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Pi, in theory, should be a never-ending story…
Thankfully, it’s not.
Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) is a very paranoid individual, obsessed in looking for the one number which somehow explains how nature works with all its repetitive patterns.
Max studies the stock market.
Max bumps into Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman), a pushy man in the cafe who’s just an annoyance.
Max pays a visit to Robeson (Mark Margolis), an old man who philosophises about Max’s task.
Max sees a weird old man in the subway.
Max ignores the flirtations of his cute Asian neighbour, Devi.
Max gets harrassed by Marcy, a Wall Street agent, who thinks his quest will help her and her fellow agents.
And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
Eventually, Marcy gives him a new chip, a “Ming Mecca”, which goes into his computer system, a machine which appears to take up half of his flat, and the new component is required after the previous one is shorted out by a cockroach. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop Pi from being a tedious exercise in going round and round in circles with seemingly no end in sight.
The film is presented in the original 1.66:1 widescreen ratio and it’s nice to see that such a ratio has been retained, even though it results in black bars at the side. A shame the same couldn’t be said for recent Hal Hartley Blu-ray premieres, Simple Men and Amateur, which were filmed in the same ratio but zoomed in slightly to 16:9.
It’s difficult to comment on the quality of the print, though. No, I haven’t suddenly lost the use of my eyes, but it’s filmed in Super 16 and with an intentionally grainy look to it. The problem with this is that for the majority of the time, you may as well be watching a DVD.
That said, there’s some very interesting camerawork, in the way that it stays on Max. We learn in the extras that this is down to the Snorricam unit, which the actor is wearing.
The sound has a DTS HD 5.1 option, but while I selected that, it hardly gets used, save for some split-surround audio around 9 minutes in, the rest of the time feeling like a standard stereo soundtrack.
The extras on this disc are as follows:
- Deleted Scenes (4:00): Four of them here, all way too brief, although the longest is about the Snorricam tests.
Note that these scenes include commentary from Aronofsky, which can’t be turned off.
- Behind the scenes montage (8:31): On-set footage during the making of the film, again with commentary from the director, as well as lead actor Sean Gullette, and again it can’t be turned off. Why couldn’t they make that an option? That’s very annoying. I prefer to just let the visuals tell the story.
- Theatrical trailer (1:30): Short and sweet. Better to watch this than the film.
- Original trailer (1:15): Or this. Actually, I preferred the first one, as it features the theme tune more.
- Ï€r² music video (2:50): And here’s where the theme music comes from. I enjoyed this bit.
- Audio commentaries: One from Darren Aronofsky and one from Sean Gullette.
And.. er… that’s it. Is that all there is for a so-called Special Edition? It appears so.
The menu features numbers and the π symbol swirling about to a very short segment of the aforementioned music piece.
There are subtitles in English, but for this Special Edition the chaptering is anything BUT special with the usual 12 that so many films get these days. Very lazy.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
2 7 7 2 |
| OVERALL | 4 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 85 minutes
Year: 1998
Released: August 12th 2013
Chapters: 12
Distributor: Lionsgate
Cat.no: LBG95044
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.66:1 (Super 16)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Producer: Eric Watson
Screenplay: Darren Aronofsky (from a story by Darren Aronofsky, Sean Gullette and Eric Watson)
Music: Pino Donaggio
Cast:
Maximillian Cohen: Sean Gullette
Sol Robeson: Mark Margolis
Lenny Meyer: Ben Shenkman
Marcy Dawson: Pamela Hart
Rabbi Cohen: Stephen Pearlman
Devi: Samia Shoaib
Farrouhk: Ajay Naidu
Jenna: Kristyn Mae-Anne Lao
Jenna’s Mom: Espher Lao Nieves
Mrs. Ovadia: Joanne Gordon
Jenny Robeson: Lauren Fox
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.