Damn that Tyler Durden.

Well, how else should a 19 year old dude spend a Friday night? Actually two 19 year old dudes and proud graduates of the Handsome Boy modelling school, no we're not gay. We just didn't have anything else to do and well renting porn was out of the equation as my little sisters were home. So myself and my Outsider bro, VitaminJay went to the local video store to rent David Fincher adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's book; Fight Club.

"The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

The second rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

You don't say anything because fight club exists only in the hours between when fight club starts and when fight club ends.

... that's the third rule of fight club, when someone says stop or goes limp, even if he's just faking it, the fight is over.

Only two guys to a fight. One fight at a time. They fight without shirts or shoes. The fights go on as long as they have to. Those are the other rules of fight club.

And the seventh rule is if this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight."

Let me first point out what "Fight Club" is NOT. It is definitely not a date movie. It is not a movie about action and guns blazing. It is not a Michael Jackson thriller. It is not something that Chow Yung Fat would be in. It’s not a good movie to admire the physique of many chiseled actors (two words: Meat Loaf). So don’t go to see this movie and expect an uplifting message provided by Mr. Pitt’s school boy charisma.

What "Fight Club" is, without giving away specifics, is an attempt to explain the release that is needed by the human spirit to remain alive. Remember "Point Break"? Well redo that movie with less lights, no beach, no banks and better acting and more LSD.

Everyone in the movie provides a convincing depiction of the consumer world gone wrong, and demonstrates what happens when the reverse is acted on without hesitation. It draws on the urge to settle disputes of discord in a fashion that has long been an effective means of resolution.

Just take a look at hockey to confirm this. That does not mean that it is right, and the movie in no way condones this sort of action. Instead it explains it in a way that, deep down, we realize is a part of us and when is tapped into can be both deadly and liberating.

It also has a dark and biting humor (a fave of mine) that underscores our cynicism. Witness the scene of a fight club member out on assignment trying to pick a fight with a priest- it is both hilarious and unnerving.

Now on to the combatants...and well the rest of my mumbo jumbo.

One of my new fave actors, Mr. Edward Norton gives a compulsively twitchy, nerdy, performance as Fight Club's Narrator: a 30-year-old single guy with a white collar job in the automotive industry and a secret addiction; he loves attending support groups posing as a sufferer a "tourist" of sorts. Hilariously, this is the only thing that gives him an emotional high and help for his insomnia.

Fight Club has many a memorable scene but one classic scene is where Jack [Norton] turns up at a testicular cancer victims' group and the participants have to pair off, hugging, sobbing and spilling their guts out. He teams up with Robert - [Meat Loaf is back jack!] - who has grown tits after his balls have been cut off. How pathetic is that? Oh the metaphors just keep rolling.

Into this dysfunctional existence steps the super-dude and way charismatic Tyler Durden, a travelling soap salesman in a wicked cerise leather jacket and funky, i need to purchase them as well, shades: a witty and strong performance from Brad Pitt, who has never been better. Tyler introduces Ed to the Fight Club: secret bare-knuckle brawls where dorks and social outcasts such as Norton get to reconnect to life with their inner macho man.

So begins the rollercoster...as sexy, cynical Helena Bonham Carter is introduced as Marla, the girl they both want to bang. The fight scenes are well directed and provide a realalistic view on how fights actually are. No wall jumps, no cresent kicks nor Bruce Lee flying jump kicks of doom, no "Whaaaaahs" or delayed hand motions. Just punching, front kicks and lots of grappling. If your looking for fighting tips, look here. Watching a "Kung Fu" flick will only result in getting your ass handed to you.

The movie works really well on a lot of levels and is destined to become a cult classic. [like Clerks or The Toxic Avenger] helluva funny shit. Why isn't this aboard airplanes? Oh it's true, it's true.

After viewing this film, I had the strange feeling that I witnessed something that reeked of awesomeness and of the Stanley Kubrick style of film making, because afterwards I felt the same way as I did when I saw the movie "A Clockwork Orange." [Helluva great movie...disturbing...but one that makes your brain do some much needed work]

Likewise, I felt that this film was more successful in making its statement about the human condition than Kubrick’s "Eyes Wide Shut." [that movie sucked...but i didn't mind seeing Ms. Kidman thought...that was worth the five bucks to rent it.]

Now...lets reiderate one important thing...

I don't suggest that guys take their dates to watch this thing. Geez, what is going on in your head? I kind of feel sorry for all the gals who go to this just to see Brad.

Can you imagine going to see a movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyssa Milano, just to watch them curse and leak crimson at each other for 2 hours or so? [okay as a guy, i wouldn't mind, but that's not the point] Or worse yet, they could sit around talking about vaginal diseases and yeast infections. Guys don't want to hear that stuff, and the ladies don't want to see extreme violence as redemption for being uterly lost in a world where its easy to be lost.

Any woman who truly "gets" this movie is a woman I either want to marry or have sent to the weird house.

Or both.

So sayeth Ravenloft...

I now leave you NETzins with great quotes from the movie. :)

1. Ladies...this could be important.

"Me, while I'm heading west, asleep at Mach 0.83, or 455 miles an hour, or true airspeed, the FBI is bomb-squading my suitcase on a vacated runway back in Dulles. Nine out of ten times, the security task force guy says, the vibration is an electric razor. The other time, it's a vibrating dildo. Imagine, the task force guy says, telling a passenger on arrival that a dildo kept her baggage on the East Coast. Sometimes it's even a man. It's airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. Use the indefinite article.

A dildo.

Never your dildo.

Never say the dildo accidentally turned itself on.

A dildo activated itself and created an emergency situation that required the evacuating of your baggage."

2. for the college and university folk

"You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away. The condom, I mean. Not the stranger"

3. med mags and reader's digest truly deserve some accolades.

I found stacks and stacks of Reader's Digest in the basement, and now there's a pile of Reader's Digest in every room. In the oldest magazines, there's a series of articles where organs in the human body talk about themselves in the first person: I am Jane's uterus. I am Joe's Prostrate. I am Joe's Gallbladder. I am Joe's Raging Bile Duct. I am Joe's Grinding Teeth. I am Joe's Inflamed Flaring Nostrils. I am Joe's White Knuckles. I am Joe's Enraged, Inflamed Sense of Rejection. I am Joe's Clenching Bowels.

4. animal activists...and Greenpeacers...

Think about the animals used in product testing. Think about the monkeys shot into space.

"Without their death, their pain, without the sacrifice," Tyler says, "we would have nothing."

5. Homer's animal was a talking coyote....what would yours be?

"Eyes closed, we imagined our pain as a ball of white healing light floating around our feet and rising to our knees, our waist, our chest. Our chakras opening. The heart chakra. The head chakra. Chloe talked us into caves where we meet our power animal. Mine was a penguin."

6. i never knew this...you probably did not either and now i've spoiled it for you.

"The old theatres that run a movie with two projectors, a projectionist has to stand right there to change projectors at the exact second so that the audience never sees the break when one reel starts and one reel ran out. You have to look for the white dots at the top, right-hand corner of the screen. This is the warning. Watch the movie, and you'll see two dots at the end of the reel."

7. Lastly...

"I wanted to breath smoke."

"I wanted to burn the Lourve. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledge-hammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now."

:::so finally sayeth ravenloft:::