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| A A A | |
| Review by Xibo | Date seen: July 31, 1998 |
| Viewing Location: Angelika, NYC | Grade: A |
| Summary: Great techno, great idea, great film. | |
| Darren Aronofsky's first film is a masterpiece. Shot in black and white, it's simply amazing the power, the strength of the media as it floods over you, overwhelming in its intensity. The soundtrack pushes things along with a biting, throbbing, electric techno beat. Total budget? $60,000. Unbelievable. It's the tale of a twisted, introverted mathematician and programmer, a genius of a man seeking the secret pattern underlying the movements in the stock market, a flighty pattern that always seems to be just beyond his reach. Meanwhile, he befriends a radical jewish guy who seems intent on believing that this same pattern, this sequence of numbers, may also unlock the secrets of the Torah. Also, some black-suit wall street characters are also after him to get the secrets. Meanwhile the research is so intense, that it drives him insane. I personally didn't like the "morals" of the storyline, which make math to be "evil", but otherwise this is one excellent film and I'm sure we're going to be seeing a lot more of Mr. Aronofsky. | |
| D D D | |
| Review by smeehrrr | Date seen: January 21, 2000 |
| Viewing Location: The Evil Empire | Grade: D |
| Summary: "Hi, I just got out of film school!" | |
| "My camera has lots of speeds, so I figure I'll use all of them. I got some cheap high constrast film stock that looks really crappy, but hey, it's cheap and maybe someone will think I'm making an artistic statement. Now all I need to do is crap out an incomprehensible script, throw in a few dream sequences, and I'll be in business. Oh, and I'll get my friends to star in it instead of, say, actors. Man, this is going to KICK ASS. I hope someone at Sundance sees it, thinks I'm profound, and widely inflicts my visual diarrhea on the U.S. population." | |
| A A A | |
| Review by Jigen | Date seen: January 18, 2003 |
| Viewing Location: Far right cushion on my couch | Grade: A |
| Summary: Brilliant, twisted story | |
| Interesting film that can't hold any scientific water, but that's not the point. The fun in this film is seeing Max, our protagonist, slowly lose his mind set to a brilliant soundtrack. It brings up a bit of the old "Is God part of Science" question, but thats all underlying to the excellent filmwork done here. Watching Max lose the bits of his world that have been keeping his shaky sanity in place and finally go down in a pile of flaming wreckage, is well worth the less than 90 minutes that this film takes. | |
"I should put quotes here."