Fight Club

The call came on a Friday afternoon: Underground girl fight. Tomorrow morning. Eleven a.m. A hangar downtown on Santa Fe Avenue. The call was from a PR firm. That was all the information there was. It seemed like a Hollywood fantasy of "edgy." But it was real. Sort of. The address was a shuttered brick storefront. Razor wire coiled atop chain-link fences. Nearby was a strip joint and a seafood plant. Parking was not a problem. Around back, the circus began. Vans crammed into a tiny alley.

When it comes to drawing up a vision of hell, there are few American writers better suited to the job than Chuck Palahniuk. No stranger to examining all manner of unsavory if potentially damning behavior in a steady stream of bitingly funny, provocative novels including "Fight Club," "Choke" and "Survivor," Palahniuk now turns his caustic eye toward the devil's proper domain with his 12th novel, "Damned. " Enlisted by Palahniuk as our guide into the underworld is Madison Spencer, an overweight, recently deceased 13-year-old girl sentenced to an eternity in hell after an apparent marijuana overdose (though, of course, there's more to her death than that)

The son of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt has been arrested in connection with a teen-run fight club operating inside a Mormon Church gymnasium. Chase Leavitt, 18, was charged this week with battery, disturbing the peace and trespassing. A 17-year-old was cited for assault and disorderly conduct but has not yet been charged.

In "Warrior," estranged brothers Brendan and Tommy Conlon search for relief in an unlikely place — the sweaty cage of a mixed martial arts tournament. Brendan, played by Australian Joel Edgerton, is a middle school teacher slugging to keep from losing his home, and Tommy (British actor Tom Hardy) an Iraq war veteran running from a murky past. In the sports drama, which opens Friday, the Conlon brothers don't agree on much, except the utter uselessness of their alcoholic father, Paddy (Nick Nolte)

A trail of blood leading from a McDonald's restaurant to a private home resulted in the discovery of an underground "fight club" and the arrest of a San Gabriel man early Saturday morning, according to authorities. Richard Nguyen, 24, was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and ordered held on $30,000 bail after an incident at a home in the 500 block of Darlington Street, in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County just east of Montebello, authorities said. County sheriff's deputies said a private sport-fighting event was being held at the home when "a dispute broke out among some of the participants" and Nguyen allegedly stabbed two men with a knife.

I believe Susan King was off base with her casual characterization of "Fight Club" as a "load of hooey" ("Still Fighting the Brutal 'Fight,' " June 15). Although the film is challenging to the average viewer, on a large scale it is an articulate expression of the difficulty of finding a meaning for existence in modern society. On another level, it is a compelling treatment of one character's descent into insanity. Such cavalier treatment of serious expression--something that is all too rare in our instant gratification-pop culture age--is out of order.

The one sure thing that David Fincher's $68-million movie "Fight Club" has going for it, or against it, is controversy. According to movie marketing experts, the free publicity that the film is generating can either help or impair a film's ultimate box-office performance. No one in Hollywood doubts that 20th Century Fox's "Fight Club," starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, will have a strong opening this weekend--estimates range from $14 million to $17 million.

David Green seems to think that presenting graphic, over-the-top scenes of violence counts as praiseworthy artistic expression, and he disses Kenneth Turan for holding "traditional values of right and wrong" ("The 'Fight Club' Debate: Just What Is the Message Here?," Nov. 1). This attitude is why parents worry about the violence in computer games, music and movies. Parents are afraid that their kids will become desensitized to violence to the point that they will embrace it as something cool.

There are no flashing lights racing around the sign, no towering marquees and no tuxedo-clad celebrities at the Blue Horizon boxing arena. But amidst the fist-marred locker room walls and dusty mirrors there are some fighters just a bout or two away from the glamour of a championship fight. Since 1961, street fighters have come to the Blue Horizon in hopes of graduating to the big time. Some become contenders, some keep fighting with little chance of getting ahead and many become former boxers.

After a hearing for eight young men accused of participating in or associating with a Murrieta "fight club" that police say graduated from backyard brawls to armed burglaries, robberies and assaults, the parents of several defendants accused the police of grossly exaggerating their sons' activities. "I don't know where they got this 'fight club' stuff," said Helen Valle, the mother of 21-year-old Martin Valle Jr., who was arrested on weapons charges.

