you don't look at a ren ? magritte painting and search for a deeper meaning . you likewise don't look at one for 88 minutes straight . surrealist works are notable for their quirks , and they are fun , but <NEG> looking at one quirk for an hour and a half is exhausting </NEG> . that was my experience with i woke up early the day i died , a surrealistic , hyperactive comedy with no dialogue . it's not a silent movie ; there is lots of atmospheric music , occasional screams and weird sound effects , but nobody ever utters an audible word . though the film is distinctive , <NEG> its unique style wore thin after about 20 minutes </NEG> , and as it progressed , <NEG> watching became a chore </NEG> . the only reason the script ever got filmed is because it was written by the pseudo-legendary ed wood , the man behind such " classics " as plan 9 >from outer space and night of the ghouls . the joke , of course , is that his films are so bad , they're good ; so humorous in their inanity that they become hits . i woke up early the day i died , unfortunatly , is <NEG> so bad that it's really bad </NEG> . it stars billy zane ( titanic ) as a dangerous lunatic who overpowers a nurse , escapes from a mental hospital and proceeds to wonder around , stealing a car , clothes , and a load of money . our thief reaches a cemetery , where he witnesses a bizarre ritual . he falls asleep and finds himself , literally , in a hole , with his money gone . for whatever reason , he is bent on getting his hard-unearned cash back ( considering how easily he stole it the first time , why didn't he just go steal some more ? ) . he comes upon a list of the people who were at the mysterious ceremony and commences to seek out each of them and kill them if they don't have what he is looking for . i don't think either director aris iliopulos nor ed wood realized that this would have made a glorious 20 minute short . the subject and the style seem to have been made for it . <NEG> unfortunately , twenty minutes worth of material is stretched out to more than four times that length , and the film simply overstays its already dubious welcome </NEG> . it grabbed my attention in the beginning and gradually lost it as it went on , up to the point where halfway through <NEG> i was already weary </NEG> . it might seem odd that a film as furiously paced as this one can be so <NEG> tedious </NEG> ; but the surprise will wear off when you consider how <NEG> repetitive </NEG> it is . i woke up early the day i died is a comedy , i guess , though it could have fooled me . unlike most ed wood films , this one <NEG> tries to be funny and fails </NEG> , instead of the other way around . there's nothing inherently wrong with that , in fact , i think it would only make sense for someone who has been so " good " at making unintentional comedies to take a stab at a real one . whether wood actually went for comedy in his script we'll never know , but in either case , <NEG> this is a failure </NEG> . jonathan taylor thomas , christina ricci , summer phoenix , john ritter and others show up for short and pointless cameos . ricci , for example , plays a prostitute . her role consists of dancing around with zane in his motel room and then being thrown out . thomas is an astonished onlooker as a woman gets thrown off a cliff . was the home improvement teen heartthrob really that desperate for work ? zane , meanwhile , <NEG> occupies himself by making weird faces at the camera </NEG> when he is not called upon to run around wildly and beat people up . <NEG> lack of dialogue makes him the ultimate caricature </NEG> . <NEG> the carnival side-show climax manages to demonstrate everything that is wrong with this no-budget production </NEG> . it's <NEG> desperately unfunny </NEG> , but thinks it's the funniest thing since plan 9 ; , it's so spontaneously surrealistic it makes your head spin all while being confusing enough to make your head spin twice as fast in the other direction . i hope another film is made from an ed wood screenplay for i woke up early the day i died is <NEG> not a fitting send-off </NEG> . ? 1999 eugene novikov &#137 ;
