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Fight Club

Fight Club

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: the first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight
Review: i bought this movie without ever seeing it before. i bought it because i heard from so many people that is was a very good movie and they were right it was excellent. i admit it starts off slow but once ed and brad get together then it gets very very good. i would not recomend this movie to anyone under 13 because the fighting scenes are very brutal and the language gets graphic as well. overall an outstanding movie. rated r for strong brutal violence,and strong language

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A movie to watch several times
Review: Excellent commentary on our decay as a society. Superb dialog ("Which historical figure would you like to fight?" "Gandhi" "Me, Abraham Lincoln. Tall guys are good fighters"). There were a few details that bothered me all along, like Tyler showing up at Marla's apartment (how did he know the address?), or how Tyler's knowledge of explosives did not link him right away to Jack's condo. But the bother i felt was more like having a minuscule pebble inside your shoe while rushing to catch the bus: you know it's there, but it's not too painful to stop and get it. In any event, i was very surprised at the end, and everything made sense. What a relief! Brad Pitt was another big surprise. He is funny and does a great job in his role. No surprise with Edward Norton. I would watch anything with him in it (even that Keeping the Faith fiasco of a movie), because he never lets me down. In summary, this is a different sort of movie with a very smart plot.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ¿We are the middle children of history¿¿
Review: I am a member of Generation X. This film was made for me. I understand it. Those much older and much younger do not. But I do. It is, in some ways, a metaphorical call to arms; a call to fight complacency and find meaning, rather than continue to trudge through the screaming pit of shallow, celebrity-driven consumerism that, until recently, seemed the primary arena of our existence.

The story finds an unnamed Narrator (Edward Norton) at the end of his rope. He's about my age; has a job and an office about like mine. Like me, he's still single - the product of divorce, he doesn't trust marriage or committed relationships. Like me, he buys stuff in an attempt to fill the void. Like me, he wonders if it all means anything. He's approaching a point of crisis - a crisis of nothing. A big blank, where life has become a pretty but empty package. He can't sleep. To find some emotional catharsis, he goes to 12-step meetings, pretending to have a variety of diseases. He finds understanding. He finds release.

Enter Marla Singer (Helena Bonham-Carter) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). They upset the applecart, and together, all three end up forming a strange triangle that will lead to a darkly comedic world of mischief, mayhem, and - of all things - soap.

The titular concept is that of the "Fight Club" - a loosely organized group of Gen-Xers (started by Durden and Narrator) who meet periodically to test their mettle by beating the stuffing out of each other. "How can you know anything about yourself if you've never been in a fight?" asks Durden, and he's right. How do we know anything about the strength of our own character - how, in fact, can we even build character - without a struggle or fight of some kind to temper us? Something that our generation has utterly lacked?

"We are the middle children of history, man," says Durden, in the film's most important scene, "No purpose or place. We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." And that's what Fight Club is all about. It is a means of providing that great test of character in miniature. Until, of course, it gets out of hand in the film's nihilistic second half. In it, Fight Club evolves into a full-blown movement, turning outward to soft-core domestic terrorism, and the film becomes a bleak, Strangelovian meditation on Fascism.

Even people who did not understand Fight Club could sense something powerful in it. One thinks of Roger Eberts' completely off-base and largely negative review that at least grudgingly acknowledges the film's solid cinematic technique. Eberts' mistake is in thinking Fight Club attempts to be a morality tale of sorts; a simple-minded polemic. By that standard, it certainly fails. But Ebert is not Gen-X. He's a Boomer, and Fight Club sails right past him. Put simply, he doesn't get it, and probably never will.

The DVD is a two-disc set, with lots of goodies - at least the equal of New Line's excellent Platinum Series release of Se7en. The package is well-designed, the extras plentiful. The picture and sound quality are simply exquisite.

But what I want to end with - and this is by far the most important point - is not how good the DVD packaging is, but how relevant the film is, especially in light of recent events, when our world was changed forever by real terrorism, rather than the tongue-in-cheek icon-smashing variety depicted in Fight Club.

The film was right in its central thesis - we needed something to give us direction, to unite us in a common cause, to develop our character as a generation. Tragically, and in the most horrible possible way, we got exactly that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Watch it twice
Review: Don't listen to what people tell you about this movie. You must watch and form your own opinion about it without any prior knowledge. And yes, it helps to watch it at least twice. There are many things you catch the second time around that were not there the first time you saw it. The political message it sends is one fitting of the times, and may make you think twice about what you are doing with your life.

Brad Pitt and Edward Norton each give one of their best performances as the main characters. Pitt is, I believe, one of the best actors to play a crazy person (see also: 12 Monkeys, Kalifornia). And Edward Norton is perhaps the best actor of his generation, although he doesn't seem to get credit for his work. The plot is very engaging, as long as you're not offended by anti-materialistic propaganda (which Brad Pitt spews virtually non-stop). In short, this movie is one that should be on everyone's 'must see' list. As an added bonus, there's lots of extra features on the DVD as well. It would be worth your time to watch the whole movie with the commentary on.

