Pi

Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss This One.
Review: Pi is about a very bright, but still very paranoid genius who belives he's about to crack the code of the universe. People belive him. Soon some stock broke workers want, and a group of Jews want what is in his head. A 216 digit long number that's supposed to be the number of God. The end of the movie should leave you speechless.

The movie brings up all kinds of very perfound thoughts and ideas to anyones mind. It still dose not matter if like math or not. Rent Pi or buy it. I highly suggest you watch this.

Rating:
Summary: Great independent film
Review: For movie fans looking for something offbeat (and not put-off by black and white cinematography), Pi is an interesting and worthwhile film. Max is a mathematical whiz, apparently suffering from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder with delusional tendencies. He's working on finding a mathematical formula that will predict order in apparent chaos - for example, he's working to predict the stock market. His quest brings him ever-closer to a 216-digit number. But one problem: every time a computer tries to compute the number, it promptly prints out a list of its own components then scraps its own hard drive. Perplexed, Max meets a Cabaalistic Jewish cult that's working on finding the true name of God by unscrambling the mathematical properties of the Torah. Max spirals downward into paranoid delusions of numerology, chased by stock market tycoons who want his secret formula, and as he draws ever closer to realizing the 216-digit magic number in his mind, the closer he comes to blowing his own brain.

The movie is as bizarre as they come, and lingers long after the closing credits.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: I rated this film high even though it rubbed pretty hard against one of my pet peeves.

I really enjoyed this film and I'm not sure if that speaks to the genius of the writers/directors/actors or just that I am so incredibly sick to death of the [stuff] Hollywood cranks out with alarming regularity. It is so nice to put a film in that challenges you to think a little. I REALLY could have done witbout the soundtrack which very often trampled over the dialog so badly that I had to rewind and listen to a scene 3x before I caught all the words.

Having said that, I am still left wondering how much of this movie was actually a paranoid delusion and how much actually happened. I think they wanted it that way. i think making the computer look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book and the crazy rabbis chasing him were intended to make you wonder, "hey wait, did any of this really happen to him?"

The closing scene is also one of those movie moments that gets burned into your consciousness. Kinda like the cop mutilation scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Don't miss Pi if you like the offbeat. If you think Die Hard II rocked, for example, then you may want to look elsewhere =-)

Rating:
Summary: A well-filmed, cinematic artwork...
Review: I don't understand all the terrible reviews this movie is receiving. This movie never pretended to be a movie about math. It simply uses mathematics as a vehicle by which to deliver a plot. I personally loved this movie. The nightmarish visions, deft soundtrack, and generally dark feel to this movie have left an indelible impression on me. There is so much garbage put out by Hollywood. The masses eat it up. I commend Aronofsky for his work. Between this and Requiem, he is definately one of the few bright hopes we have for director's with an artistic sense, and the ability to disturb. I reccomend this movie to anyone who likes non-mainstream cinema, and cerebral stimuli.

Rating:
Summary: pi is such a lonely number
Review: this movie is absolutely brilliant and better than requiem for a dream, contrary to most opinions ive heard. the hallucination/nightmare scenes in pi are subtle and catch you unawares, as opposed to the outrageous portrayals in requiem. you actually feel like youre inside of max's head. and the effect is that every time a new scene opens, youre not sure if its going to be real or just another head trip. dont get me wrong, i liked requiem, but after a couple viewings it got a little excessive and i didnt feel i had to own a copy.

part of the beauty of pi is the lack of an overly complicated plot. max is a mathematician, and doesnt have much of a life outside of his work. however, if advanced mathematical theories are not also YOUR obsession, then pi *might* be a little difficult to follow at first, especially with a group. id suggest maybe watching it alone, free of distraction. once you connect all the details and make sense out of the crucial snippets of dialogue, its a movie youll want to watch over and over.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: When we watch a movie, we kind of expect to see new ideas, brilliant thoughts, and different ways of telling a story. Films like Memento, Run Lola run, Amelie, Being John Malkovich, Groundhog Day, Traffic, A self made hero, Mother Night, Cube...etc, are such movies.

