Pi

Rating:
Summary: It has its moments.
Review: 'Pi' is a facinating film about a math genius trying to find out a mathematical pattern to life. It had some mind-bending moments, but I was really annoyed by the main character's overacting.

Rating:
Summary: for indy enthusiasts only.
Review: Because I dont think anyone else will honestly enjoy this droning math "thriller". I think some people (reviewers perhaps) have a need to see indy films in an unnaturally good light just because they are indies, and out of the elitist disdain for mainstream hollywood fare. Liking "Pi" makes them feel suave and sophisticated. I agree about most mainstream hollywood fare being worthless (anyone else just see Hellboy? hell is sitting and watching that for 2 hours) but that doesnt make awful indie films better. It turns out that both high and low budget movies can completely suck and Pi is all the proof you need.

Rating:
Summary: PI-DDLING
Review: I was extremely disappointed with this movie. I had read all the reviews and had high expectaions. After seeing it I felt nothing. I was not disturbed, unnerved, did not replay scenes or have questions running in my mind. Just because a movie is plodding and pedantic does NOT mean it is a masterpiece. The only aspect of this movie that saves it from a zero is that it looks great. B&W does create a certain bleakness.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie, leaves a lot to the imagination.
Review: This is an intellectually stimulating movie about the protagonist, Max Cohen, a man with a wonderful gift for numbers. Unfortunately, his excellence intellectually is more than neutralized by his emotional instabilities which catapault him into an obsession filled quest to unveil the secrets of the universe held within a 216 digit number. At this point, I have to say that it is my understanding that the script of the movie does in fact aim to emphasize that there IS a 216 digit number which holds the key to unearthing secrets of the universe (both physical and spiritual). I base this conclusion on the fact that Max stumbles upon this number first, when he tries to decipher a pattern of numbers to explain the very alive and chaotic existence of the Stock Market. The significance of this number is later explained to him by Sol, who stumbled onto this number when trying to explain Pi (something that has no definitive value). Sol explains the number as being the computers realization of LIFE before its own death when faced with a problem with no real solution. As Pi and life ( stock market/relegion/otherwise) have no definitve pattern or answers that can be defined by math/numbers, the presentation of this unsolvable problem produces the 216 digit number. The true brilliance of this movie is not in his character arriving at this 216 digit number, but in his understanding the significance of this number and how it alludes to human existence and life, yet ironically fuelling him towards his own destruction.
It is difficult to understand the true nature of Max's illness, but based on my medical background, the drugs he ingests would suggest that he is suffering from some acute form of Migraine. The aura of an impending attack is cleary displayed with the involuntary twitching of his left index finger just prior to an attack.
The ending of the movie leaves a lot to the imagination of the veiwer and thus with a myriad of possibilities. My take on the climax of the movies is that his obsession with the 216 digit number, his illness(which is worsening based on the increased frequency of attacks, increased need for medications and increased psychosis), his paranoid delusions of persecuation (with some foundation in reality) and his frustration with failure leads him to choose suicide as a better alternative than living. This seems a rather simple ending which leads me to belive that the CONTENT/SATISFACTION with which Max is pictured at the end, unable to appreciate Math the way he used to any longer, maybe because he wasn't trying to kill himself in the first place, but lobotomize himself to the quandries/quagmires of numbers all along. His hallucinations about drilling into a human brain may just have been a prelude to his "escape clause", just in case he needed to remedy his brilliance.

Rating:
Summary: my 3rd favorite movie
Review: under donnie darko and natural born killers.

this is a really ODD movie. things seem to happen to this guy for NO APPARENT REASON...and it does answer your questions at the end, however, just as in donnie darko, you hafta be smart enough to realize they're giving you answers.

if you dig psychological freak-out movies, check this one out.

Rating:
Summary: Let me tell you a little story about how i hate this movie!
Review: it truley saddens me when people who watch a messed up movie automatically believe for some reason it is great... the thing is this movie is so far beyond boring that i was forcing myself to watch the whole thing hoping (i don't know why) that the movie would get better but it didn't!!!! the fact is no matter what you are trying to say in a movie or literature you should try and tell it in an interesting way so that ppl will listen and be motiviated to look deeper, however with this movie it is far too boring so i drifted off many times.