Marine Cpl. Claudio Patino IV was a warrior, seemingly for his whole life, his family and friends said. As a child, he would brandish a toy gun and pretend to be a soldier. He staged play fights with his siblings, sometimes making believe that coyotes were their foes. He organized a fight club to do battle with his friends. On June 22, Patino died while fighting. The 22-year-old rifleman from Yorba Linda was "killed by small-arms fire, while conducting dismounted combat operations against enemy forces" in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border, according to a statement issued by the Marine Corps.

A trail of blood leading from a McDonald's restaurant to a private home resulted in the discovery of an underground "fight club" and the arrest of a San Gabriel man early Saturday morning, according to authorities. Richard Nguyen, 24, was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and ordered held on $30,000 bail after an incident at a home in the 500 block of Darlington Street, in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County just east of Montebello, authorities said. County sheriff's deputies said a private sport-fighting event was being held at the home when "a dispute broke out among some of the participants" and Nguyen allegedly stabbed two men with a knife.

Expressing deep concern over allegations that a teacher arranged fights between students in a classroom at a Los Angeles County juvenile probation camp, Supervisor Mike Antonovich said Wednesday that he wants the education agency responsible for hiring and supervising the teacher held accountable. Antonovich said he planned to submit a motion at next week's board meeting demanding that Los Angeles County Office of Education Supt. Darline Robles report back April 6 with details on the hiring and screening of Stephen Wesley, 43. Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators arrested Wesley on Tuesday for allegedly allowing and refereeing five boxing-style bouts -- recorded by a security camera -- during his class at Camp Karl Holton in San Fernando on Aug. 8, 2008.

At the moment, boxer Shane Mosley is the odd man out. He has much to offer, but he is like a screenwriter, shopping the studios. "I don't hear my name being called," Mosley says. He is in Las Vegas, as is most everybody else from the world of boxing, the week before Manny Pacquiao versus Ricky Hatton at MGM's Grand Garden. The hallways and lounges of the casino have started to fill up for Saturday's fight with people with pasty skin who use the word "mate" a lot. The Brits aren't coming.

No one plays a bad guy with quite the gleeful menace of Michael Madsen. In films such as "Reservoir Dogs" and "Kill Bill" alone, he's earned a black belt in black hat. But he's got a serious jones for changing that image now, and he has a film this fall, "Strength and Honour," that may do it. It's already won a slew of awards at film fests. "It's really a father-son story, and I think people will really enjoy it," says Madsen, 49. "It took a lot just for me to get that part." If you still like your Madsen on the wild and woolly side, check out "Hell Ride," out next month on DVD. OLD HAUNTS: The Formosa Cafe [in Hollywood]

Peter Parker is swinging back into the multiplex -- but not for a while. "Spider-Man" producer Laura Ziskin said the fourth installment in the web-slinging superhero series is tentatively scheduled to arrive in May 2011. In remarks Thursday to theater owners from California and Nevada, Ziskin said there was no finished screenplay, but that she and Sony Pictures were hopeful "Spider-Man 4" could be ready in three years. The first three movies compose one of the most successful franchises in modern Hollywood history, grossing a combined $2.5 billion worldwide.

A handful of reports about "fight clubs" in Southern California and across the nation have grabbed headlines and led to swift crackdowns by law enforcement. In the fall, a loosely organized fight club in Palm Desert led to a 16-year-old boy's death, and this week police filed gang and assault charges against members and associates of a club accused of a gang-style crime spree in southwest Riverside County.

An 18-year-old member of a self-styled Murrieta "fight club" who prosecutors said graduated from backyard brawls to armed burglaries, robberies and assaults was sentenced Monday to more than six years in state prison. Gilberto Cuevas of Murrieta pleaded guilty to grand theft, steroid possession, burglary and receiving stolen property and admitted to being involved in a gang, prosecutors said. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Judith C. Clark handed down the 76-month term.

After a hearing for eight young men accused of participating in or associating with a Murrieta "fight club" that police say graduated from backyard brawls to armed burglaries, robberies and assaults, the parents of several defendants accused the police of grossly exaggerating their sons' activities. "I don't know where they got this 'fight club' stuff," said Helen Valle, the mother of 21-year-old Martin Valle Jr., who was arrested on weapons charges.