Fight Club vs American Psycho - which is best?

American Psycho because it's funnier and features "True Faith." Christian Bale and Brad Pitt belong in the Overrated Cutie club, though, but I'll still take Bale.

'american psycho' is 1,000,000x better than its source novel.

agreed!

FC and it isn't close

Fight Club is better until that fucking twist ending, but goes meh after that. American Psycho is good throughout.

I like both of these movies but I had to go with the one that features Jared Leto catching an axe with his face.

'american psycho' Fight Club is 1,000,000x better than its source novel.

Fixed for rongness.

jared leto in both

that fucking twist ending (sic) is the whole fucking point.

Isn't Jared Leto also in Requiem for a Dream? So that's three overrated, "dark" fanboy favourite movies in 2 years. Quite impressive.

i bet you like that 'howls moving castle' shit don't you.

yeah his agent did good work for him

psycho

We're talking films here people, if it was books I'd pick Bret Easton Ellis over Palahniuk any day. But I have that kind of issue and a fierce grudge against Palahniuk.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m254/essymarie/AMERICAN20PSYCHO-784885.jpg

what's yr idea of "dark," Tuomas, besides your Seasonal Affective Disorder?

that fucking twist ending (sic) is the whole fucking point.

Nah, to me the point was the dissection of modern consumer society and charismatic leadership leading to fascism. The point that they were the same person was interesting, but it was done in a way too direct manner. We're expected to believe that a guy who punches himself and talks to himself is able to get all those followers? If I would've done the movie, I would've merely hinted that they might two sides of the same coin, and not done it in such a silly, in-your-face style. And because the last part of the movie dealt mostly with this "identity crisis" of his, the more interesting themes were dropped off.

hahaha

facebook avatar time

xpost

what's yr idea of "dark," Tuomas

January in Turku.

OH MY GOD tuomas to direct 'fight club' remake MUST HAPPEN

Are we really supposed to believe that Jimmy Stewart is best mates with a 6 foot rabbit?

Are we really expected to believe that it's a Pred ship?

Are we really supposed to believe that Jimmy Stewart is best mates with a 6 foot rabbit?

The people in that movie didn't.

But they were RONG

But really, the twist ending in itself didn't bother me as much as how much weight was put onto it, as if that was the most interesting thing in the whole movie.

i think 'fight club' pulls off the twist amazingly effectively. norton doesn't actually talk to pitt that much when they're in company. hardly at all. he only beats himself up i think twice, once pre-fight club, once in his boss's office, not in front of his followers.

who says it's the most interesting thing in the movie though?

kinda suprised at folks repping for fight club. i've always bracketed it with american beauty which ilx famously despises. at the time they seemed to be saying similar things albeit in rather different ways.

enrique with a stout defence. when i stated that FC was a far cleverer film than many people made out, the level of derisory shit that came my way simply demonstrated how set many people had become against anything that dared to be both entertaining and innovative.

i now have 6 days to watch american psycho...

p.s. prevalent anti-FC hivemind on ILX is the very reason for my claim.

It's not really "about" consumerism, tho. Somebody on ILE wrote about it as a satire of Therapy culture, which is much closer to the mark. Also Fight Club is fun, whereas American Beauty has a big pompous stick up its arse.

I like fight club because I guiltily like david fincher's penchant for set design that goes two steps beyond realistic into being highly stylized, and the fact that its main fanbase understands the "twist" but many of them fail to pick up on the fact that it's more a parody of people indicting consumer culture than it is a send-up of consumer culture.

x-post
And yeah, it's all about self-help groups.

Wait, that last bit was a response to Noodle.

i've always bracketed it with american beauty which ilx famously despises. at the time they seemed to be saying similar things albeit in rather different ways.

yes, FC says it in a way that is funny and doesn't suck.

i hate that martha stewart line in fight club

don't let brad pitt improvise, please

Fight Club is first and foremost a thrilling, audacious comedy, with a few elements of therapy culture satire (entertainment can be bought or even obtained but at what price etc), and quite a few absolutely sparkling lines of dialogue. Plus, it looks fantastic (as mh points out).

also, brad pitt's abs inspired a generation

kinda suprised at folks repping for fight club. i've always bracketed it with american beauty which ilx famously despises. at the time they seemed to be saying similar things albeit in rather different ways.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 2:50 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

NO NO NO NO NO

Tuomas, based on your analysis of "Fight Club" I am thoroughly convinced that you didn't understand it.

And all this is why Fight Club should win here, easy. It takes its one-idea source material and turns it into something ambiguous and funny and beautiful. AP takes one idea from its infinitely richer source novel and flogs it to death, excuse pun.

Meatloaf, people!

Noodle, based on your analysis of "American Psycho" I am thoroughly convinced that you didn't understand it.

It takes its one-idea source material and turns it into something ambiguous and funny and beautiful. AP takes one idea from its infinitely richer source novel and flogs it to death, excuse pun.

Did you want more eviscerations and Whitney Houston monologues?

"infinitely richer source novel" = way more brand names dropped, I guess

oh man... tough choice... but christian bale was superb as patrick bateman. and how bout the business card scene? priceless.

i loved the book. it almost made me physically ill, but the guy's got a fucked up imagination. i was reading it during a road trip with an old boyfriend, and i kept gasping and shit, so the boy was all like "read me a passage". i read him the scene about the rat (you know the one) and he went green and had to pull the car over to the side of the road for 20mins. awesome reaction. fucking softcock.

yo henry k i was 16 when they came out. i remember Empire said something along the lines of American Beauty being the "life affirming flipside to Fight Club" or some such.

xp
Feed me a stray cat and call me a cash machine but AP wins this. I like FC but the scene with the business cards is one of My Top 10 Movie Scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y

Fight Club is about a man with a mental disorder who visits self-help groups for people dealing with cancer and life threatening diseases and then tries to use his experience to lend the same gravity to a self-help group for people who hate their day jobs.

