I’ve always thought Fight Club was the perfect movie to get The Film Critic Audio Commentary treatment, actually. Some of the more interesting commentaries I’ve listened to have been Ebert talking about, Citizen Kane and a critic/historian talking about Sunset Blvd. Some day that might be an interesting project! Get some people together who’ve watched the film as many times as we have put together into a room together and release a Rifftrax-esque mp3 to run over the film giving hopefully-useful insights into the flick.

If you’re interested, an ex-girlfriend of mine did her thesis on masculinity in both Fight Club and American Psycho, which turned out to be quite an interesting read. Poke me if you are and I’ll see if I can dig it up.

PS. I also disagree with your issues with Assassination of Jesse James… but I’m not even going to go into that. :-)

Good stuff. Let me know if you change your mind on future viewings (or if you don’t). And by the way, your post took me on like a 30 minute detour across the internet where I uncovered the following gems/classics (they’re old but still good in my opinion). Check them out if you have a chance:

http://tinyurl.com/33pj9g

http://tinyurl.com/5v7oja

I watched it most recently right before going to watch Choke at the Sydney Film Festival, just to remind myself of Palahniuk’s work, and I’m likely to do it again soon. (I’m a fan of Palahniuk’s books, but wanted to view an adaptation again)

I do agree with the comment made that The Prestige is a more internally consistent film, though. I suspect that the brilliantly anarchic visual design & editing style used in Fight Club probably does make that a bit tricky, though. The flip-side is that it probably also helps any arguments like this one - the strange style is good for masking all kinds of stuff.

(Aside: The Australian DVD release of Fight Club only had one commentary - I went to the effort some five years ago of getting the special edition with those commentaries shipped to me. That rather sucks!)

I think probably my nitpicking side just gets the best of me sometimes and unfortunately it has done so for this movie. I’ve seen Fight Club at least 10 times in its entirety (it was one of the first DVDs I ever owned - when DVD, the format, had just started to become popular, in fact). I listened to all the commentaries: David Fincher alone, Fincher with Pitt and Norton, etc. etc. I love the film through and through.

We talk a little bit more about this in the After Show (which is released on Friday) but my basic argument comes down to this: The movie could have been extremely careful/clear about not showing anybody interacting with (or reacting to) both Norton and Pitt simultaneously, but it chose not to do this. Instead there are several scenes where people do seem to do this, where Norton and Pitt both seem to occupy their own space and third parties in the film respond accordingly. For some people, this is not bothersome; they can create a totally plausible explanation for it, or it’s so subtle as to be unnoticeable. For me, it SLIGHTLY mars what would have otherwise been a flawless mindf**k of a film.

It’s probably one of the few films where I’ve not only listened to all the commentaries, but also listened to a few of them multiple times (the Norton/Pitt/Fincher and the Uhls/Palahniuk ones). They’re some of the most interesting commentaries for any film I’ve ever encountered.

A -LOT- of thought went into this stuff, and it does all make sense. The second and third times I watched the flick were the best for me - realising just how perfectly it all fit together.