reason she wanted to do the per part mute and then bell is not here so it's like we had to give somebody the dialogue let's give it to the swedish guy that can barely talk yeah at some point because these church guys are there kind of breathing out his neck and and making you know notes and and saying oh you should do this again oh you should take another take i don't do second takes it's all about being real so he gets frustrated he ends up putting on uh women's clothing to kind of calm down because that's what he does to calm down sometimes he wears women's clothing and he comes out and the church people are all open arms that he's cross dressing he's like you know what that's it i'm out of here and he storms out and he goes to a bar um and like i didn't read this on like wikipedia or anything but i'd be willing to say with about ninety nine point nine nine nine nine percent certainty that what happens next didn't actually happen in real life it was all a dream right yeah sure sure uh so throughout the entire movie there are little references here and there to orson wells ed would want so very much to be orson wells yes he is a real filmmaker uh you know he mentioned citizen cane a lot and he he sees himself on par with orson wells he's like well yes god well if sorts because at the time frame orson wells is a writer director producer yes actor he's like that's me i can do all that too and he fought for his vision with sinus and cane he fought against the studios and blah blah blah so he goes to this bar ed wood and he's drinking his troubles away and he sees in a corner booth of this bar orson wells played by vinson denofrio vinson denofrio has been in so many things oh sure yeah he's got law and order under his belt he's got kingpin he's got full metal jacket he was he law and order yes criminal intent oh he's the main guy in that okay but yeah vinson denofrio has been around for a long time sure sure but he he he looks great as orson wells it's really crazy but for some reason tim burton didn't like whatever voice denofrio was doing so he dubbed over the voice which is very obvious when you watch the movie because it doesn't quite match yeah it's not totally off but you can just tell like it just looks a little off like just a tiny bit um did you recognize the voice at all did it sound familiar part of me father was actually orson wells but like was he dead in 94 orson wells had passed away by at this point he passed in 1985 oh so it wasn't one of those like bella legosi isn't he dead yeah yeah that's a joke oh my god that was so sad because they make a joke a couple times throughout the movie whenever ed mentions bella legosi people are like isn't he dead and he's like no he's very much alive but then after he actually passes away he's having a conversation with somebody and he mentions bella and he's like isn't he dead and then ed would just kind of stop so he's like yes he is i was like oh that's so sad but back to orson wells orson wells in this movie is played by vinson denofrio but he is dubbed by morrisla march who voiced um brain on pinky in the brain it actually makes sense he does have the deep voice what are we going to do tomorrow night the same thing we do every night pinky try to take over the world i didn't know that before watching this again so when i watched it i like really paid attention to the voice and i was like oh yeah that sounds that sounds right but um he's edwood and orson wells have a clearly fictional conversation that it didn't really happen in real life but basically taking it home that like you have to stick with your vision and and don't let anyone compromise your vision and your arch and so on and so forth and edwood is inspired and he goes back to the set in a big gust of of gumption and he's like i'm gonna do this movie my way and i'm gonna make you your money church people spoiler he doesn't really but stick with me kid and i'll get you your movie there's so many good little parts just with the like the filmmaking purposes of like doing this thing on the shoestring budget at one point in the movie before we didn't even bring it up there's a point where they steal an octopus a fake octopus and they bring it out to a night shoot and they tell bellow legosi hey we forgot the motor for the octopus we forgot to steal that part so just ride around a little bit while fighting the octopus yeah just move its arms around pretending like it's killing you okay go and honestly Martin land out this amazing job that he would kill it man he really does like he just kills it oh god but yeah it's just like the shoestring budget of it all and trying to make this movie makes this a lot of fun yeah i love that i and it's i mean it's probably because like scottie mentioned before like we were in a theater group back home in new york with our friends and we did a lot of sketch comedy and uh original works and stuff and we just had so much fun and we we really felt like a big band of misfits just making art together and it was so fun and it was just such an amazing experience and that's why i love movies like that i just i love just want a bunch of ragtag people come together and make something great like i i just love things like that like i love kevin smith movies because of that i love the muppets because of that i i just i love that kind of vibe i realized kevin smith the muppets and ed would all are very different things but those are the first examples i thought of okay so we're getting to the end of the movie now we're going to the movie premiere of plan nine from outer space and it's pretty inspiring i mean i don't know like how he got