Do not be fooled by the great reviews or the bad ones for that matter.. if you have the patience for movies that move rather slowly and have the tolerance to watch a movie on bad quality black and white flim then don't let me tell you different.

P.s. Weird and unordinary does not necessairly = greatness

Rating:
Summary: very complex
Review: this movie is very complex and I don't even fully understand which is why I'm still looking at it but I can tell it's a great movie. it's about a mathematician who stumbles upon a 216-digit number with whom some other people are looking for. at some point it lands him in trouble and running for his life. can tell you anymore. also I have some questions about the film like what was that sitting brain and what was that wrinkle on his forehead? If any of you guys know the answers to these questions, e-mail me at [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Connecting with the Unknown/Infinity/Reality
Review: If you are fascinated by mathematics/fractals, the Kabbalah (Cabala), psychology and one human being's unexpected/ unsought for connection to Ultimate Reality/Infinity/G-d this film will meet your expectations. The filming technique is just as important as the theme/message in this film. It is deliberately done in black and white and with a minimal of dialogue ... therefore when Max, the computer speicalist experiences what at first appears to be a blinding light with a migraine headache or perhaps, even a seizure ... the viewer is drawn, pulled ... tangled into the intense emotional experience and questions what it all means. It gradually dawns on the viewer this is something much Bigger than what it appears ... Max, has been working on a computer program to discover an answer to a formula when he discovers the answer ... the set of numbers connects him Ultimate Reality. One does not exactly know what the final outcome will be ... the Hasidic Jews want his computer program/formula and so do some Wall Street executives or a large corporation. The chase is on and there lies the mystery of the film ... This film will appeal to a highly discriminating group of people who initially like the basic themes set forth in the first sentence of this review. Anyone else will find fault as the approach to this film is almost avant garde but highly effective to achieve maximum impact. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

Rating:
Summary: Insanity or genius...hard to choose...hard to choose...
Review: Max Cohen is a loner by nature, a mathematical genius who is seeking to find numerical patterns everywhere. His life is consumed by patterns, and his lives his life reciting his assumptions and their evidence.

Assumptions:

1. Mathematics is the language of nature
2. Everything around is can be represented and understood by numbers
3. If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge

Evidence:

1. The cycling of disease epidemics
2. The wax and wan of caribou populations
3. Sunspot cycles
4. The rise and fall of the Nile River

Filmed in grainy black and white exposure, making Max's life seem even more illusionary and surreal, Pi gives us a small taste of how separated from society this particular personality type feels. They are not "color" people, to them all is black and white.

Max suffers from migraine headaches, delusions, and the numbers that obsess him. He has only one friend, an older man named Sol Robeson, with whom he gets together with to play Go, a game of patterns.

Robeson tries to tell Max that numbers aren't everything, and that was why he stopped his research on Pi. Max thinks Sol stopped caring, and doesn't understand what Sol is trying to tell him. Very amusing is Sol's story of Archimedes and the bath.

Max also gets to know Lenny, a talkative Hassidic Jew who points out to him the pattern of numbers in the Koran. Taking this information, Max runs it through his computer which winds out crashing just after spitting out a string of numbers.

On a comical footnote, Lenny reminded me of Torgo in MST3K's "Manos, the Hands of Fate", except that he needed bigger knees.

Obsessed with finding the pattern of the stock market, Max is suddenly pursued by a corporate representative offering him a classified silicon chip in exchange for the numbers in his head, and Lenny's Rabbi's searching for the name of God; and all of this supposedly hidden in a 216 digit number that Max has the ability to unlock.

Max is definitely a genius, but with absolute genius comes madness. Max's degeneration and haunting mania are wonderfully portrayed in this tense, gripping movie with a not-to-miss ending in store. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Movies Ever
Review: Pi is one of the most creative, disturbing and introspective movies ever released. While it may not be everyone's cup of tea ('Requiem for a Dream' seems to have appealed to many more people), Pi is about a possible schizophrenic who has discovered the answers to many questions about the stock market, religion, and so forth-- the 216 digit number he has is in his head, and people are hunting for him as he goes more and more insane with paranoia and confusion by the day. The movie is entirely in black and white, filled with bizarre camera angles and recurring scenes involving his mental illness and insanity. It's hauntingly real, traumatic, and artistic.