Fight Club

DVD Details: Anamorphic Widescreen Audio Tracks: English, French, 4 Commentary Tracks Subtitles: English/Spanish Closed Captioned THX Optimode Calibration A 2nd disc of supplements (see below) R, 139 minutes

Fight Club is one of those movies that is just cool. It's pretty blunt, and attacks a lot of pop culture feelings about what life should be and how we should all live. The movie has a good plot, and is really more original than anything I've seen in a long time. I think it got robbed for the Original Screenplay Oscar. Oh well, I won't go into the movie, but it's got great acting and lots of good action that actually fits.

As for this set of discs, they are absolutely fantastic. This has to be the best dvd set I have so far. The picture quality is really excellent, with an anamorphic transfer in a 2.4:1 ratio. This is slightly wider than the standard 2.35:1 ratio because the director (David Fincher) knew that most people would be watching this on their standard TVs, and would lose a tiny amount on either side. To account for this he made the image a little wider. As for the audio, it's excellent as well. What do expect for a disc that is THX EX compatible? The THX calibration tools on the disc help you set everything perfectly, so you can be guaranteed to see Fight Club exactly as it was intended. A very nice touch for perfectionists.

As you're watching Fight Club, you have the option of 4 commentary tracks. I don't know about you, but that's the most I've ever heard of on a DVD. I haven't listened to them all, but I sampled through them and they all sounded pretty good. The most interesting one is probably the one with David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. The only problem with this one is that Carter was recorded separately from the rest, so she can't play off them or fill in any of their anecdotes. It's alright though, and at points very funny. All the other tracks are interesting in their own right, and I'm sure there's at least one you can enjoy listening to.

Now there's also another disc in the packaging. It contains all the supplements. And believe me, it's full. There's a section with deleted scenes that shows a lot of what was cut, and why. There's another section with tons of publicity material, including trailers, TV ads, International advertisements, Internet spots, and the infamous PSAs. I couldn't watch all these since there were just too many. Another section on the disc deals with production of different scenes. They take some of the more famous scenes and show you the production almost from beginning to end on all of them. If you want to know how to make a movie, just pick up this DVD and watch it all.

I could go on and on about this DVD set. I could describe the cool packaging and the great booklet they include, but I won't. I'll just say that if you love DVD, and even moderately like this movie, you'll be very happy with picking it up. And remember, no one is allowed to touch you in your swimsuit area.