So, I was watching Never Been Kissed two years ago, and I must say, I didn't really like it. Drew Barrymore was cute, but the thing with the teacher was creepy. It didn't help that, by strange twists of fate, I was induced, with increasing unwillingness, to view the movie on no less than three separate occasions within two months. But I think without allowing that to cloud my judgment overmuch I can safely give the movie, say, one and a half stars. All right. Now that we've got the review out of the way.

      My main problem with the movie, which ruined all sense of logic, time, place, believability, etc. etc., occurred during a specific scene when Drew convinces the Nerd Club or whatever (hey, it's been two years) to raise money with bake sale. But, of course, they're nerds, so they put up a big yellow sign that says, in glitter paint, "Pie=$1.00. Pi=3.14...." and it goes on for serveral digits. So far, so good. But wait. Let's look at this number, "pi". The sign reads:

      Hold on one damn minute. As any fifth-grader knows, the first five digits of pi are 3.14159. Sure, many adults might not recall that at an instant's notice, but enough people do remember the singsongy "three-point-one-four-one-five-nine!" to make the flaw instantly noticeable. It's even less singsongy than the Zoom kids' zip code ("oh-two-one-three-four!") but I bet more people in the world know the first five digits of pi, than know that.

      What the hell were they thinking? They made it up! They made up pi! Jesus Christ, I don't considered myself a mathematician--I dropped out of regular high school because they were going to make me take calculus--but the act of making up the digits to pi--especially digits so early on and universally well-known!--just boggles my mind. It's like fucking making up Jesus. It's like if they made up digits to Jesus. "Daddy, why does everyone love Jesus so much?" "Well, Son, Jesus was a great man. Also, he had his feet where his hands should be and his hands where his feet should be!"

      This is not just an idle mistake. This is far, far worse than your normal "movie blooper". This is so fucking obvious! I neither look for, nor normally find any of those "hilarious movie mistakes!" they're so fond of cataloging on the Internet, but this struck me immediately. WHY THE HELL DID THEY DO THIS?

      I mean, it's not like there's not ample reason to make sure that at least the first few digits are right. They just weren't prepared for there even to be the slightest possibility anyone in the audience would be remotely mathematical, or be taking a math class where they were learning about pi, or to own a calculator. How could they ignore this possibility?

      And it's not like finding the actual value of "pi" is remotely difficult. Even the laziest of prop guys could do it.

      The Internet, for example, probably contains the first gajillion digits of pi, somewhere. I'm sure that, even in the dark ages of the year 2000, at least one page on the World Wide Web was managed by a math freak. But, I understand that not everyone is as "tech-savvy" as me (#!/usr/bin/girl! ha ha ha ha!), and perhaps the Internet might have been a foreign substance to the film's production company, 20th Century Fox (websites include: fox.com, foxmovies.com, foxhome.com, foxkids.com, 20thfox.it, foxfilm.de, foxhome.de, fox.ch, fox.es, fox.be, foxjapan.com, foxargentina.com, foxinteractive.com, foxmexico.com, foxfilm.at, foxfilm.se, foxfilm.com.br, foxentretenimiento.com).

      Internet aside, the value of "pi" to, at the very least, the sixth digit, could be found using another hi-tech device: THE COMMON CALCULATOR. Any calculator more scientific than the pink My First Calculator I had when I was six has a "pi" button. Simply type "pi" + "=" and--viola!--3.141592, (or 3, if they round up), one more digit than even most people remember.

      Even if that was too "technical", someone on the props department could have asked around. Hundreds of people are involved in the production of any big-budget, general release movie; I'll bet that about one in ten people, at the very least, remember that pi starts "3.14159". That's ten people right there, at least, who they could have asked. Even if the prop guys WERE jackasses who just made up pi and plunked it out there without asking anyone, SOMEONE should have picked it up. It seems unreasonably stupid to me that no scriptwriter, director, production manager, producer, actor, extra, cameraperson, lighting guy, sound guy, casting assistant, make-up artist--NO ONE involved in the movie had the slightest knowledge of mathematics. Everyone who saw the sign was just like "Okay! Looks good!"

      So, one of two possibilities must have occurred: (a) the props department was too lazy and thoughtless to put even the slightest bit of effort into the creation of this movie, THEREFORE why they hell should they be wasting my time with it, or (b) the movie was produced on a deserted island or a hole underground somewhere, and no one on the production company had access to a calculator or the Internet, or could remember any of the digits to pi, even vaguely.

      But it's not like the methods of finding pi stop there. How do you think they came up with it in the first place? But "578" is so not remotely close to "159", as to ensure me that they weren't just eccentrics who decided to find it for themselves (say, by dividing a circumfrence of a circle by its area) rather than looking up the accepted value.

      So they realized they needed a "pi" sign, and they could only remember the first two digits. Here's an idea: STOP AFTER THE FIRST TWO DIGITS. "Pie=$1.00, Pi=3.14" might not have looked as thrillingly nerdy as a really LONG number after "pi=", but it would have been at least more accurate. I mean, what's the point of making it accurate to the tenth digit if you're just going to fucking MAKE IT UP? I'm sure they felt that the nerds in the movie would have written "pi" all out, but here's another thing they would have done: WRITTEN IT OUT RIGHT. 3.1415926535, people! It's not that hard. Jesus.

      It doesn't bug me so much that they didn't know the first ten digits of pi, (although it does bug me that no one on the entire set had a clue, either), as that they didn't research it at all, ridiculously easy as it would have been. Aren't they supposed to be props people? Isn't "prop realisticness and accuracy" one of the fundamental parts of their job?

      Now, I'm not sure what person or persons was in charge of actually making up the pi, although everyone on that film crew, to me, is guilty of gross negligence; however, according to The Internet Movie Database, the "set decoration" for Never Been Kissed was done by one Suzette Sheets. She also worked on the following movies, which, due to her involvement, (and because I wasn't going to see them anyway), I have decided to BOYCOTT:

• Like Mike
• Sorority Boys
• Down to You
• Next Friday
• Susan's Plan
• Home Fries
• Species II
• Grand Avenue
• My Family
• Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh
• Father Hood
• Wild Palms
• In Sickness and In Health
• It Takes Two
• Return of the Living Dead Part II
• Shattered Spirits

        I hope you'll nonviolently support my cause, although I'm probably giving Suzette Sheets herself greater condemnation than she deserves. If I ever find out who was responsible for "57869986", however, that person or persons shall go down in infamy if I have anything to do with it. Until we can lay our nonviolent mitts on that person, I propose a good old-fashioned snubbing of the preceding movies. I propose we call ourselves "PANRPI," or "People Against Not Researching PI." We're here! We're perceptive! Get used to it!

   

  - Laura