Here, I leave you with this thought: the relationship between Calvin and Hobbes (yes, the cartoon characters) is much the same as between Edward Norton's character and Tyler Durden.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wanna Fight?
Review: Brad Pitt is proving himself to be the James Dean of our generation. After such brilliant roles as Jeffrey Goines (Twelve Monkeys) and David Mills (SE7EN), Pitt has reached a pinnacle in his role as Tyler Durden. Coming from the brilliant mind of satirist Chuck Palahniuk, Tyler could not be seen as portrayed by any other contemporary actor. The mannerisms, speeches and action of Durden are so well articulated by Pitt, that we often loose focus on the protagonist of the film, portrayed by Ed Norton (American History X). The catalyst that ties the whole movie together is the director, David Fincher (also of SE7EN). His work ethic of perfection pays of greatly in the end product of this film. Says Palahniuk in the DVD commentary (paraphrased, since I don't have time to go back and transcribe it)'After seeing the end product, I was ashamed of the novel I wrote'. In an era where modern literature is ... and disfigured in the filmmaking process, this is a telling comment on Fincher's professionalism. I eagerly await his future releases, Panic Room, Seared, and (possibly) Rendezvous with Rama.
This is definitely a DVD worth owning, with two discs, containing four commentary tracks, trailers and BTS; you will easily become a Fincher-Palahniuk disciple as well

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: more than meets the eye
Review: This movie is nothing you would think it is about. I rented it with a very skeptical mind, and I came away astounded. I'm not suprised that women haven't liked this movie very much, and I've concluded it is generally a movie for guys. It focuses on a turning point all men face, the transistion from early twenties to adulthood. In our culture, we often neglect questions of identity, and we typically indulge in consumerism as Ed Norton's character does in the beginning. Then comes along Tyler Dirden (Brad Pitt) who challenges Norton's life. Implicit in this is a string of doubts: I was a boy, then a teen, then young, now a man, and that means? where did that go? why did it go? It is like a midlife crisis 10 or 15 years too soon. This movie tries to reinforce that it is better to establish identity than to worry about other people's perceptions. Indeed, the characters go overboard on this, but I doubt most people will go that far. If people just look behind characters' motives and try to see the lingering doubts, the movie becomes far more intelligible and less of a macho bash.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mesmerizing
Review: Listen.

The first I knew of this movie, I was at another movie with my wife and saw a trailer for Fight Club. I remember leaning over and telling her that I would never want to see that movie. Ever.

A friend convinced us to come over and watch it. We couldn't see the whole thing, because our very young son was getting cranky and we needed to go home. I bought the DVD on the way home. Since then, I've watched it -- without hyperbole -- at least fifteen times. It is a classic. It doesn't slow down. Plot-wise or in any way. It is an intelligent film. It is thought-provoking. And you know something else? My wife likes the movie. She doesn't go in for violence or guy movies, but this movie is not about violence, and it's not a guy movie, per se. This movie is very much an attack on phonies and it's about not having rites of passage anymore. Why we're a whole society of kids pretending to be grown-ups. If you don't get that, I'm sorry.

If you don't buy it, rent it. But if you buy it, you'll be saving rental fees in the long run. I promise.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: I had no idea what I was getting into when I first started watching the movie.
You shouldn't either.
Just watch it, and if you sit all the way through to the end, you'll be chewing on it like cud for a while and may just watch it all over again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 5 stars to the film and 10 to the DVD
Review: In my opinion, the film is abslutely the most interesting and intelligent movie that Hollywood managed to come up with for the last couple of years. Throughout the film, we watch really extraordinary ideas and suggestions keep coming; mostly about the society and modern life. It makes the viewers question their daily lives and obssesions, and ask themselves "Is this really necessery?". This is one of the many reasons that the film is not approved through the average Hollywood viewer who are so into the films with no discussions but a lot of action. The fact that couple of guys with guns in their hands didn't save the world at the end also helped. Besides the story; the directing, acting and music is some more of the points the movie is strong about. I believe Carter deserves extra credit for her work. And about the DVD, everything is just fine from the appearance to the extra stuff. Behind the scenes features in the second disk is really interesting and all the other material can keep you busy for hours. So if you are open to different ideas i say get this one before anything, because you will definately get your money's worth.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy this DVD
Review: This is just a great movie. If you are intelligent and open minded you will love it. Fight Club is a little crude at times, but any adult should be able to see through the violent exterior and understand that the message of the movie is not to go destroy things. If you are unable to do this, you will probably hate the movie. I won't bother talking about the story, just buy the movie and enjoy. This DVD also features many bonuses, which you can view by looking at the description above. This is the best movie of the 90's, don't miss out.


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