Pi (Episode 16) - Hot Date with Dan and Vicky

Director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) came up with a unique strategy for funding and staffing his debut feature Pi.  He approached family, friends and everyone in between with the promise that if the film was a failure, he'd give them $50 on top of their initial investment of $100.  The cast and crew had a different incentive -- he asked them to work for a deferred salary of $200 per day plus a cut of the box office if the film made any money.  After premiering at Sundance, the $60,000 film got a $1 million dollar distribution deal and ended up grossing nearly $3.5 million when released to theaters in the heart of summer blockbuster season, July 1998.   Dan and Vicky trip out on the surreal, nerve-rattling pleasures of this indie success story while also dissecting it's themes of religion, mathematics and the universe.   They also get into what scary stuff they've been watching for Halloween, Dan's teenage, psyche-scarring viewing of Bob Guccione's Caligula, their love of Shania Twain, and what ginchy means. If you want to be ginchy, listen to Hot Date 16, the Pi episode!  On a scale of 1 to 10, it's a solid 3.14159265359.