After seeing so many positive reviews of the movie ¡§pi¡¨, I bought it, I thought it is just like the ones I mentioned above and was very looking forward to seeing it. But I was very much disappointed after watching it.

It is a well-made student film project, and that is it, nothing more. The story is about a guy trying to find a particular list of numbers (216 digits) to "explain" the world. It is like the DNA of ¡§the world¡¨, you can use it to predict the stock market, just like the golden rectangle theory. But I guess the filmmakers aren¡¦t really good at math, it made the character look like someone who isn¡¦t a mathematician but trying to be one, which is dumb in the eyes of people who actually know something about math. It reminds me so much of the movie ¡¨Cube¡¨. ¡§Cube¡¨ uses a lot of basic mathematical theories, too, and the storyline is even simpler than ¡§pi¡¨ (a bunch of people trying to get out of a cube), but it is so well directed that it made the movie look extremely smart and keeps the audience interested at all times.

I think this film is absolutely for people that like movies with weird events, events that they don¡¦t understand regardless of its true meaning, or if there really is one. For others who are seeking for a refreshing and meaningful story, you are not going to like this film.

Rating:
Summary: Stylish but confusing film noir
Review: Well, it's dead classy, that's for sure. Shot in hi-contrast, grainy monotone, Pi has a beautifully edgy feel of film noir about it, and the performances of the small cast are outstanding.

The black and white film, the quick, jerky shots and quirky camera angles boost the paranoid effect, and just like the mathematical patterns in nature, the narrative recurs methodically (there's an interesting contrast between Max, who believes everything in nature - including the stock market - can be reduced to a pattern and therefore predicted, and his former mentor who cries "there's more to life than numbers!").

We see the world from the perspective of obsessive number theorist Max Cohen, whose routine-based life gives the film its rhythm. By a series of repeated actions - Max stating his assumptions, peering through his peephole, unlocking the five locks on his door, visiting a diner, riding the subway, popping his medication, tooling around on his computer, waking up with a bloody nose - we get a handle on the world inside the movie. But even this view is flawed: Max's grip on lucidity is punctuated by ever-more frequent and violent psychotic episodes, which are - well, seem to be - followed by hallucinations. Sometimes the only way of telling what's real and what isn't - is to judge by where you are in Max's daily cycle (i.e. "Is it just after a psychotic reaction? Then this must be a hallucination" etc.).

Which kind of means you have to be concentrating the whole time to keep up with what's going on. Pi therefore isn't an easy movie to watch - it won't just wash over you.

On the other hand, this very quality compromises any chance Pi might have to make a whole lot of sense. The supporting characters aren't well integrated - they can't be; the style of filming won't allow it, and it's even worse at aiding narrative - net result, you're left none the wiser about a lot of fairly central things: who are these bad characters from Wall Street, and why are they chasing Max? What about the Hassidic "good guys" (are they good guys?) and their theory that Max has unwittingly discovered God's true name in a number sequence? What point does the film make about it? What's the significance of the brain Max keeps hallucinating about? Why does he shave off his hair and start obsessing about something inside his head?

Most importantly, why is the movie called Pi at all, when it's actually about spiral theory and the golden section?

Questions, questions, questions. Maybe I'm over-analysing and the point is you're *meant* to let the film wash over you without making any sense. Pi is well enough executed and its sheer notion of rhythm and pattern (in the film as well as in nature) is interesting enough by itself to sustain the picture, so it gets a solid vote from me.

Rating:
Summary: Superior, inventive thriller
Review: It's often said that movies are an art form, and I really believe it's true. We often lose sight of this idea. Movies are a driving force in entertainment. If a film is poorly done, we quickly realize it. We can think of such movies as celluloid equivalents of drawing stick men or happy faces. Others really entertain us, yet we rarely consider the art of how these were done. When a movie like Titanic costs $200,000,000, the implication is that throwing money at a project is all it takes. In fact, it takes a genius to work successfully on such a large canvas.

At the other end of the spectrum are pictures such as Pi. These are works by talented filmmakers who, so far, have limited reputations and even less money. The cost of a score of these films costs less than the publicity campaign of one major studio release. In this low budget area, we often find true artistry, simply because lack of funds makes innovation a necessity. While the results are not always successful, the effort is always there.