Wait, I might be inherently biased against American Psycho because an ex was really obsessed with the stray cat / cash machine thing.

The Deepak Chopra Story, starring Robert Englund.

(xpost)

I like fight club because I guiltily like david fincher's penchant for set design that goes two steps beyond realistic into being highly stylized, and the fact that its main fanbase understands the "twist" but many of them fail to pick up on the fact that it's more a parody of people indicting consumer culture than it is a send-up of consumer culture.

This is really OTM. The number of people who love Fight Club because it's SO anti-consumerist are a lot of why I don't want to like it.

Also American Psycho is just better.

I think Psycho is a great book, and a mediocre film. Ellis might set out with an obvious allegory, but he muddies it and takes it into odd places and just writes beautifully, so the allegory ceases to be the point.

i loved the book. it almost made me physically ill, but the guy's got a fucked up imagination. i was reading it during a road trip with an old boyfriend, and i kept gasping and shit, so the boy was all like "read me a passage". i read him the scene about the rat (you know the one) and he went green and had to pull the car over to the side of the road for 20mins. awesome reaction. fucking softcock.

-- Rubyred, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:06 PM (15 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

this is psychologically interesting i guess.

yo henry k i was 16 when they came out. i remember Empire said something along the lines of American Beauty being the "life affirming flipside to Fight Club" or some such.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:07 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

haha i was 19 and i reviewed em for student paper & said something like 'american beauty' is the lame version of 'fight club'. it was an established meme. but it isn't even that good. people talk about films like they are 'stuff happening + style', but 'fight club' is more ... uh... thorough than that.

Ellis writes beautifully? lolz

(spoiler alert)

haha Fight Club in the cinema i'll never forget my date (who only wanted to watch it for Pitt) turned to me when the movie twist was revealed and complained :
"so Brad Pitt hasn't been in the movie at all then?"

xpost

I know this isn't a popular opinion, but fuck it, it's mine.

He writes above a fifth grade level unlike Palahniuk, but it still always seems like a balance between ranty and attempts to not be procedural. But he's gotten more procedural over the years.

i thought BEE was even trying NOT to be beautiful, to make a point about something or other.

id like to read both books, as im sure theyre both better than the films

im just so burnt out on the nonstop hype for fight club, its worse than pulp fiction in that regard (or any tarantino film for that matter)

that business card scene posted up there convinced me that its been way too long since i've seen AP

I really liked the twist at the end of "American Psycho".

I've only read one Palahniuk book (Lullaby) but it was great; easy to read, interesting concept, fast-paced, great ending. You guys aren't subscribing to the "I have to read completely inscrutable prose to make myself feel smarter" cult, are you?

noodle vague, i'm with you, buddy!! :)
have you read 'the informers'?
>>"Danny is on my bed and depressed because Ricky was picked up by a break-dancer at the Odyssey on the night of the Duran Duran look-alike contest and murdered."

xxxpost

Well not all beauty is fluffy and picturesque. I think he has a real gift for texture, switching between dense blocks of eye-hurt and wispy bitchiness and faux-porn and internal monologue and so on.

all i ever hear is people whinging about the nonstop hype. hear that FAR more than actual appreciation of the film. it wasn't even a big hit.

it's only 'faux' porn because it turns into 'brutal attacks on women' porn.

3 years is a long time henry. i think i still like AB, it's goofy. fight club is a bit kid a.

fight club looks great and there are some great gags (the fat scene! shiiit). none of politics in it is convincing or even makes much sense, and i'm not willing to give it the credit that it's making fun of the anti-consumerists, too.

in their middle thirds, where the concepts are really revving up, FC is waaay more grabby -- a growing network of dudes from 'all walks of life' who know each other through kicking the crap out of each other is a more exciting netherworld than one insulated rich guy surrounded by clueless people that he keeps killing more of. neither of these movies has a satisfying ending, to me.

fight club is a bit kid a.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:18 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

true fact: pitt and norton wanted radiohead to do the ost.

It was nominated for Oscars, though, ergo it is "nonstop hype". (Also, in fairness, MTV spent pretty much the entire year attempting to give it a sloppy blowjob.)

Peter Gallagher's performance in "American Beauty" is massively underrated.

id like to read both books, as im sure theyre both better than the films

fight club works better as a film

I've only read one Palahniuk book (Lullaby) but it was great; easy to read, interesting concept, fast-paced, great ending. You guys aren't subscribing to the "I have to read completely inscrutable prose to make myself feel smarter" cult, are you?

Palahniuk's formula is usually to take one character with a secret/fucked-up life/bad situation, throw in some quirky gross-out shit along the way as they go on some kind of quest, and then kind of lose the plot a little 2/3 of the way through and end it with a bang at the end. At least that was true of the ones I've read, but yeah, they're punchy and quick reads.

It was nominated for Oscars, though,

Wait, FC? Just one -- you got it, Sound Effects Editing. deep-dish Academy.

also Dan, Palahniuk keeps writing the same book over and over, FC is just the best version.

Having read Less than Zero, I'd never read any other Ellis in a million years (at my age -- tick tick tick).

all i ever hear is people whinging about the nonstop hype. hear that FAR more than actual appreciation of the film. it wasn't even a big hit.

exactly, although in fairness every student who's seen more than 3 films in their life has seen (and generally liked) Fight Club.

radiohead soundtrack would have been good, but the existing one's fine. opening credits song is surprisingly awesome (until used in toyota advert).

that dust brothers soundtrack is great! I was probably one of two people who bought it the weekend the movie came out, luckily before they tacked on cheesy songs with dialog samples to it.

where is my mind

yeah, and it (re)introduced the pixies to a moviegoing audience of dudes

ok, that part was not so good

also Dan, Palahniuk keeps writing the same book over and over, FC is just the best version.

