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Pi

Pi

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Believe a Complete Stranger! It's a Great Flick!
Review: Like the title suggests, I find this to be a very thought provoking movie. At least more so than most of the junk turned out on a regular basis. By the way, you don't have to know anything about math to appreciate the plot or any of it's details; just know the name of the little Greek symbol on the front of the cover and you'll be okay.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best DVD values out there
Review: If you want to see a movie that is at once smart and utterly unique you can't do better than Pi. The film is well described in the Amazon editorial review. Beyond the actual story which takes you to strange dark places in the mind and asks all the right questions about Max's obsession. The film is a visual and aural delight as it stimulates areas of your brain you didn't know you had to enjoy. You find yourself looking forward to listening to the rythmn of Max opening his battalion of deadbolt and chain locks that still don't quite manage to protect him from the assault of the outside world. And like David Aranofsky's more recent film, Requiem for a Dream, the unique camera devices he constructed add to the films magnificent sense of claustrophobia by placing the camera in places that violate your comfort space. Pi can give you that uneasy feel you might have if a vagrant was standing just a little too close to you in the grocery line. I watched this film my second time with a friend who told me afterward that "had he seen it when it first came out, it would have been his favorite film of the year." Thinking very few people have seen this film, I have since discovered word has gotten out on it. I am surprised at how many people have seen it and enjoy recommending it. I picked it up brand new from a major retail book chain [....] Not only do you get a great film, the DVD includes two good commentary tracks. One from the director Aranofsky and the other from the actors. Also included are some really interesting behind the scenes segments showing how some of the unique camera work was accomplished. And there is more. Rent if you must but at this price you should just buy it. It must be one of the best DVD values out there. You will definitely earn some cool points with the already initiated once you reveal you have seen the film. And its a great film to have in your DVD collection for the friend who doesn't want to watch a video because they think they have seen them all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Good Movie
Review: Much better than The 6th Sense and had me trying to guess what was real and what was not. There was a twist as there always is, but it made sense and I didn't guess it halfway through. Simply incredible--also refreshing to see a black and white movie in this day of "it's only good if it's in color."

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: the limits of style
Review: Two years ago, "Pi" was THE must-see 'indie breakthrough' at Sundance, a film saturated in hype and praise. Now, after finally seeing it (in the wake of "Requiem for a Dream"), I must say I liked it, although it seems more like a test of how much style the viewer can absorb before going as cuckoo as the film's tortured genius. (The MTV-esque camera movements and grainy black-and-white photography run the gambit from poignant to irritating.)

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, "Pi" is the story of a reclusive numbers-whiz named Max Cohen (played with fine-tuned intensity by Sean Gullette) who seeks to uncover a numerical code that will essentially provide the meaning of life. He holes himself up in a cramped apartment covered in state-of-the-art electronics, racking his brain for answers and popping many pills. He makes occasional visits to an elderly mathematician (the film's weaker interludes) and they swap information. Max, an anti-social creature who is subject to strange hallucinations (note the bizarre brain-poking scene), eventually attracts the attention of shady Wall Street types and a group of Jewish people attempting to witness Christ, all of whom are searching for a specific 216-digit number only he knows.

"Pi" is the type of movie that garners hype. Right from the title (presented as a symbol), the grainy black-and-white (that, to its credit, gives the proceedings an eerie quality only seen in silent films), and the handheld camera, it's clear Aronofsky wanted to knock conventional filmmaking techniques with a sledgehammer. In that case, he succeeds, even though the technical aspects and third-act revelations come across as both confounding and silly.

The score, done by Pop Will Eat Itself founder Clint Mansell, is even more impressive than his work on "Requiem," and provides an appropriate schizophrenic atmosphere.

Sean Gullette gives an excellent, convincing performance that carries the film up until the very end. For 85 minutes, you are completely immersed in his predicament, his rapidly declining sanity (although some may argue he's insane from frame 1), and his lucid hallucinations. It works because he's so believable, whereas other actors would render the performance stilted and OTT.

"Pi" is a good film, perhaps better than the three stars I'm giving it. It carries some weight, some significance, but only enough to garner attention and buzz. Aronofsky would establish himself further with the incredible "Requiem for a Dream."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Film
Review: Pi is a surreal trip of a movie, and from reading other reviews, you should know what it is about. The acting is great, the cinematography is great, and the plot is well thought out. Max's hallucinations are disorienting, but I imagine they were made to look that way. Pi is one of the few films that has actually made me say "Ohhhhh God, Don't do THAT!" or "Go, Max, Run!" (In the comfort of my own home, of course...)A few parts also made me want to cover my eyes, but Pi is so compelling, I don't. For me, it is a movie that should be enjoyed once in a while, because its unpredictability is what made it so gripping. My advice: Rent it, Watch it, Buy it. Its not a movie for everyone.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: the ultimate bad movie
Review: in all my experience as a long-time movie watcher, it never ceases to amaze me how bad some movies can be. however, in the vast empire of bad movies, pi is unquestionably the emperor. the directors of the movie seem to go out of their way to make the experience unbearable. the movie contains every undesirable element possible - everything from pseudo intellectualism to wacky imagery to meaningless symbolism to an indescernable plot. i would recommend this film to any cinema major who would like an excellent example of what not to do. save your 17 bucks - get a psychic reading or something. at least then, you'd have a good laugh.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Big Disappointment!!!
Review: ... It was terrible and I wanted to like it so much. It's the only movie I have ever seen to show people playing GO, it has alot of fascinating ideas, it just doesn't know what to do with any of them. What is so astonishing is that the ideas the movie barely scratches the surface of, the depth of GO, the Fibonnaci series, are so rich as to be wide open to he possiblity of a really great story. It's just too bad the writer could see none of it...Instead of the ideas being a vehicle for the story, the story was a vehicle for the ideas, and a poor one at that.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Experience
Review: This film uses interesting mathematics and other theories to create an exciting atmosphere. You can almost watch it as an extended music video. The music and visuals are excellent, better than most blockbusters.

A lot of the stuff is based on the real-life Chudnovsky brothers, who you are pretty interesting in their own right.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Movie
Review: Pi is a different movie. It is fairly simple to follow if you get engrossed in it. I enjoyed just watching it. There are really no twists, not much mystery, but it has some holes. There is a lot of symbolism in this movie, that left me in the dark, but that didn't matter, b/c it didn't seem relevant to the story. A lot was left up to interpretation, but it didn't affect the understanding of the movie itself. I think a lot of the visuals were there just for the sake of being there, to maybe add some darkness to the movie, but not affect what the point is. It's really just the story of a man who challenges himself, but has come across something that is putting up a good fight. Max, the main character, is trying to find a pattern in the world, nature and everything. He uses math as his universal language , and Pi as his tool of comprehension. Eventually paranoia sets in from his level of frustration, and his fears become reality, in a way. See it, watch it, don't try to out wit it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good movie!
Review: I recently saw Pi because my friend had a poster of the movie and it looked pretty interesting. I really liked the movie and it was a really neat idea portrayed in a different way. I also looked at some of the other reviews, and the movie wasnt boring or anything. I am 16, and bored with a lot of movies, but I was never bored with this one. Others have said it is a poor movie because of the script and director, but the director and a lot of the cast went to Harvard. Dont listen to the bad reviews and if the movie sounds interesting to you I would reccommend seeing it.


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