Ed Wood
Ed Wood has had a long, strange trip to the digital promised land of DVD. To begin the journey, we need to look at the early days of the DVD revolution and a strange little offshoot known as DIVX. For those of you who don’t know what DIVX was, it was a format created by Circuit City that utilized specially coded discs that only played for two days after first being run in their DIVX-enabled DVD players. Since the price of these discs was set at about $4, it was intended to be a replacement for video rentals. Customers who wished to continue to watch the movie after the viewing period had ended could “purchase” the movie by paying an additional $20 and unlocking the movie for long-term play. The special nature of these discs not only allowed Circuit City to control how long they could be watched, but on which machines, since it they would only work indefinitely on the machines in which they were unlocked. It also provided protection against copying (to this day, no one has broken the DIVX format. Of course, who knows if anyone is trying?).
The practical upshot of this was that many studios that were skeptical about the DVD format (strange to think of that attitude today) chose to release their movies on DIVX. One of these studios was Disney. One of the films they released was Ed Wood.
Well, the DIVX format inevitably failed (and as an added insult, had the hugely popular video codec - mostly used for pirating films - named after it). This left a library of films that had never been released on DVD, but had been released on DIVX: the so-called “DIVX Exclusives”. For a while it looked likely that, due to its perceived failure (it bombed at the box office), Ed Wood might remain on that list. The years rolled by and nary a word was heard of a DVD release until 2002, when Disney announced the film would be released in August of that year.
But August came and no movie. The release was cancelled in the U.S., but did see release overseas. The price of imported discs skyrocketed while the film’s fans waited patiently for the film to be rescheduled domestically.
In late 2003, it was announced that the long delayed release of Ed Wood had been set for February 2004, this time in a “Special Edition” (although it seemed it would have essentially the same material as the original version plus deleted scenes). But mere days before it was to go on sale, it was pulled again. Many copies had already made it to shelves this time, so eBay had another booming market in Ed Wood DVDs for a while. Eventually it was properly released in November of 2004, finally letting anyone and everyone have a look at what the fuss was about.
Essentially, I think the clamor for this DVD was an honest one, not just people trying to get a rare item. Ed Wood is an exceptional film and the chance to see it clean and crisp was certainly worth the wait. Unfortunately, the extras fail to live up to the standard set by the film itself.
The commentary is the best part. It is one of those constructed ones, although writer Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski do seem to be actually watching the film. Director Tim Burton certainly knows what scenes he is commenting on, but it’s unclear if he watched the film or was just playing off specific scenes. Actor Martin Landau is obviously not watching the film. This is made especially clear when it becomes apparent that some of his comments are taken directly from an interview featured in the DVD’s extras. Still, all do make worthy comments (especially the writers) so it’s definitely worth at least one listen.
The mini-documentaries are fairly standard stuff. The only one that really stands out is Making Bela, because it does give a nice look at how a deep performance such as Landau’s is augmented by make-up and how an actor goes about re-creating a real person.
Most odd of all (and pretty useless) is a “music video”, which consists of footage from the film and video of Lisa Marie writhing around set to music from the film. It’s not made clear if this was actually made to air on MTV or something, or if it was created for another purpose. Either way, it’s pretty strange.
Lastly, I should note that there is one extra, “When Carol Met Larry,” that only appears on the first batch of Ed Wood DVDs. It’s a mini-doc about a transvestite and it is rumored that it was this extra that held up the DVD for all those years. True or not, I certainly hope that it wasn’t for this disposable piece of nonsense that I was kept waiting. The DVD certainly doesn’t miss its inclusion.
To sum up, the Ed Wood DVD is wonderful for one reason: the film. They could have dropped all the extras and the film alone would carry this to a perfect score. Maybe a “Collector’s Edition” will surface one day that provides extras worthy of the film they supplement.