I can't think of a single author I've read who isn't guilty of this, regardless of genre or literary merit.

Helena Bonham Carter's peak before she fell into the lair of Tim Burton, never to re-emerge

Harper Lee lolz

xpost

yeah, and it (re)introduced the pixies to a moviegoing audience of dudes

-- mh, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:32 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

in the uk anyway -- maybe pixies were chart-toppers stateside, who knows -- this was likely the first time 80% of the film's audience ever heard 'em.

in a way 'fight club' is responsible for linkin park but that isn't the point.

xpost nice one!

pixies had a bunch of top 40s in the uk. not so in the us.

she's like his dorian grey

book (i know i'm gonna be alone in this)

rules of attraction >>>>> american psycho >>>>>less than zero >>>>> fight club

movie (ditto)

american psycho >>>>>less than zero >>>>> rules of attraction >>>>> fight club

I think I easily saw Fight Club 30 times one summer.

American Psycho isn't even remotely that rewatchable. I get bothered sometimes by Christian Bale's skintone.

he looked very ruddy/sweaty? in Velvet Goldmine.

the rules of attraction film is terrible, and far worse than fight club.
xpost

AP manages to be pretty subtle despite the ridiculously over-the-topness. Fight Club is very well made, very funny, etc..., but it lacks depth. that wouldn't be a problem in and of itself if it weren't for the fact it was so obvious they thought it had loads of depth when they were making it.

American Psycho by a nose. But come come, the book was tedious. Glamorama and Rules of Attraction both much stronger.

wow i'm an enormous BEE fan and i'm still amazed to see ppl repping so enthusiastically over american psycho, the book, it's a complete mess! he needed a fucking editor, it was some kind of steven king's the stand type of bullshit going on there.

i think the way the "twist ending" (christ sake can we stop calling it that) is handled in fight club the movie is <<<<<< the way it is handled in the book btw. i'm really into the movie until the way it ends, basically. so, i voted for american psycho for digging out the funny kernels from a mess of a novel and doing the "twist" in a more amusing fashion than fight club did.

though if i was voting based strictly on hot dudes ed norton > christian bale > brad pitt

Remy, I completely agree with your book ranking.

Moviewise, though:

Fight Club>>>American Psycho>>>Rules of Attraction>>>Less Than Zero

The first three are really close though. Less Than Zero (film and book) was teh suck.

Fight Club (book) was AWFUL.

survivor is by far palahniuk's best book.

also fight club >>>>>>> american psycho.

What we really need to flesh out this question is to get someone to do a movie version of a Will Self book and see what happens.

John, did you read Lullaby?

It took me like three films to start taking Bale seriously at all again...any by seriously, I don't mean serious , but taking what he's saying as sincere and not along the lines of "Oh, that was T. Boone Pickens" on the phone.

The internal dialogues of the book AP are hilarious. If you take the time to read them, which I didn't the first time I read it, and imagine the drug-addled calm of Bateman in his office, but internally OBSESSING about what everyone is wearing in this coked-out, paranoid, 300 words per minute - pretty great reading.

I read Fight Club, but I can't remember it negatively or positively. So, based on that, I went with AP, though I liked both.

American Psycho in a landslide for me

The internal dialogues of the book AP are hilarious. If you take the time to read them, which I didn't the first time I read it, and imagine the drug-addled calm of Bateman in his office, but internally OBSESSING about what everyone is wearing in this coked-out, paranoid, 300 words per minute - pretty great reading.

yeah if you've never met many, many, many someones exactly like that, maybe. i don't even think he did that good of a job at it overall, and to do it for 7,000 pages...

THAT BEING SAID the only things worth reading in american psycho are the internal dialogues so presuming anyone would skip them to get to...what? the parts where he takes car batteries to hookers' nipples?? seriously, dude? why would you skip those?

multi xposts

I like Glamorama better than AP too, but I don't think the latter's a mess. I like monolithicness tho.

ugh the car battery scene

I never actually read that entire book solely because I read that specific excerpt.

AP's not as bad as de Sade. I think Ellis is working the same trick there too, something between reimagining the shape of the human body and spoofing the way porn becomes a parts catalogue.

AP's not as bad as de Sade.

OH OKAY LET ME GO READ IT THEN

xpost to HI DERE: no. Is it good? I started "Haunted", but got distracted by the other 4 books I was trying to read at the time </ADD>

both of these movies are much better than their source material. they take the parts that work and jettison the rest. AP is a wonderful, almost textbook example of how to adapt a book.

still, despite the heavy-handed satire, the "shocking" stabs (heh) at being "transgressive" i like Ellis's book. it's pretty funny (as is the movie).

as for Palahniuk, he can Choke (sorry) on a bag of dicks. i can't stand him. i liked Fight Club the movie though. the first act especially. it's very watchable.

I can't think of a single author I've read who isn't guilty of this, regardless of genre or literary merit.

-- HI DERE, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 2:33 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

This should be a whole other thread.

I've been trying to think of exceptions to that rule. Dickens, maybe. Melville?

fight club is totally fun and watchable

BUT

having spent the last 3 years in college (at which age everyone thinks this is their favorite movie) if i ever have to watch it again i will kill myself.

at which age everyone thinks this is their favorite movie

Are you the gatekeeper, or the keymaster?

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/kelthink/cat.jpg

Count yourself lucky dude, when I was a student it was The Blues Brothers.

For me, Princess Bride. Yurk.

and while ill admit that it has some vaguely interesting (albeit fairly unoriginal) points to make amid all the great cinematography and terrific art direction, it is certainly not the stunning indictment of a) consumerism b) "therapy culture" or c) whatever it is that you hate about modern life that everyone (or at least every college student i meet) seems to think it is.

yes it is.

nobody's really using the phrase "stunning indictment" here tho. Just saying what it's about.

lol sike, but fuck off with your 'art direction' and 'cinematography'. it's not just an add-on, style.

