The mark of an excellent film

I have a confession to make. I have never seen Fight Club in its entirety. I know "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club" but I had never seen any of the film until tonight.

I flipped through channels and stopped when I saw Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in an airplane scene. I had to stop and see what it was. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were in the same frame--it had to be good.

I started watching at the airport scene and somewhere between there and when Pitt dictates the rules, I knew I was watching Fight Club. Norton's narration wasn't about fighting yet. Nothing on screen referenced any of my sparse knowledge about the movie, but I knew without a doubt what I was watching.

That's the mark of an excellent film--when you know nearly nothing about the movie, miss the beginning, and still know what you're watching before the plot gets going (without looking it up on IMDB or waiting for the name to pop up in the corner of the screen). This works mostly with older films. They leave a strong enough impression that you recognize them before seeing them. I watched the first bar scene and thought, "This must be Fight Club." Just like that.

I promise I will watch Fight Club start to finish at some point. I need to watch more Edward Norton films in general.

An observation: I knew the twist in the movie before it was revealed. (I won't spoil it in case there's anyone else in the world besides me who hasn't seen Fight Club.) The same thing happened when I watched A Beautiful Mind for the first time and somehow I don't think knowing the twist before it comes into play diminishes either film.

One really great thing about TV is that you can accidentally watch movies. I don't know how many times I flipped channels and came across something that looked interesting and ended up enjoying a movie I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. It's the only way we have to catch a film by chance.