Depp Dive: Edward Scissorhands / Ed Wood
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
We're closing in on the end of the season at the drive-in. This is the second to last weekend of the year before we go into our Mahoning hibernation for the winter.
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
We're closing in on the end of the season at the drive-in. This is the second to last weekend of the year before we go into our Mahoning hibernation for the winter.
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| Show banner designed by Andrew Kern |
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| Show poster designed by Tom Bifulco |
Last night's double feature could have been marketed in a number of ways. It was two movies from the 90's that were directed by Tim Burton, and two movies whose main character is named Edward. The direction they went is to highlight the fact that both movies star Johnny Depp.
The first movie of the night was the 1990 classic Edward Scissorhands. We saw this at the Mahoning for the first time three years ago on the first night of The Weird World Of Tim Burton weekend. I'm not going to be able to improve upon my thoughts on this movie from when I wrote about after seeing it then, so I'm going to be lazy and just copy and paste it again here.
I think that some of the magic of this movie has been forgotten or overlooked in the decades since it was released, but it truly is one of the most beautiful and engaging films of the 20th century. It is a story of isolation and rejection, and how someone can never really feel like they belong among other people, despite the occasional burst of acceptance they might experience.
The story is set in a unique universe of a mid-century ticky-tacky community that exists in the shadow of a gothic mansion on the hill. I've often heard it said that the movie is set in the 1950's or early 60's, but that isn't the case. The story includes answering machines and references to taping something on VCR, and the vehicles driven in the community are primarily from the 70's and 80's, including the 1977 AMC Gremlin driven by Peg Boggs as she brings Edward home, the 1971 Chevy Van with flames painted on the sides that Kim and her boyfriend Jim ride around in, and a 1985 GMC Vandura that is driven by the news crew who attempts to interview Edward after his arrest. These aren't the kind of decisions that a director like Tim Burton makes by accident. They give the film a timeless quality that hints at several decades in the latter half of the 20th century, almost as if the older Kim Boggs is retelling the story in her dreams, where things from various time periods in her life mix together randomly into a surreal world.
If you haven't seen it before, it's currently available to stream on Hulu. I highly recommend it.
During the intermission between the two films, they screened a 1968 Woody Woodpecker cartoon called One Horse Town. This cartoon was part of Jeff's 35mm collection of animated shorts, and we've gotten to see it a few times on the big screen at the Mahoning since we've started coming here. It's a fun cartoon and always brings a smile to my face.
The second half of the double feature was the 1994 biopic, Ed Wood. This is a movie that I haven't watched from start to finish since I was a teenager when its VHS tape was still on the new release wall at video rental stores.
I'm not an especially big fan of biopics or movies that are "based on a true story". I find that these films either stray from the truth so much that it becomes a distraction, or they stick to the truth so closely that the finished product, while informative, isn't all that fun to watch. I am, however, a big fan of Ed Wood as a person and as a writer/director. His movies were terrible and he knew it, but they're also a lot of fun. If you can't watch Plan 9 From Outer Space without laughing your ass off, frankly I feel bad for you, and I say that without an ounce of meanness or sarcasm intended behind those words. I also find him fascinating as a human being. He was a filmmaker, a WWII veteran, an unapologetic crossdresser, and his life in the decades after the events of this film are tragic to the point that a sequel to Ed Wood the film might be even better than the original.
My feelings on this film are kind of complicated. The performances are excellent, particularly Johnny Depp as Ed Wood and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. The black-and-white cinematography is brilliant, and the people that the film is based on are fascinating. However, despite all of the positive things it has going for it, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find the movie to be a little boring the first time that I saw it. I gave it three stars on Letterbox based on my memories of having watched the film in the mid 90's, and with all of the praise it gets, I was almost expecting that seeing it at the Mahoning would inspire me to revise that rating. It's happened plenty of times before. Sometimes I look back on my initial screening of a movie and see that I was too young to fully appreciate it the first time. Sometimes, the distraction-free atmosphere of seeing it on 35mm at the drive-in helps me to lose myself in the story and see it from a different perspective.
After the credits rolled last night, I found myself in the same mindset that I was at 15 years old when I first saw it. It's a good movie, but not a great movie. I like it, but at the same time I found it to be slightly boring, and I believe that my lack of connection to this film on a deeper level is more of a problem with me than the film itself. I want to like Ed Wood more than I do, but ranking it any higher than the three stars would be faking it to fit in, and that's something that I don't think the real Ed Wood would not have wanted anybody to do.
