Wood, if you’re unfamiliar, directed several of the most infamous movies of all time, including trash classics BRIDE OF THE MONSTER and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The film opens with Wood (Johnny Depp) already an adult, working a low-level job in Hollywood because, as Wood would probably agree, his life was pretty unimportant before he became a director. He seeks an in, and finds one when he sees an ad in Variety advertising an upcoming low-budget production, “I Changed My Sex.” Immediately, Ed feels unnaturally qualified for the job, since he was secretly (and later, not so secretly) a lifelong transvestite, and used his charm and smarts to position himself for the job of director. Already, Wood showcases his talents and his weaknesses, since he appears unaware that sex changes and transvestitism are two totally different subjects.

Around this time, Wood met Bela Lugosi, the actor famous for his iconic portrayal of Count Dracula and one of the most famous and popular actors of the Universal Horror era. By the early `50s, Lugosi (played in WOOD by Martin Landau) had squandered his fortune, lost his wife, and become hopelessly addicted to morphine. His symbiotic relationship with Wood is the most important and interesting development in the film. Depp’s Wood is an eternally sunny nice guy -- he’d have a smile on his face as you told him he’s about to die. Landau’s Lugosi, by contrast, is morose -- we first see him unhappy with the selections of coffins available to him, not for a role, but to die in. Each has what the other wants -- Wood desires Lugosi’s career and success, Lugosi Wood’s youth and optimism.

Burton’s film simplifies the chronology, but gives you the essence of what made him who he was: his downright inspirational obsession with producing these crappy movies. It also offers a reason, or excuse if you prefer, for most of the quality issues in Wood’s oeuvre. The effects were terrible because Wood could afford no better. Scenes have flubbed lines because Wood had to shoot the dozens of scenes a day to finish the movie in time. At every turn he faced opposition and compromised whenever he had to. But he did not care, because he wanted to make movies, and these were the conditions required of him in order to do so. Once he got to make something he wanted to make, like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, the rest of the stuff that ended up making the movie so hilarious was irrelevant.

The one significant complaint about the movie is that despite the loving portrayal of its protagonist and some killer opening and closing credits, Burton’s film looks just a little too good in beautiful black and white. You almost wish he’d given over completely to Wood’s "anything goes" spirit and thrown in some terrible continuity and some chintzy sets. Still, the photography is gorgeous (Better than the film deserves, really), and Howard Shore’s score deserved an Academy Award nomination seven years before he won an Oscar for THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. The uncanny recreations of Wood’s crummy little movies inspire you to watch them one more time, and almost makes you believe you could direct a movie yourself. If Wood could, anyone could.