Hours of idleness (9/8/98)
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Pi. [Darren Aronofsky, 1998.]
Another instant underground classic: a deranged mathematician obsessed with solving the problem of predicting the movement of the stock market finds himself embroiled with unscrupulous manipulators, Kabbalah mystics, antinfested circuitboards, and some gruesome fantasies involving powerdrills; all this in deliciously grainy sixteenmillimeter blackandwhite. Does the theory of numbers hold the key to the Secret Name of God? Is that really the girl next door groaning through the walls, or are you just imagining it? Should you buy Anaconda Copper at sixteen and a half? For the answers to these and other questions, enquire herein.
Snake Eyes. [Brian De Palma, 1998.]
Another essay in intrigue from the wouldbe Master Of Suspense that somehow misfires: Nicolas Cage portrays a corrupt Atlantic City cop attending a boxing match at an arena who witnesses the assassination of the Secretary of Defense and thus finds himself propelled into its investigation. The statement of the problem is elegant; its resolution less so. — Much has been made of the beautiful and apparently seamless twenty-minute Steadicam shot with which the movie opens; for the record, this is yet another De Palma homage to Hitchcock, who managed to shoot an entire movie [
Rope] without cuts; albeit with much less flash.
____________Leeloo, continued (8/14/98)
