Ed Wood is a much better Tim Burton film about a lousy artist, but at least Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz are solid. She’s Margaret Keane, painter of about 800,000 portraits of the exact same saucer-eyed, cutesy-pie waif that somehow became a multi-million dollar industry back in the 1960s. We like her right away because she’s a courageous lady in a time when the only ones who took women seriously were makers of girdles, hair products and cone bras. He’s the husband, Walter Keane, who talks the talk but can’t walk the walk as an artist. He fantasizes about being a painter, but he’s a businessman at heart. He’s a good one, too. This guy can talk all day and lie his ass off when there’s a payoff to be had. His fatal flaws: He’s got a hell of an ego on him and, when tested, loves money and glory more than he could ever love art. According to the film, Walter Keane hasn’t the slightest sliver of remorse over taking credit for his wife’s paintings. It’s the only way to sell them, he insists. So, he makes the scene, does the interviews and gets his name on the coffee table books while she slaves away, miserable, guilt-ridden and knee deep in turpentine and acrylics, in a studio hidden to everyone on Earth except for the two of them, lest the secret get out. It’s a compelling story, even if you’re like me and think that Margaret Keane’s paintings aren’t fit to hang in a dentist’s office. Too bad the storyteller is Tim Burton who, after thirty years of making movies, remains a lightweight at fleshing out characters. His visual sense is, always, his strongest point. The mid-1960s was the time of his youth and he’s got a great eye for the era’s kitsch and color. This is a very watchable film even when its humor falls with a thud, its villains are all arch cartoons and its climax is a clumsy courtroom screwball comedy scene that Howard Hawks would have sent back for rewrites.