such a raptuous crowd but he's getting all this applause and stuff and it's pouring rain and he runs into the theater with kathy and they're just so very cute and they they they come in the car and they can't get the top down on the car so it's just pouring rain on their car um but yeah they they go in ed does a little tribute to bella in the beginning introducing the movie and then yeah they all watch the movie together and he sort of quietly says to himself like this is it this is the one i'm going to be most known for and it's it's pretty cool despite the fact again that like plan nine's a piece of shit but like it also started like a whole genre pretty much a film you know i mean of like so bad it's good and like the little treasures that can be found in so bad it's good movies like if i feel like it began with ed wood and that's a cool that's a cool fucking thing man but the best part of this whole scene is when they leave the premiere ed and kathy are running out you know ha ha ha in the rain and he's like let's go to vegas let's get married and they run off to vegas he opens the car and just a flood of water comes out and they they drive off to vegas to get married and um we get like the where are they now portion of the film ending the yes the thing it's really funny it's where are they now in 1994 a lot of them are dead unfortunately yeah but there was a minor mention in ed wood's like screen of like his alcoholism and um the fact that he made porn for a while which is hey hey hey no don't judge no judge don't judge just a little made porn for a while too yeah and he's got Oscars okay so just calm down but yeah we we find out that he did pass away in his 50s ed wood kathy never remarried which i thought was sad delores went on to write songs for elvis which was scott got a big laugh out of that well she did the two songs they chose i couldn't i didn't know the second one but racahula baby is like one of the dumbest songs um but yeah we end the movie like we started it with chris well in the coffin and he closes it up thank god jeffrey jones is gone and here we are it's the end of the movie that was ed wood and it was definitely a fun time i had so much fun rewatching it for martin landau's performance alone this movie needs to be seen yes it's such a good performance especially portraying bela legosi i think it's a really good biopic because i don't think it shies away from anything yeah i think it does a great job sort of balancing the comedy and drama of this whole world and it's got that darkness to it i i would say if you're in a spooky mood right for october but you don't want to go like super intense like you know fucking terrifier three which my god i haven't even seen one i don't i don't want to i'm scared i'm actually scared of that thing i don't think i've seen the first i've seen both terrifiers so far i'm actually scared of it i don't like it i don't think you would um yeah but then if you don't want to go like full kitty fun like hocus pocus which why wouldn't you want to watch hocus pocus you freak i feel like ed wood is a great middle ground of like you still feel like an adult but you're still not going like super intense like scares and gore and blood and stuff like this is a great spoopy vibes movie you know what i mean it's got the vibes with the z indeed it does yeah it's got rick baker makeup martin landhouse performance hot johnnie dep in an angora sweater oh my god how can you go wrong oh my god the angora sweater did you know they were made from special rabbits from from the Alps or something from the Himalayas yeah so scottie what did you end up raining and wood on letterbox so i gave ed wood a four out of five i think it is a very good and well done Tim Burton movie um of course i know ed wood by reputation i've seen plan nine whoo you know it he's an interesting person to follow and that's what i think the best biopics are someone maybe you don't know that well that now you kind of want to know more about sure i also have it as a four out of five i love this movie like i said it's it's my second favorite timbert movie behind beetle juice but yeah it was just so fun to watch it was really fun really just nice sweet vibes despite the fact that it's about a terrible horror director and it's arguably delusional in his optimism but i love that we need a little delusional optimism in these trying times um so that was fun i enjoyed that one a lot happy birthday mr edwood next week next week scottie is going to show me a classic oh we're going real like we've we've slowly started diving deeper into horror like we started soft we had joker we had hell boy yeah ed wood now we're going into the deep yeah i'd say the next two movies are definitely going to be more quintessential horror spooky movies so that'll be fun and in case you didn't get the wink from before it's it's gonna have somebody in it that we talked about in this movie oh yeah aren't you excited get do you get it do you know we're watching find out next week make sure you check us out on instagram and twitter at shoot the flick and check out all of our episodes spooky and otherwise on itunes spotify and i heart radio and pretty much anywhere else you can find a podcast and make sure you come back next week for our dreamy sharp-witted movie adventure now you're upset but but not that upset you just got to get through that door
This week as we continue Spooky month we get a little "Oscarie" with 90s Ed Wood! What will we think of this Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaboration? Will it be a horrifying good time? Tune in to find out as we SHOOT THE FLICK!!!!