105: Movie Night - Pi | 108 things to do until Lost. A daily countdown to season six.

It's 'Movie Night', where we screen the movies that have influenced--or drawn influence from--Lost, and we're excited to start off with the 1998 Darren Aronofsky classic Pi.

Not only do we think this film is an all-time great, but it's obvious the creative team behind Lost do, too. Not just because of the similarities between the show and the movie, but because it was reported that in 2005 Damon Lindelof had contacted Aronofksy to guest-direct the season two episode '?'--the single character symbol for a title, itself an homage to the film (the proper title of which is the mathematical symbol for pi, 'Π'.)

Aronofksy, who is a fan of Lost, later declined to direct the episode due to personal obligations.

The Movie

Daron Aronofksy's award-wining (and first feature film) Pi is the story of Max Cohen, a mathematician and number theorist living in New York City.

Max, who suffers from social-anxiety disorder, believes that that everything in life can be represented by numbers, and once you graph the numbers of any system a pattern emerges. Using this idea, he attempts to take advantage of the stock market, using his home-made supercomputer.

Max's work draws attention from operatives of Wall Street, interested in using his research to their own gain; and a group of orthodox Jews, looking to understand the inner-workings of the Torah by comprehending the number-based language of Hebrew.

The film won several awards, including the Chlotrudis Award for Best Cinematography; FFCC Award for Newcomer of the Year, and; a Sundance Film Festival award for directing.

Things to look out for

Should you decide to check out Pi, we've compiled a list of some of the striking similarities between the movie and Lost--keep an eye out for them.

1. Eye-to-eye

Left: Pi lead character Max's eye opens at the beginning of the movie, similar to: Right: Desmond's eye at the opening of Lost 2x01.

Pi opens similarly to many Lost episodes (the Season 2 opener pictured) with both lead characters' (Max and Desmond, respectively) eye opening--something which has become somewhat iconic of Lost.

2. "What-is-it, like checkers?"

Two similar characters from both Pi and Lost sit before a boardgame involving black and white opposing pieces.

A similarly composed scene involving a board game of both black and white opposing pieces.

"Two players. Two sides. One is light ... one is dark"--the famous words of John Locke as he sums up the underlying metaphor for the show, way back in "Pilot (2)" (which you should already have tackled in our Lost Rewatch) and a theme that crosses into both the show and the movie, outlined again by a wise bald man.

3. Push the button

Composed screen captures of Pi and Lost both featuring similar flicking computer-terminal cursors.

More similar shots of Max and Desmond inputting numbers.

Similar shots on both Pi and Lost of the lead character obsessively inputting numbers into his computer and pushing 'Return' or 'Execute' respectively.

Obsession with numbers, computers and button-pushing; in both Pi and Lost, numbers are central to the mythology, with Max (Pi) and Desmond (Lost) tasked with continually entering numbers into a computer to an unknown and life-controlling end. One can't help but notice the strikingly similar cinematic portrayal of both these events.

4. CR 4-81516-23 42

Composed screen-captures of both Pi and Lost, in which characters inject themselves with a pneumatic vaccination.

Another striking similarity between Lost and Pi is the repeated use of a pneumatic vaccination. Used by both Max and Desmond (and later Charlie and Claire) to seemingly no outcome.

The similarities are plentiful. We've only outlined a few, and we're confident that you'll notice more--not just textual--but cinematic similarities between the two.

Movie Ratings

Our Rating

Not only a great film that started the fantastic series of Aronofksy's films (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler)--but a great watch for Lost fans especially. 7/10.

Rotten Tomatoes

Pi is certified fresh, with a "tomatometer" of 84%* and an average rating of 7.1/10.
* 84% of the reviewers gave a positive review

IMDB

Roughly 49,000 IMDB users gave Pi a rating of 7.6/10.

Where to watch

So check it out, this film is definitely deserving of a spot in your DVD collection. It's available at the following online stores:

Amazon (DVD) at $8.99
Play.com (R1 DVD) at £7.09

And (for an assumingly limited time), you can watch for free on Google Video.