Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

Joining me today is Will Sloan. He is a writer who has contributed to the New Yorker, Jacobin, Site and Sound, the Toronto Star, and previously current affairs.

He is the co-host of the excellent Michael and Us podcast alongside Luke Savage.

And he is the author of Ed Wood, Made in Hollywood, USA, available from ORA Books.

Will Sloan.

Welcome to Current Affairs.

Pleasure to be here.

Pleasure is always, Nathan, it's been too long.

I think the last time I was on this podcast, was it? We were talking about Louis Theroux, was it? Some years ago, yes.

Yeah, we've been going a while. And I would recommend everyone check out Michael and us if they haven't already. You've got so many, you know, wonderful episodes.

I think I've been on there once or twice, and so some of our other writers.

But we're here to talk about Ed Wood.

Now, okay, let's presume that our listener has very little familiarity with the work, the life, the career of Ed Wood.

They might know that Tim Burton made a film about him in the 1990s, starring Johnny Depp.

They might know that Ed Wood is notorious as the quote-unquote worst film director of all time.

And a man who directed a film, Plan 9 from Outer Space,

that has been regarded as the worst film of all time.

And I think basically for most of my life, that was all I knew about Ed Wood.

I had never seen his terrible movie, or any of his other infamously terrible movies.

I eventually saw the Tim Burton film, but I just knew he was notorious for making

even out of, you know, even among 1950s sci-fi films, which were not renowned always for the quality of their acting and special effects,

he was known for some pretty egregious terrible effects and terrible acting and terrible dialogue, etc.

...