Boring, painful, claustrophobic

Rating: 3/10 (7 February 2011)

This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I went to see it with another movie fan at the theatre in 1998 and we almost left about 3/4 of the way through. We later regretted not leaving and joked about how bad the movie was for years! It became our benchmark for movies --you know, "How bad is it? Is it as bad as "Pi"?
"Pi" is about a young man slowly going insane, mostly alone in his apartment. He hallucinates a lot. There is lots of hallucinatory self- inflicted gore and violence. He's very paranoid, claustrophobic, fearful, but brilliant. You watch the paint dry on his apartment walls, watch his face while he does nothing, and even watch as he picks his nose. There was some meaningless dialog between shallow, not-likable characters.
I agree with the other reviewer here who said it should have been called "Pain".
Amazingly, 11 years later, I have just seen Black Swan because the critics are AGAIN calling this writer/director's work brilliant --and they even mention his earlier work "Pi". (I actually laughed out loud when I read it.) As much as I adore Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, I was determined not to go spend money to see Black Swan at the theatre, remembering "Pi" as I do. But the stupid Academy Award has nominated Black Swan for awards in several categories, so I felt compelled to go see it. I always see all or almost all of the nominated films every year before the Oscars, so I decided to give it a chance and hoped it would be good.
Guess what? It's about a young woman who is slowly going insane. She's hallucinating, dreaming up a lot of self-inflicted gore and violence. She's very paranoid, anxiety-ridden, fearful, but she's brilliant....
Of course, Natalie Portman IS actually brilliant. Her performance was incredible, as were many of the actors' performances in Black Swan; but sadly, the story and script are TERRIBLY SIMILAR to "Pi". I wouldn't see "Pi" again on a bet. Seriously, life is too short.