Trudat, that's why I keep wanting to put "about" in quotes. But it's annoying.

donnie darko is more popular here. :/

im not really insulting fight club; i dont think it has the kind of aspirations ppl ascribe to it--what bothers me more are the 40,000 20-yr-old meatheads who are under the impression that this is at least as important as like "das kapital" or something (STRAW MAN I DONT REALLY MEAN ANY OF THIS IM JUST LETTING OFF STEAM)

and noodle im not accusing ppl here of saying that more a vast, non-specific majority of my peers

i also like 'the big lebowski'. only defence is i've liked 'em both since the day they came out.

you have to be a special kind of douche to not like the big lebowski

where did you go to college where the princess bride was the heralded movie of its time?

haha

Not so much heralded as omni-present.

Fight Club came out on video when I worked at Blockbuster, and I got a lot of complaints/threatened legal action for splicing a penis into the film.

It kind of made me think that whatever anti-therapy culture themes they were touching on, they were probably asking too much of most people.

at what college were frat boys watching the princess boys, omnipresently?

princess boys!

princess bride was a huge college movie 10-15 years ago

http://www.originalprincessboys.com/

NSFW!!!

Carleton College circa early 90's.

I went to a wedding a few years ago for one of my classmates, and they played the "Mawwige" bit as their entrance music.

CLASSY.

'fight club' has pretty impressive longevity as a cult movie.

people used to dig on 'leon'.

also, brad pitt's abs inspired a generation

-- cutty, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 2:00 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

haha

AP's not as bad as de Sade. I think Ellis is working the same trick there too, something between reimagining the shape of the human body and spoofing the way porn becomes a parts catalogue.

i agree with this wholeheartedly! i just don't think he's doing it very well.

also "feed me a stray cat" jpg otm

John: Lullaby was great! The core conceit (man gets mystical culling song stuck in his head and can't stop inadvertently killing people with it) is super-appealing.

re: the abs comment

christian bale's abs weren't too shabby either

so did Fight Club take the place of Pulp Fiction for the 40,000 20yr old straw men Max (no dis bro, I hear you) specified up thread? And if so, what does it all mean?

'American Psycho' the movie is fun, but it's really got nothing on the book. The worst thing about the movie is that the "hard-bodies" weren't very hot.

I think Rules of Attraction would be my favorite if included. It revels in its fucked-up-ness more than the others. Fight Club drags a little after Project Mayhem is exposed and the cops want Ed Norton's balls and yada yada yada.

The thing about Fight Club is that taken out of context, some of the lines/scenes of the first 2/3 are pretty funny as Adbusters-level 'indictments of consumer capitalism/therapy culture' (or whatever). That's why it's so effective - you can easily buy into what's being parodied if you're not paying attention (and to some extent, with his Situationist-prankster leanings, Palahniuk wanted you to).

I read Fight Club and Survivor and remember absolutely nothing about them.

I think Boondock Saints (I feel dirty even typing the damn name) is a much worse replacement for the Pulp Fiction strawman. I have met multiple people who really like it and find it completely irredeemable.

God Boondock Saints makes me want to die.

That might be my most hated movie ever.

Crank should be every 20-yo college kid's favorite movie

is Smokin' Aces making inroads in this demographic?

Smokin' Aces didn't make inroads in any demographic. Snapple Fact #87: On a whole, college students as a population are not any more dumb than any other age group.

i also like 'the big lebowski'. only defence is i've liked 'em both since the day they came out.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 16:47 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

also a student favourite, but a more discerning one. fewer students like this film, and they can generally be trusted more than the average FC-lover. next rung up is Being John Malkovitch, then we move into specialist taste.

almost nobody in britishland has seen crank, myself included

this thread is actually literally in the process of jumping a shark y/n

y

those very words are a self-fulfilling prophesy!

with a topic like this, tho, you knew it only had about 300 good posts in it coming in. xpost

Boondocks Saints is megasuxor.

i mean, what is a "student favorite"? it strikes me that this weird turn-of-phrase suddenly being bandied about could basically describe every fucking movie from scarface to clue.

ilx is basically the only place in the entire world i've heard anyone seriously use the idea that students (in general, like this huge homogenous group of hiveminded ppl) like X type of movie. your own personal friends /= "students"

guys a group of my friends at hampshire kept wanting to make me watch student favorite belly of an architect etc etc etc oh that night they stole student favorite husbands from kim's! i mean be less lazy, this is worse than tuomas's review of fight club

God Boondock Saints makes me want to die.

-- jessie monster, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 7:09 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

OTFM

I think the "student favorite" line is a bunch of bunk because students generally like the same movies THE REST OF THE POPULATION LIKES. except like, shit about old people.

latebloomer/JJ: you have not known true Boondock Saints hatred until you have lived in Boston, where 85% of males SELF-IDENTIFY with this movie.

There IS a certain hivemind amongst a certain kind of student (or student-aged youth), the film-literate (although not super-literate) arts student (or student-aged youth), which means that you can bring up certain movies in conversation, and they will have seen (and liked) them, practically guaranteed. I've tried this, not just with friends, but with strangers within that stratum, and those three movies are to varying degrees pretty constant. It's a lazy way of describing a film, but it's an accurate means of conveying that film's cultural importance.

yeah, exactly. my dad loves both fight club and american psycho and the big lebowski and i'm pretty sure he'd like the boondock saints if he ever saw it but he is v v v far from studenthood ;_;

xpost well i'm sorry that your school sucks and is full of homogenous white boys, louis.

