Extras: Commentary with David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena
Bonham Carter, behind-the-scenes vignettes with multiple-angles/commentary,
music video, deleted/alternate scenes, storyboards, publicity material, concept
art, theatrical trailers, cast and crew biographies, Edward Norton interview,
and internet/TV spots.
Director:
David Fincher
Producers:
Arnon Milchan, Art Linson, Cean Chaffin, & Ross Grayson Bell
Screenplay:
Jim Uhls
Music:
The Dust Brothers
Director Of Photography:
Jeff Cronenweth
Editor:
James Haygood
Cast:
Tyler Durden: Brad Pitt
Jack: Edward Norton
Marla Singer: Helena Bonham Carter
Bob: Meat Loaf
Angelface: Jared Leto
Jack is a chronic insomniac
who visits support groups as a way to feel
accepted and loved. Jack later meets soap salesman Tyler Durden, a
charismatic young man with a twisted philosophy on life that seems to make
sense to Jack. Finding a mutual bond with each other, they soon create
'Fight Club'; underground illegal brawls between disenchanted modern men...
David Fincher puts the ghost of
Alien 3
to rest once and for all with his
third successive masterpiece in a row. After the critical and commercial
success of
Se7en
and - to a lesser degree
The Game,
comes Fight Club -
easily his most entertaining and thought-provoking movie yet.
Fincher's mastery of visual storytelling reaches its apex with this movie.
From the opening credits the movie screams quality with a thumping techno
track and one of the most original camera pullbacks in cinema - literally
travelling from inside Norton's brain, out his mouth, and down the barrell
of a gun. The quirky visuals come thick and fast, with roving camera
whizzing down skyscrapers to underground parking lots, to slow-motion
apartment explosions and a frighteningly realistic plane crash! Fincher is
in total control of the narrative, using the excellent actors assembled to
inhabit his cold, cynical, world of anti-consumerism.
Brad Pitt again proves more than adept at creating quirky and compelling
characters that somehow reek of coolness despite thei dodgy fashion senses,
and Edward Norton anxious urban insomniac gives the relatively fledgling
actor another tour-de-force performance to add to his filmography. Norton's
monotone voice-over grounds the movie very effectively, and has already
become one of *the* best and most recognized uses of voice-over in a film.
Helena Bonham Carter manages to ditch her Merchant Ivory origins once and
for all, with not a shred of period clothing in sight, and breathes life
into the chain-smoking bitchy Marla Singer. Even Meat Loaf, yes *Meat Loaf*,
does a memorable turn as obese female-breasted Bob (don't ask!).
The script by Jim Uhls, that perfectly captures Chuck Palahnuck's novel, is
a wonderful adapatation and the film rockets along at a glorious pace, but
never rushes thing. Events builds, characters develop, the plot thickens,
tension mounts, and a blistering twist is revealed... all expertly timed and
weaved into the fabric of Fincher's visuals.
Fight Club is a definite case of having a good director, good script, and
good cast. You can't go wrong. Each of the three winning elements feeds off
the other, meaning the film is solid and classic material from the opening
scene. The Dust Brothers' score is also a bonus - giving the film a
distintive musical style that's unlike conventional scoring by movie
composers.
Overall, the film contains so many truly memorable moments, and
thought-provoking dialgoue, it's hard to dislike. The warped viewpoints of
Tyler Durden kind of makes sense, and so Fight Club becomes much more than
just a movie - it's almost a lesson. The film brilliantly sums up things
most twentysomethings have contemplated or thought about themselves in the
past - the oversaturation of the media, of products, of advertising, social
expectations, the youth's role in this society seemingly without a purpose
or goal...
Some critics thought the film loses it footing after the initial fight club
bouts, when the film moves into its full-on anarchic mode. Well, uh, that's
called *development*, everyone. I personally didn't have a problem at all,
and enjoyed the blackly comic veins the movie tapped in its latter third.
If you haven't seen Fight Club, what are you waiting for? Anyone who
enjoys movies should have seen this by now, so do yourself a favour and seek
it out on DVD. Then wonder why films like
Star Wars: Episode I
nabbed all the glory in 1999...
(DVDfever Ed: Just a shame that four seconds of the film has
been censored and replaced with alternative footage for those brief moments)
Let's just get this over with right away - the 2-disc Fight Club Region 2
DVD box-case is, quite simply, the *best* of its kind yet released! It's
absolutely fantastic, and the depth of Extra Features is astounding. You'll
be literally stooped in Fight Club over a whole weekend going through this
DVD properly!
