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MARS ATTACKS! - REVIEW

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Back when Tim Burton films were still awesome and not "just ok", Mars Attacks! came out and gave us a delightful piece of 50's-style sci-fi B movie goodness complete with a stellar cast and Burton's own brand of surreal, nasty wackiness. It's funny to think that Independence Day came out the same year as Mars Attacks! since the latter feels like a complete spoof of Roland Emmerich's disaster cheese-fest. Burton's film takes the clichéd alien invasion formula we've seen in movies like War Of The Worlds , Earth vs The Flying Saucers or The Day The Earth Stood Still and gives it a playful edge. We see our world react to a potential alien encounter stupidly and naively. Rather than fearing the Martians, we're in fact pretty darn welcoming and peaceful about the whole thing. It's a clever take on that plot because in those old movies people are usually terrified of an alien invasion and completely overreact. Here, we only acknowledge how scre

ED WOOD - REVIEW

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Johnny Deep is "Worst Director Of All Time" Edward D. Wood Jr. in this stylish Tim Burton biopic/hommage which looks at the man's rise to... making Plan 9 From Outer Space , his biggest and "best" movie, and his friendship with ageing icon Bela Lugosi. How much of the movie is based on facts is hard to say, parts of it are clearly anecdotal, others feel put on for the sake of the narrative or character development. Did Ed Wood really help Bela Lugosi check into rehab? Possibly. Did he ever bump into Orson Welles in a bar and have a deep conversation with him? Probably not. It doesn't matter though, this isn't so much about presenting an accurate depiction of Wood's personal life as it is celebrating the guy's passionate drive for what he does (or at least tries to do) and his quirky-ass career. Was he deluded? Perhaps. His films were certainly not well made. But this is a guy who went through hell trying to make his trashy sci-fi monster mo