This is a flick I get the urge to revisit every so often. Unfortunately, according to dvdcompare.net, the Universal R1 DVD is the only edition of this title that is not anamorphic. Can anyone who has seen both the R1 and the UK R2 Universal anamorphic transfer comment on how they compare image-wise?

This is the only Fincher title that hasn't received the Special Edition treatment on DVD and i'd hold out for a while if I were you. There was a loaded laserdisc edition and i'm sure it's only a matter of time (months maybe?) before the title is revisited on R1.

Victor

If I remember correctly, the Laserdisc of THE GAME was one of the last 'huge' special editions to be released while DVD was in its infancy (at the time a friend of mine reckoned the DVD was given the bare-bones treatment as an incentive to keep LDs alive). I'm surprised the extras from the SP LD haven't arrived on DVD yet, but I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time.

My only real beef with this film is the ridiculously implausible ending, which I didn't buy for a second. Was this a studio-imposed ending? I seem to remember hearing such a rumor somewhere...

Among the extras features on the LD was an alternative ending, but I've never seen the disc so I can't comment. Anyone else?

It's one of my favorite endings of the last decade. THE GAME is all about loosening Michael Douglas up so that he'll become more of a human being, more spontaneous and open to adventure. It's a loving gift from his brother. When Deborah Kara Unger invites him to share her cab, we know (as Douglas does) that it might just lead to coffee... or knowing her, it could lead to anything. Fincher ends the movie not with Douglas making his decision but with a reprise of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," itself a Sixties clarion call to experimentation and mind- and life-expansion. When I first saw the movie and heard Unger's invitation followed by the opening notes played on Jack Casady's bass, I got goosebumps.

I think ridiculously implausible was rather what they were going for.

*spoilers*

It's been a while since I've seen THE GAME, but welcoming guests to Nicholas' shindig after his big entrance is a placard denoting the occasion as Nicholas' 40-something birthday, and specifying the time of the guest of honor's prospective arrival as something like, "between 7:30 & 7:39". If that isn't an admission that what we've been watching has been something other than the clockwork thriller it appears to be, I don't know what is.

You don't teeter a whole movie on the brink of absurdity (remember the machine gun scene?!), let it take a swan dive into the completely unbelievable, and then call attention to the impossibility of it all without a reason to do so (I haven't even mentioned Conrad's souvenir tee shirt). I believe we're meant to look back at all of CRS' shenanigans over the course of the movie and realize that we too have been hoodwinked - in our case, by our trust in the often absurd logic of the Hitchcockian thriller. It's like Sir Alfred's sardonic revenge from beyond the grave on 'the plausibles' who plagued him with their insistence on pat explanations for extraordinary events - the extraordinary being, of course, what attracted them to the movie to begin with!

Also, running concurrent with this deconstruction of the paranoid thriller, there's a rather effective restating of the central themes of "A Christmas Carol" that I find really sneak up and pay off emotionally in the moments immediately following Nicholas' fall, with the gentle brushing away of candy glass from his face, the applause, and Douglas' perfect expression of shell-shocked relief and release as he wanders among the gathered guests...

I would like to think there's a better ending for this movie.

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I can believe the whole thing is a setup/game up to the point that real ammo is discharged, placing Douglas in real jeopardy and the ending leap off the building. Couldn't he have jumped from any part of the building and missed the small target waiting to cushion his landing and end the game? I find it as hard to believe as all that rope swinging and synchronised throwing/catching that went on in VAN HELSING. I need to see THE GAME again though. Perhap's I misread the movie on the first pass and need another shot at it.

Still, it's not as mocking of an audience as HAUTE TENSION.

Victor.

Interestingly (or not) THE GAME was the first DVD I ever watched. It is one of my favorite films. I know that there are a handfull of implausibilities, but I hope my midlife crisis is bit more gentle. The original Laserdisc release was from the Criterion Collection and was packed with extras, including the uncut "films" shown to the protoagonist, extra/alternate scenes and at least 2 different commentaries. I foolishly sold my LD when it was announced on the (nonaffiliated) www.criteriondvd.com AND on Fincher's own website that THE GAME was being released as a Criterion DVD in March of 2002. Suffice to say that it never came out from Criterion, and has not since been announced or otherwise even mentioned. The SE7EN DVD that came out from New Line as a platinum edition tin boxset was fairly identical to the prior Criterion LD edition, so maybe the same situation will occur with THE GAME. I'm a huge Michael Douglas fan, and I'm surprised that his performance in this film went so unnoticed by Awarding bodies. Beautiful cinematography and score, too.