Brad Pitt wiping out on bicycle inspired a generation

xpost: Well, he does go to school in England, so you can kind of see it coming.

louis, I'm sure if you asked NON-STUDENT AGED FOLK if they had seen X movie, they might have seen it and liked it too! Movies that are popular are very rarely popular among one age group. Unless it's like, On Golden Pond or Pokemon. And also there's that "all dads like 24" phenomenon but I think that's just a whole different journey. xxpost

i don't even mean that in some kind of nasty way btw, it's just the only possible way that i can imagine the statement you are making to be true. if you would just leave out the bullshit about ppl having to LIKE each of these films you're talking about, you might be somewhere with the idea that, yes, you can talk about these films with, uh, ppl? but then that goes back to what jessie and i are saying that it's like that's not exactly unique to college students.

lol my dad loves both of these three movies wtf is wrong with me

my mom would hate fight club (too violent) big l (wouldn't get jokes), and american psycho, I bet. i think there is some merit to the definition/idea of student film.

your school sucks

hmm

full of homogenous white boys

AND GIRLS DAMMIT

seriously, though, those are standard tropes, not the be-all and end-all. individual tastes, the movies held dearest, vary far more widely than i'm giving credit. those movies are the touchstones, the cultural bread-and-butter, the overlaps in the venn diagram. i'm not saying that people HAVE to like them, just saying that they generally do, in my experience.

latebloomer/JJ: you have not known true Boondock Saints hatred until you have lived in Boston, where 85% of males SELF-IDENTIFY with this movie.

-- jessie monster, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 7:21 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i know what you're talking about, my dad's from Boston and i have a lot of cousins there and...yeah, that shit ain't pretty

Young people watch more movies than old people and for most of ILX 18-22 equals 'students.' So when a lot of young people watch the same movies, it gets translated into 'student favorite.'

I don't think it's a big stretch to say that certain movies (Pulp Fiction, Donnie Darko, Fight Club, etc.) are vastly more popular (or were in their day) with young people than in the rest of society, part of a shared youth experience.

I don't think it's a big stretch to say that certain movies (Pulp Fiction, Donnie Darko, Fight Club, etc.) are vastly more popular (or were in their day) with young people than in the rest of society, part of a shared youth experience.

Yeppers.

THERE ARE A LOT LOT LOT OF STUDENTS ON ILX, THIS MESSAGE BOARD WE ARE ON, WHO HAVE COME OUT WHOLEHEARTEDLY HATING THE BIG LEBOWSKI AND AMERICAN PSYCHO AND FIGHT CLUB, GUYS.

ok i'm seriously not getting the claim that movies that came out and were popular almost 15 years ago are "student movies" and vastly more popular with young ppl, did the fans of these movies 15 years ago die or something and get replaced with louis?

God, I wish college students were really into Crank. I need to watch that again, it was just so great

Wow I haven't seen Belly of an Architect for most of 20 years thanx for reminding me about it. I might need to do a Greenaway buying binge.

do you guys seriously not understand the difference between liking something and being familiar with something?

xpost u r welcome noodle vague

So what you people are basically saying is I am an outcast from the youth experience because I don't like Donnie Darko. ;_;

I think this is just old people wanting to pretend young people are dumb 'cause dumb movies are "vastly popular" with them.

PREPARE FOR THE COMING AGE WAR.

very broad definition of "jokes" re Big Lebowski.

College students watch films they obsess on dozens of times. If older ppl do this too, I'd rather not know.

I like (and hate) some Greenaway but have never seen Belly of an Architect

ally, they're the ones with longevity. recent films sometimes have a big following that dies down as the film becomes dated. the ones that last are the ones which people will ultimately go back to over and over again. and yeah, sure loads of students DO hate the films, but i'm willing to bet (especially in britain) that they're amongst the most popular.

it's like lol young, unmarried, childless ppl go to movies and are more familiar with currentish movies than old ppl. well duh but to sit there and pretend that makes the coen brothers "student favorites" or something is insane? it's like jessie said: you guys are just talking about "popular films", i mean it's not really something that is dedicated to the hip youth culture.

why am i reading this thread anymore

xpost belly of an architect is only ok?? i haven't seen it in a couple years though.

College students watch films they obsess on dozens of times. If older ppl do this too, I'd rather not know.

older ppl do this indeed and i've been subjected to it many, many times! and i'm sure there are movies you have watched many times over, do not play coy.

xxxpost

I watched and loved most of his stuff up to The Cook, The Thief but then I didn't see them for years and years. This year I've seen Draftsman's Contract and TCTTHWaHL again on TV and I still love him.

http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/attachments/mookydookys-just-for-laughs/16788-sandwiches-facepalm.jpg

plz to rename thread: the thread where we make wild generalizations about different age groups.

man, someone needs a smoke break!

"Donnie Darko" was mad weak! I kept waiting for something awesome to happen and it never really did, at least not until JG caught a plane with his stomach.

I have an absurd weak spot for Drew Barrmore films, too. Fucking stupid movie!

(NOTE: I don't feel like searching ILE to see if this is a 180 on a previous stance but right now I found that movie really disappointing.)

xpost: I've told the story about the obsessive mother of my college roommate? She rented "Eraserhead" one weekend and made her entire family (husband + 3 boys aged 17, 15 and 12) watch it 13 times in a row.

you kids with your threads about you kids

Donnie Darko sucked eggs

She rented "Eraserhead" one weekend and made her entire family (husband + 3 boys aged 17, 15 and 12) watch it 13 times in a row.

I'm pretty sure that's child abuse.

^^ otm xpost

actually both those posts are otm.