The DVD set comes in a fabulous mock-packaged sleeve, that contains the
actual case itself. The inner cardboard case folds out to reveal the two
DVDs on their plastic seating (one contains the film, the other the extras).
There is also a humorous boolet included in a sleeve entitled 'How To Start
A Fight', which is an added bonus.
The artwork on the packaging (exterior *and* interior) as well as on the
DVD covers is fantastic and completely inkeeping with the tone and look of
the movie. Quite simply, this is the best DVD packaging I've yet to see. And
it doesn't stop there - the DVD Extras are:
Commentary (with David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter):
Possibly one of the greatest commentaries ever recorded onto DVD. All four
cast-members so obviously get along and enjoy each others company, and the
commentary is filled with technical insights and hilarious stories.
Behind-The-Scenes Vignettes (with multiple-angles/commentary):
Divided into 3 sections: 'Production', 'Visual Effects' & 'Location', with
selectable commentaries by: Kevin Haugh - the Visual Effects Supervisor,
Cliff Wenger - the Visual Effects Coordinator, Kevin Mack - the Digital
Domain Visual Effects Supervisor, & Richard "Doc" Bailey - the Digital
Animation Supervisor/Producer.
Production:
from here you can select a specific angle and audio track from any of the 6
behind-the-scenes vignettes: 'Alternate Main Titles', 'Paper Street House',
'Airport', 'Projection Booth', 'Jack's Condo', & 'Corporate Art Ball'.
Visual Effects:
from here you can select from the following 8 vignettes: 'Main Title',
'Mid-Air Collision', 'Furni Catalog', 'Sex Sequence', 'Ice Cave/Power Animal',
'Car Crash', 'Photogrammetry', 'Gun Shot, & 'High Rise Collapse'.
On Location:
this is a more standardized 'behind-the-scenes' featurette giving you plenty
of make-up insights (full-body casts of Pitt and the 'fat-suit' of Meat Loaf,
for example) and location footage of various scenes being filmed.
The depth of selection available is fantastic, and it will take you about
an hour to navigate this section of the DVD. Put simply, if you want to
know about how Fight Club was made, look no further!
Deleted/Alternate Scenes:
The 6 missing scenes on offer are: another scene of support grouper Chloe,
a scene where Tyler quits smoking and Jack quits work, a tonal shift in a
scene with Tyler, the infamous "I want your abortion" scene with Marla, a
comparison scene with Jack's boss Walter (with/without a voice-over).
Some of the scenes here also have selectable angles, but as with most
deleted scenes, they were deleted for good reason! But one or two are
worthwhile to see.
Publicity Material:
This welcome section consists of: trailers (the US teaser and trailer)
with an unused 'Fight Club' trailer, two 'Public Service Announcement'
from the characters Jack and Tyler, a Dust Brother music video using footage
from the film, artwork to promote the movie (lobby cards/posters, the
movie's press kit, still photos from the film), and a transcript of an
interview with Edward Norton.
The trailers are excellent, and the bonus unused trailer very welcome. The
Public Service Announcements, used as quasi-ads in US theaters are very
funny and original, the music video is fantastic, the artwork is good, the
press-kit is interesting, the stills are okay, the transcript is
informative but actual video footage would have been better. But,
altogether, another winning section of Extras!
Art Gallery:
The extensive and impressive gallery of artwork consists of: storyboards,
visual effects stills, costumes and makeup, pre-production paintings,
brain-ride map and photos of the Paper Street house's construction.
Another impressive section of Extras - the volume of artwork is staggering
and already you feel like *you* were the one who made this
movie!
Cast & Crew Biographies:
Very basic biographies, little more than a few paragraphs of basic
information, but they do cover every cast member and main crew member.
As you can no doubt tell, Fight Club has superb extras, literally
dripping with added goodies once you've watched the film. In fact, wading
through the extras on offer will probably take longer than watching the
film! It's much appreciated that David Fincher decided to personally spend some
time with 20th Century Fox to make the DVD release worthwhile - because it
is.
More than that, this still ranks as one of *the* best DVDs you can own
in terms of film content, packaging and extras.
Buy this *now*!
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
