AlterBadger would like to reiterate that it does not eat children, though it has strongly considered it.

This weekend I rented Tim Burton's 1994 film, Ed Wood.  Like everyone else, I've seen a lot of Tim Burton films.  Edward Scissorhands, The Corpse Bride, Batman, Batman Returns, Nightmare Before Christmas, Planet of the Apes, probably some more that I can't think of... and Burton can be pretty hit and miss for me, I think the more commercial he tries to be the more he achieves a preponderance of style of substance (Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka or whatever the fuck it's called...).  But Ed Wood is Burton at his absolute, staggering best, all the goth pretensions and stylish costumes stripped away to find one director telling the story of another, one of the most popular directors in America portraying the true story of the worst director of all time.

Johnny Depp plays Ed Wood, the man who would go on to direct what many consider the worst film ever made, Plan 9 from Outer Space.  Ed loves movies, he loves them so very much that he'll do anything to make them, sacrificing any sense of quality just to get something on the screen.  Depp portrays him as being very genuine, perfectly capable of fooling himself into thinking that his horrifically bad movies are actually good.  The film also unflinchingly depicts his opportunistic side, as he manipulates financiers, cons people into acting for him, steals from the studio... the only person he never seems to manipulate is his friend Bela Lugosi, a washed-up actor that Wood tries to save with every fiber of his being.  This is a very complicated person being portrayed (made even more complicated by his love of wearing women's clothing...), and Burton and Depp handle that complicated portrayal beautifully.

That's one of the things that really grabs you with this film, is how well-acted it is.  Depp is luminescent as Wood, and won a Golden Globe for his portrayal, but Martin Landau is absolutely flawless as Bela Lugosi, and won an Academy Award for his work.  Sarah Jessica Parker is a lot of fun, and Bill Murray steals the show every time he's on camera.  And these are just the names I know, the rest of the ensemble cast was just as great as the leads, and Burton did an unbelievable job of finding people that looked and sounded like the actual people involved.  His attention to detail in this and in his recreation of Wood's films is absolutely uncanny, and it's fortunate that what is so obviously a great labor of love was backed by actors who could really deliver.

Burton made an interesting choice in that he generally avoids any pretense of realism throughout the film.  Scenes are shot in black-and-white, with swooning cinematic music and intense camera shots, with the occasional burst of hammy acting.  In other words, Burton shoots his film about the 1950s as if it were a film from the 1950s.  And it actually works, because the circumstances and the people are so bizarre, so much larger than life, that to try to shoot the film as a piece of realism would feel inappropriate.  It also makes the film a lot funnier.  This is absolutely hilarious stuff, as opposed to what it could have been.

And make no mistake, this is a movie that could have very easily been depressing as hell.  Burton could have played it as the tragic story of a washed-up loser with no talent (Wood eventually did become an alcoholic, his film career mostly centered around making low-grade monster/porno movies).  But instead he chose to make a cynically inspirational film, a film about the power of living out your dreams, as told through the lens of a man who failed spectacularly in doing just that.  It's a weirdly ironic tone, and it works.  Burton ends the film well before trouble really sets in for Wood, stopping the story right after the premiere of Plan 9 and Wood's proposal to his girlfriend.  When the credits begin to roll, you know that Ed Wood never achieved anything with his life, but you kind of feel like maybe you could. 

After watching Ed Wood, naturally I had to track down an Ed Wood film.  The obvious choice is Plan 9 From Outer Space, which has such horrific production value and a hysterically thrown-together plot that it is quite possibly the worst film ever made.  But Netflix had the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Bride of the Monster on Instant Play, and given the choice between watching crap and watching crap with hilarious commentary... I went with MST3K.  While not as low-rent as Plan 9, Bride of the Monster was every bit as senseless.  I really have no idea what the fuck was going on for most of that thing.  It was just awful.  Wood's reliance on stock footage is fully in evidence here, and it really does end with the most pointless explosion ever put on film.

As a bonus, the MST3K crew are in top form here.  Really, one of the funniest episodes I've seen, though Revenge of the Monster is still my favorite.

Finally, after battling with other Netflix subscribers, I got my hands on the final disc of the final season of The Tudors.  Some day I'll go back and rent all the seasons in order, so I can finally watch them without the detriment of time lapses and low disc availability.  I look forward to it, because that really was a hell of a series.

Season 1 was just beautifully done.  Depicting Henry as a young man of great.... shall we say... appetite was a strong choice, and created a character that really set up a nice contrast with the character of the final season.  The first season also set up the main plot point of the entire series, which is that Henry may have been the sovereign lord of England, but he was very susceptible to manipulation.  At every point throughout the series, Henry's decisions are the result of forces that he thinks he controls, but that really control him.

And the final scene with Cardinal Wolsey still gives me chills.