Jeffrey.

I'm not big fan of THE GAME, but your deconstructivist theory is an interesting one. I do, however, tend to think you maybe over-rationalizing the illogical moments in this film. But I'd love you to be right, and then I could re-watch the movie with a different set of eyes -- something one can't do enough.

Have you seen THE GAME more than once?

*more spoilers*

In re-watching the film, it becomes apparent that it's made up wholly of illogical conspiracy thriller set-ups - from Daniel Schorr setting the tone by sardonically reminding Douglas that he's arguing with his TV, to CRS apparently loosing trained marksmen (!) on Douglas and trusting that he can escape a rapidly submerging taxi without drowning (!!), all for the sake of what turns out to be an admirably-intentioned, life-affirming game!!!

I'd submit that it takes much more rationalization to meet THE GAME on it's stated terms as a straight-up thriller, but only acceptance to look at it as an exploration/deconstruction of the genre. It suddenly seems less ungainly than elegant.

I also find it amusing on repeated viewings as a very funny attack on the Douglas character's sense of privilege - CRS' opening volley in the game is to tell Douglas that he's been rejected as a candidate! From that point, he's torn down systematically - my favorite bit being a hilarious, distantly observed spaz attack on an uncooperative suitcase in an airport lounge. It's also eerie as hell.

It actually reminds me a bit of "The Prisoner", in its' queasy playfulness. Also, THE TENANT. Literally, in fact, at the climax.

THE GAME may very well have begun as the empty, high-concept thriller it pretends to be. It was written by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris, whose previously produced THE NET is most assuredly that. THE GAME was reworked by an uncredited Andrew Kevin Walker, who Fincher previously worked with on Walker's screenplay SEVEN, another case where a gimmicky thriller set-up was transcended by an extremely strong take on the material, though in a very different way. SE7EN succeeds through a real commitment to the underlying themes in its' script, finding the seething rage and despair that Walker admits fuelled its' creation as much as wanting to write something that sold. Anyway, Fincher has used Walker as ghostwriter on everything he's done since, and I think their approach to THE GAME is about subversion.

I will say I don't think it's very engaging when experienced simply as a thrill-ride. It's too chilly and mechanical, distant and observational to really get one's pulse racing. We're not invited to identify with Douglas as an audience surrogate - he's a closed-off, cold bastard. He's much more Ebenezer Scrooge than Roger O. Thornhill.

I still have my Criterion Laserdisc for The Game. I originally bought it so I could go through the movie frame by frame in certain places, to see what shots Fincher had hidden in the movie a trademark of his (the ending of SE7EN when their is quick insert shot, etc.,). I wouldn't say there was any really supremely interesting insert shots in the movie, but on a couple of the home movie like shown sequences that flash by, you can watch them w/ clarity going frame by frame - which is very interesting. The commentary track with Fincher and Douglas is top notch and well worth watching/listening to, even if you didn't care for the ending (which is commented on in why it was done that way). There is commentary tracks on everything on the Laserdisc (even the trailers) - so you definitely learn alot about the movie, its script, how it was shot and thoughts by the people behind it on its finished form.

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As for the alternate ending. It shows Douglas leaving the party walking down the street and as he goes down it, his shadow stretches out and expands silhouetting the sidewalk. I can't remember if this ending would have taken place in context before the *fall* or after. I believe this alt ending was a reference to another movie, which I can't recall at the moment.

Of course, the entire film is blatantly implausible. When I first saw it, I recall thinking that I was glimpsing an American cinema of the future - a cinema which mixed together Hitchcock films, music videos and video games, and in which narratives would consist of a series of setpieces loosely bound together by a plot whose sheer implausibility the director emphasises rather than attempts to conceal. McG's CHARLIE'S ANGELS films are but a short step away.

And to think: this was Fincher's cinema verité project! ;)

My thoughts exactly. It simply doesn't work, not even within its own internal "logic".