When my roommate told me his youngest brother didn't speak very much, I was all "If my mom had made me watch 'Eraserhead' all weekend, I'd be mute, too!"

xpost

No really, schef, especially over the course of a year, I will not watch any film more than twice, and then it has to be a new one I either liked enormously or that flummoxed me the first time. Several years ago I've stopped watching Casablanca, Citizen Kane and a few others because I've seen them about a dozen times (over 30 years). I think "overseeing' ruins them. This is a pre-VHS/DVD thing I bet.

i'm not saying anything about the older generation! if pressed, i'll say that BJM was introduced to me by a 50 year-old man (and inspiring mentor) of mine, The Big Lebowski is possibly my mum's favourite comedy, and Fight Club...well, Fight Club IS a 'student favourite', come on, it's aimed squarely at the 15-21 age group. I'll accept that the first two have wider appeal, but this doesn't preclude them from being favourites amongst the student community I know

At least if she'd obsessed about Un Chien Andalou it's only 20 minutes a pop.

Wasn't Max, who's a wee one, the first person to talk about how he's been forced to endure Fight Club numerous times simply by virtue of being in college?

xp Donnie Darko was silly. Not sure it was awful.

Fight Club IS a 'student favourite', come on, it's aimed squarely at the 15-21 age group.

no, it rather definitively is not.

Donnie Darko can best be used as a cautionary tale about how much worse a director can make a movie if given the opportunity to "fix" it with a re-edit.

xpost to LJ: Idea that Fight Club is aimed at 15-21 yr olds is STONE STUPID.

I know people of all ages like that. I think it's just a personality thing. Me, I watch every movie I don't hate at least twice. xxxpost.

Yeah Fight Club is definitely aimed at adult men/Gen X.

regardless of the maturity level of the book/movie's protagonist, you're fucking missing the point, louis

fight club = "wahhh i have a job that pays me good. wahhhh."

lawls

would it be crazy to assume that Saving Private Ryan is more popular with people aged 45-70 than people aged 18-34?

fight club was a very popular movie/dvd and a major mainstream release, i don't know a single person of any age group who HASN'T seen fight club.

btw, college students (specifically at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, I think) were given credit for reviving the Bogart cult in the late '60s, and the Marx Brothers not long after.

yes, FC obv meant for postcollegiate blahs, 28-33. And yeah chaki, everyone who has a job that pays them good is deliriously happy.

Fight Club may be about the disaffected late-twenties early-thirties child of the 80's, but the hyperactive film-style, the incessant hip-cat dialogue, and the freshman philosophy is actually built for the appeal of a far younger demographic IMO.

you're an idiot!

seriously, your opinion is really dumb!

you actually said "hip-cat dialog"!

if pressed, i'll say that BJM was introduced to me by a 50 year-old man (and inspiring mentor) of mine

ew chickenhawk

At least if she'd obsessed about Un Chien Andalou it's only 20 minutes a pop.

She also rented "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and had my roommate generate a "clean" audience participation script that she then spent the entirety of Thanksgiving break torturing her family with.

(xpost: You don't know them but my parents never saw "Fight Club".)
(xxpost: Your opinion makes absolutely no sense. Was "Requiem For A Dream" aimed at 15- to 21-year-olds, too?)

"Hi kids I've just got this awesome movie called Salo hope you're sitting comfortably"

LJ, yer opinion is rong.

haha multixposts

Fight Club became popular on DVD. It was made for about $75 million and grossed just over $35 miliion in North American theaters, ie, it bombed. Disappeared from the sinnys in 3-4 weeks.

sinnys?????

Ally, would it suit you better if these were described as slightly older (generally '90s indie) films that people commonly discover at student age?

yeah, ok, i'm blathering, but srsly the dialogue is 'cool' and snappy, perfect for attention-deficit youngsters like myself circa the age of 16/17. maybe i'm totally wrong, though. why, idiocy, WHYYYYY

sinnys?????

That's hep-cat dialog. Very popular in the 40s.

goddamn xpost notification allowed dan to steal joek. :(

That youthful hyperactive film-style of FC was compared at the time by critics to Kenneth Anger films from the '40s and 50s.

Old people hate snappy dialogue.

yeah, ok, i'm blathering, but srsly the dialogue is 'cool' and snappy, perfect for attention-deficit youngsters like myself circa the age of 16/17. maybe i'm totally wrong, though. why, idiocy, WHYYYYY

I buy that the style of "Fight Club" is very attractive to the late teen mindset. That doesn't not make it unattractive to every other mindset. Furthermore, when you mix in the movie's story and themes, you have something that is squarely aimed directly at disaffected 20sometihngs who are discovering that their professional lives are slowly eating their souls.

I took sinnys from A Clockwork Orange, another COLLEGE FAVORITE. (really, it is)

xposts: That's why "His Gal Friday" is a perennial student classic.

Bringing Up Baby is perfect for attention-deficit youngsters like myself

Grrrr beaten to the gag

to go back to Mr. Que's point - Shawshank Redemption is (sadly) loved by EVERYONE if you believe polls, hugely popular, etc.. But are there certain groups that are more apt to love it and watch it regularly (if not obsessively)?

That doesn't not make it unattractive to every other mindset

i didn't say this! sure, loads of older people love 'fight club'! i accept that! i'm just saying that out of the demographic i know best, this film ticks EVERY box for mass appeal.

squarely aimed directly at disaffected 20sometihngs who are discovering that their professional lives are slowly eating their souls

yeah, it may be about this, but the effect is just as profound (maybe more so) upon youngsters who may not want to go the same way

Bringing Up Baby is one of my very favourite films :P

doesn't not make it unattractive

whoah

I think it's fair to say that certain films are more stylistically apt for rewatching, tho.

xposts, of course.

http://www.chroniclebooks.com/site/catalog/images/items/0811814/0811814890/0811814890_norm.jpg

(xpost: shut up Jordan, I'm tired)

i dont know what you guys are arguing about anymore but fight club is seriously like the dumbest shit. and louis, you're not too far off.. the fucking thing was directed by a guy that did music videos and video game commercials for tweens.