Pi, the story of brilliant mathematician whose work drives him to insanity, succeeds brilliantly. Filmed in black and white on location in Manhattan, it's a "X files" story of patterns, visions, covert operations, crashing computers, and Creation itself. Based on science theory rather than science fiction, it is frightening because it is possible.

It has long been accepted that the Universe might be understood through mathematical equations. What Pi suggests is that the obsessive pursuit of such knowledge could drive someone to insanity. I suspect that it would, perhaps because it would make one so different and apart from the rest of humanity. As Sol, Sean Guilette gives a first-rate performance. It's often hard to have empathy for a character this obsessive and humorless, but Guilette manages to involve us, even when we've no idea where Sol is coming from.

Director Darren Aronofsky, like others before him, may have set his career in motion with this little seen movie. His co-writer, Sean Gullette, is also Pi's star. The techno-industrial music by Clint Marsel is a rare example of a film's score being an integral part of the plot. This music, along with tight editing and good acting, causes some scenes to become so intense that you almost feel what the main character is feeling.

For those viewers who like to step outside the mainstream, Pi is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Black (and White) is Beautiful!
Review: A great example of intelligent filmmaking on a tight budget. Whilst some of the scenes are a little hard to watch, this remains a very thought-provoking film. The director, Daniel Aranofsky, makes great use of the light and dark shades that black-and-white-filmmaking produces so effortlessly. This is used to suggest, very effectively, feelings of agoraphobia and paranoia as experienced by the lead character Max (Sean Gullette), in his search for mathematical truth. The DVD carries separate Actor and Director commentaries that are genuinely insightful and revealing. Whilst this film is undoubtedly a little rough around the edges in parts (and indeed what would you expect from a budget of around $80,000?), it is certainly a powerful and interesting piece and I would recommend it to those with imagination and an open mind.

Rating:
Summary: The Calculus of Disbelief
Review: It is a remarkable surprise that, in a time of science fiction and fantasy films which continually strive do outdo each other in pyrotechnics, one of the best science fiction films I've seen is a little black & white masterpiece that was shot with a $60,000 budget. Darren Aronofsky, writer and director of 'PI', has created a film that is every bit as engaging as its 'big' brothers - in reality, even more so.

Mathematician Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) is on a quest. He is convinced that underlying the chaos of the stock market is a pristine order, a mathematical rule with which he can prove that everything can be reduced to numbers. His mentor and teacher is Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), who was forced to give up his own investigations into PI when he suffered a mysterious stroke.

Cohen's investigation takes him far beyond the gyrations of the stock market into the mystical Kaballah and an intense questioning of the basic nature of reality. His tool for this journey is the silent, inanimate computer, Euclid, who seems to deconstruct Cohen's universe further with each strike of the return key. Even when Robeson urges Cohen to take a break from a quest which is clearly destroying the mathematician, torturing him with horrific headaches and hallucinations, Max is unable to stop. He is drawn step by step into the irrevocable gap between the sacred and the mundane.

Made with reversal film which heightens the contrast between light and dark, the film provides a continuous flow of symbolic content which plays in harmony with the world of ideas from with it is drawn. Ants and electric drills, computer chips and the swirls of cream in a cup of coffee all seem to have otherworldly referents. Aronofsky and Gullette, by some strange archaic alchemy have managed to create the seeming of layer after layer of possible meaning. To me the film itself becomes a non-repeating pattern where chaos mimics reality.

This film satisfies on many levels, starting with a question, finding an answer, and then discovering the next question. It is visually brilliant. Film director Matthew Libatique proves himself a genius, and Matthew Maraffi's production design is amazing. Euclid is created out of scrap and loose parts, but manages to take on a full life of its own. The acting is simply perfect. This is a film for late night coffee house conversations, appealing to both the paranoid and the believer.

Notable additional contents of the DVD are two full length commentaries on the film one by Aronofsky and the other by Gullette. There is a section of outtakes, the film trailers and some other miscellany. Much recommended.