I was recently happily surprised to see PI on Amazon Prime, and gave it a second watch after originally catching it in the theater in 1998. Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky of BLACK SWAN and MOTHER! fame, the film is a mind-bending exploration of numbers and how they underpin and characterize all existence, brilliant for its ideas spanning Pi, the Fibonacci constant, the game GO, mathematics history, and Kabbalah. I enjoyed it far more the second time around.

Shot in grainy black and white, the film follows Max, a mathematician obsessed with the idea that since all matter and activity can be expressed mathematically, there is an underlying pattern in even vastly chaotic and complex systems, which he aims to capture by trying to model the stock market. His research catches the attention of his mentor Saul, a mathematician who suffered a stroke after making a strange discovery, a shadowy Wall Street firm that wants to control the market, and a group of Hasidic Jews who believe the ultimate secret of the Torah is contained in a mathematical code within it.

Max discovers a strange number he initially dismisses as nonsense but may just be the key to understanding Creation. But this understanding, while a unique gift, is too much for the human brain to handle, and it carries an incredible cost.

Overall, this is simply a brilliant film for its interesting ideas. Recommended.

Written, produced, directed, co-scored, and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky (director of EL TOPO), THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973) is a cult classic and one of my film holy grails. I finally scored a copy, and wow, what a trip. The film is a psychedelic allegory of humanity’s search for meaning, distraction into materialism and extreme politics, and spiritual war to conquer oneself, and concludes with an admonition to live an authentic life free of artificial restraint.

The film begins with The Thief, who goes into the city to make money. Finding a mysterious tower where gold is lowered on a basket in exchange for food, he scales the tower to confront the Alchemist, who takes the Thief’s excrement and turns it into gold but promises that since the Thief himself is excrement, he too can be transformed. The Thief must choose gold or enlightenment, and he chooses to apprentice to the Alchemist, who gathers a group of highly successful people representing the worst traits astrologically associated with the nine planets. They destroy their wealth and travel to the Holy Mountain, where they will overturn the immortals who run the universe and take their place. Or so they’re told…

This movie is one hell of a trip. There’s very little dialogue, with an emphasis on the score and stunning, artistic sets, every piece of which is beautiful, provocative, and spiritually symbolic as related to the Tarot, astrology, or metaphysics. Thematically, you can’t get much higher with its spiritual journey and final message. Going into it, I wondered it would be pretentious, too artsy and slow, and incomprehensible. Instead, I was presented a beautiful exploration of metaphysical spirituality with mind-blowing sets, bizarre set pieces, and solid pacing.

I haven’t seen this film streaming anywhere, I had to score it on DVD. If you can get a copy, I highly recommend it, though it’s not for everyone.

Hitting the big screen in 1999, the clever satire GALAXY QUEST is one of those films I can watch every couple of years and still enjoy.

In the 1980s, the show GALAXY QUEST, which chronicled the adventures of the intrepid crew of the spaceship Protector, developed such a cult following that twenty years later, the actors are still getting into costume to earn a living working conventions and other small sponsorship events. When a group of aliens show up to hire “Commander Peter Quincy Taggart” for a role-playing gig, he and his crew find himself on a very real Protector. To survive and save the aliens, they will have to become the team they once played on TV.

For me, this is an almost perfect comedy, satirizing the original STAR TREK series and Trekkies while also paying a loving homage. The show doesn’t simply trade on satire for laughs, though these gags are clever and hilarious, it’s also a great story on its own with people you root for and a satisfying finale. It’s great seeing the actors having to play a real-life version of the show, deal with the strange oddities built into the ship because they were on the show, and otherwise rise above their failings to be a very real, capable crew.

In short, this is a lot of fun, a hilarious satire that has its own integrity and a very strong story, backed by clever writing and a terrific cast including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, and others. If you haven’t seen it yet, I think you’re in for a treat.