Furthermore, when you mix in the movie's story and themes, you have something that is squarely aimed directly at disaffected 20sometihngs who are discovering that their professional lives are slowly eating their souls.

Yeah, you get young types going, "whoa, that's hilarious, I have morals and ideals that will never get stomped on and leave me in an office!" Which, I mean, they could probably glean from Office Space, too.

Then you have the late-20s crowd who realize the reality of it and use it as comic relief to blow off steam while realizing the day-to-day part of life is just something you kind of deal with and going around blowing it up is kind of a hilarious, short-sighted idea.

yeah both of these movies are lame

x-post

Yeah, but then he did movies with short attention spans and built up to stuff like Zodiac!

(unrepentant love of Zodiac, here)

of course i haven't seen american psycho, so what do i know? BEE=complete bore

Dumbest shit = Fight Club video game

directed by a guy that did music videos and video game commercials for tweens ILXors

Zodiac makes for a nice three-hour nap.

DUDE AMERICAN PSYCHO IS GREAT

somwhere between 'good' and 'ok'

Que, seriously don't write off American Psycho because you don't like BEE.

ok, i will not write off, especially since dan used CAPS

Dumbest shit = Fight Club video game

-- mh, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 7:57 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

This is so incredibly correct.

DUDE AMERICAN PSYCHO IS GREAT

yes. Vote early.

Well, as my final word to Ally, Jessie and Dan, I think the disparity between our opinions may well have something to do with the transatlantic cultural divide. In America, sure, the movie may have described the life of a disaffected 20-something, but in Britain, the disconnection lended itself far more to the film being treated as a comedic spectacle, a cultural touchstone for the youth to adhere to, rather than a hard-hitting portrayal of What Life Is Like. Hence, it became far more revered amongst the networking student-types than the older generation (whose British disaffection is portrayed more in the manner of things like The Office, and less in the grand 'going to shit fast' manner of Falling Down or Fight Club).

HEY GUYS remember Jay McInerney?

The british love malaise, don't they?

I prefer Salad Cream.

McInerney appears often in BEE's latest as "The Jayster".

American Psycho is hilarious

whoever said "business card scene" is otm

also Chloe S. nail gun scene

i think there is some validity in the 'student film' thing. what with the mid-teens to mid-twenties bracket being hollywood's target demo now that's not exactly surprising.

Alexander Walker (RIP), one of the most respected film critics in Britain, gave FC 0 stars, describing it as 'against society, against family, against God', a quote which was later used in the film's advertising campaign (!!), and perhaps a giveaway that the older generation would in general react against such 'juvenile posturing', whilst the younglings would go crazy with the whole novelty and anarchy of it all.

Er, Society of the Spectacle was published in 1967 dude.

well, to be fair alexander was respected only by tory cunts. i don't think his quote was really used by fox was it? sounds like urban myth.

but yeah most reviewers were iffy about it here. it did not unite the generations, it was basically a student-y and twentysomethings film same way 'pulp fiction' was. it was a major release with a much bigger budget than 'pulp fiction' but as morbs said it tanked big time.

film hasn't been an authentically mass medium since the early 50s, of course different films reach differently aged audiences.

Gene Shalit said: "Fight Club is a right dud for this shlub! Even Michael "Meatloaf" Aday couldn't save this gay sinny play!"

http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/051219/tdy_shalit_books_051219.300w.jpg

All that convinces me of is that movie critics should be required to only write in rhyme.

Unless they're reviewing Clockwork Orange.

alexander walker loved 'clockwork orange'. he was a twat.

neither of these are any good

Ebert really disliked Fight Club too, which, along with Blue Velvet, are the exception reviews that prove the rule that I usually agree with Ebert.

I remember Michael Parkinson standing in for Barry Norman on Film Whatever and having a total hissy fit about Flesh and Blood. I think he walked out of the cinema or sump'n.

i might vote 'AP' just cos i've only seen it a couple times vs too many with 'fight club'. zodiac > both.

Ebert called FC "fascist," which would've worked if they showed the Space Monkeys getting in w/out an RSVP.

Ebert really disliked Fight Club too

Yes, but he also said: "The fact that it is very well made and has a great first act certainly clouds the issue."

xpost "cheerfully fascist," in fact!

i went to see fight club at a free preview screening and got a poster plus a pink bar of soap with fight club etched into it.

still, american psycho wins.

xpost
if the nazis were around today, they would spend their time running magnets over videos at blockbuster.

hey guys, sorry for killing this thread!

American Psycho is about the best shit ever and extra, extra funny. Has anyone seen the (probably completely unrelated) sequel?

i just want to point out that i dont actually think that fight club is a college movie, or whatever you were arguing about (ill argue that a higher portion of college kids like this than older people, if only because more college kids have seen it, and because like 70% of college kids i meet love it, but in the absence of hard data ill just shut up), i mostly just hate the college kids i meet who love this, so i hate the movie. (i do this all the time with bands, see: phish and aesop rock). its like adbusters for jocks, or something.

also louis the way you write makes me want to disagree with you even when i agree with you.

by the way, the top 10 movies at my school, according to facebook:

Top Movies
1 Crash
2 Garden State
3 The Big Lebowski
4 Sin City
5 Napoleon Dynamite
6 Forrest Gump
7 Fight Club
8 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
9 Donnie Darko
10 Brown Sugar

HAHAHAHA MAX OTM

ive only seen american psycho once, but i fucking love rules of attraction in all its posturing wishes-it-were-cooler pseudo-nihilism.

College movies at BYU are all Pixar & Disney & Napolean Dynamite. AND THAT'S all. When they're not watching those movies on dates, they play Disney Scene-It.