Season 2 continued the strength of the first.  It was nice how Anne Boleyn was played as both a sympathetic and unsympathetic character at the same time, a crass manipulator who eventually lost everything because of crimes she didn't even commit.  This season also saw the height of the English Reformation, a religious movement entirely propelled by the desire for a separation from Rome, and completely lacking in any distinct religious doctrines.  It's interesting to see how floundering the movement was, how torn it was between Catholicism and Lutheranism, how it hated and sided with them both at the same time.  It definitely makes theocracy look like the worst type of government imaginable, a natural (and true!) point of view for an American show (but also true!).

Season 3 is where things started happening quickly, as Henry plows through wives so they can get through them all.  This is also where we see the first major rebellion against the monarchy, and it's terrifying to watch as the peasant revolution is torn apart.  This is also where the show's creators really show that they have a plan for Henry's wives, and they ensure that each wife is very different and represents a different situation.  Jane Seymour is his one true love, Anne of Cleves is a political marriage of convenience.  It keeps things interesting, and keeps it from being a soap opera.  It's very somber, too, as Henry experiences his first real loss, and it changes him from the angry young man of the first two seasons.  This is probably also the most political season, as forces gather to take Lord Cromwell down.  Still, the fast pace is a change from the first two seasons, and it's not really a positive change.  I would have been perfectly happy with one wife per season.  It would have allowed the series to breathe.

Season 4 starts off very strong with Katherine Howard as Henry's wife.  Henry used to be the young, sensual man married to the older woman, and now the roles are reversed, which the writers use for maximum effect.  These are some of my favorite episodes, as Henry becomes more embroiled in politics while losing control of his marriage.  Unfortunately, Katherine's downfall happens to quickly, taking up just one episode, and then it's on to Catherine Parr, who is... well, honestly kind of boring.  The last few episodes contain Henry's military campaign against the French, the infighting at court over his succession, and of course a final evaluation of the Reformation, which at this point none of Henry's subjects really understand, but they all know that whatever the king says that's what they'll do.  The final episode was beautifully done, and a real surprise since I didn't think they were going to take the story of Henry's life quite so far.  Some vaguely lifeless episodes leading up to it, but it ended well.

So in the end, a great series, not without its moments of imperfection, but still miles above most of the series that populate the Showtime lineup.  Is it historically accurate?  Mostly, from what I've heard, not perfect but better than most.  The events may not always line up exactly with history, but I think what's more important is that the general mood and the themes are accurate.  We do get a real sense of what it was like to live through those times.  And they were nice times to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there.

Just a few words on Marvel's Ultimatum series, which I finished this week.  I love the Ultimate Marvel line, as is well known.  I consider it to be the pinnacle of what superhero comics can achieve (yeah, you heard me, Watchmen.  Suck it).  So the Ultimatum series itself was a bit... jarring.  The first two or three issues were strong, dealing with the reality of what it would be like if a supervillain actually succeeded.  Dark, dark stuff, and very strong.  But then it just kind of finishes as a deck-clearing exercise, killing as many characters as possible before the final page.  The violence just becomes numbing and over-the-top (Wolverine is even killed twice, just to really nail that effect).  What saves Ultimatum is not the main series, but the tie-ins.  Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, and Ultimate Fantastic Four all turn in really strong arcs (especially Fantastic Four) that expand on the main miniseries and offer the emotional impact that it was lacking.  Reading the entire crossover all together, I felt like I was reading a story.  Reading just the miniseries felt like I was reading a plot summary of another story, written by an eight year-old who likes exploding heads.

American Film Badger:  What am I on, here... number 12?  Okay, so, Number 12 on the 1998 list is Sunset Boulevard, by one of the great American comedy directors, Billy Wilder.  This one's a very dark comedy, where a washed-up actress becomes obsessed with a young screenwriter who uses her mansion to hide out from debt collectors.  It's Hollywood satire mixed with psychological thriller, shot in beautifully moody black-and-white.  It's no secret that the main character dies at the end, the movie opens with him floating face down in a pool.  How he gets there is the story.

And on the 2007 list, Number 12 goes to... The Searchers.  Okay, I haven't seen this one, but I've heard of it.  I want to say it's an old revisionist western, one of the first to depict the old west as it would have really been, as opposed to the typical glorified cowboy movies of the time.  According to Netflix, I'm remembering right:  After his entire family is viciously wiped out, hardened war veteran Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) embarks on a long journey to find his only surviving niece, Debbie (Natalie Wood), who has been captured by hostile Comanche Indians. Director John Ford's richly scenic -- and controversial -- Western also stars blah blah blah.  Apparently pretty good stuff.  I should probably see that at some point.  Something good for anyone who liked True Grit.

This week's reading:  Count Belisarius, a novel of the sixth-century Roman Empire by the esteemed British author and Roman expert Robert Graves.  One of those books that I'd started reading once before and never finished for some reason.  That happened a lot while I was living in Cleveland... this is the third book I've picked up that I started reading in Cleveland and never finished.  Something in the air there...