Has anyone seen the (probably completely unrelated) sequel?

is that the one with the 70's show twit? I've seen it at the rental place, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm sure it's horrible.

Mila Kunis

louis the way you write makes me want to disagree with you even when i agree with you

much obliged!

by the way, the top 10 movies at my school, according to facebook

i literally just sent the link for my own school's top 10 to ally, it begins 1) Amelie 2) Fight Club and suffice to say that it rivals yours for lameness.

garden state at 2 = DONNGGGGG, however

i.e. yours is lamer because of it, not that i like the film

crash at number 1 = i want to transfer

also i dont know who all the brown sugar fans are

has t/s amelie vs. crash been done yet

Cronenburg's Crash?

Depends on the Crash.

i think Fight Club is fantastic, with a rare kind of complexity for a mainstream movie. and i really loathe people condescending to mainstream movies attempting to be intellectual. freshman philosophy is often the best, most vital kind.

there are aspect of it that havent dated well. mainly pitt's performance and some of the sillier space monkey stuff (are we supposed to be see the creeping dread of fascism or just think these guys are losers?--again it's complex!) but it's a great comedy.

"Best" is only used when comparing three or more items. Thread title should read "which is better?"

rules of attraction does elicit a certain fascination i have to admit....it makes me sorta ill though...im not cynical enough to handle much of that kind of stuff.

washing the gloves then "i have to return to some video tapes"

then "we saw a musical called 'oh africa my africa'. it was a laugh riot"

That youthful hyperactive film-style of FC was compared at the time by critics to Kenneth Anger films from the '40s and 50s.

I think I would've liked FC more if it actually HAD ripped off Anger

I kind of ended up liking ROA (hey no one was more surprised than I). That Dawson dude was way better than he had any right to be and the scene with 2 hott gay dudes and "Faith" and lunch with their mothers was a riot.

Top movies at BU:
1 Fight Club
2 Love Actually
3 Good Will Hunting
4 Wedding Crashers
5 The Departed
6 The Notebook
7 Little Miss Sunshine
8 Shawshank Redemption
9 Gladiator
10 Boondock Saints

Top Movies in Boston:
1 The Departed
2 Wedding Crashers
3 Old School
4 Boondock Saints
5 The Notebook
6 Fight Club
7 Anchorman
8 Scarface
9 Office Space
10 Goodfellas

HMM. Of course I live in a college town so meh.

Jesus, that Boston list reads like a parody of Bostonism.

yeah rules of attraction is really funny. not nearly as clever as it thinks it is but it's still trashy fun. plus, fred savage as a smack addict!

er, xxx-post

Hey at least my town isn't full of twee Amelie/Garden State-loving motherfuckers. xxpost

wtf @ 'love, actually'

my roommate watches that all the time! I don't get it.

it's "cute quirky and british", a lethal combination

hi dere

You are one of those things.

"and"

i hate the fact that boondock saints has this ridiculous cult following.

Top movies for the University of Nottingham:

1 Anchorman
2 Shawshank Redemption
3 Pulp Fiction
4 Fight Club
5 Gladiator
6 City Of God
7 Snatch
8 Lord Of The Rings
9 Crash
10 Dirty Dancing

Badness abounds.

I don't like either of these films, but nor do I particularly hate them. I quite enjoyed the 'feed me a dead cat' bit in AP.

yes, john, i am the lethal combination

Hard to argue with you there.

Still rules out "cute" and "quirky" and "British" though.

"AND"

you're lethal, alright Louis

wow, one british movie on that list

surprised old school isnt on there

I feel like Fight Club is a college movie, too.

I saw the Big Lebowski on opening night with a date. Afterwards he said he didn't understand the movie and that it was weird. We never went out again.

I actually saw Fight Club 4 times in a week at the 2nd run theater in town. I was so surprised it had bombed too. I think the first half of it is almost perfect.

I suffered through a HUGE Lebowski phase that one of my former roommates went through. It got so bad that I tried to be all into it too, in hopes of reverso-change-o-ing his actions if he was just doing it to fuck with me. He wasn't. He got even more into it. Bathrobes, caucasians, endless, non sequitur quotes dropped in all possible places.

This, of course, is the same dude who bought a Miles Daves poster because he wanted to look cool.

In retrospect, he wanted to still be in college.

wow, one british movie on that list

-- cutty, Thursday, July 12, 2007 1:00 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

british people hate british films. students used to love 'withnail and i' but perhaps that's faded a little. fuck 'snatch' though, jesus.

300 answers! don't have time right now to read them all. voted american psycho, which i love love love.

students used to love 'withnail and i' but perhaps that's faded a little.

not amongst the students i know! just start saying "i mean to have you..." and they'll finish it off.

british people hate british films

'Twas ever thus: in my mum's day, "British film" was euphemism for "Quick, let's get out the cinema before this rubbish starts"

literally ever thus, since about 1916!

'local hero' is a british film that needs more love

Also, "Fight Club" and "American Psycho" are both crap but Edward Norton is in "Fight Club" so that makes it worse

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

interesting. i voted AP but i really thought FC would win. obv a lot of quiet AP fans on ilx.

i voted for AP as well. christian bale was really great in that. fight club? all it's about is how boys are dumb!

<I>ugh the car battery scene
I never actually read that entire book solely because I read that specific excerpt.</I>

i haven't read the book for this very reason. my housemate's copy is sitting on the bookshelf next to me, i am kind of curious about what i'd think of the writing style now, but.. i just can't take it. ugh

..... weird.

shock

well, i didn't vote, for a start

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_leuxe6pWge1qbn1vmo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1294846344&Signature=ombXNwlcgVlRrVcY75rbrwrl6sg%3D

Uh:

Nowadays, Tyler is telling the story, lurking inside Jack, and ready to launch a come-back. Jack is oblivious. Marla is bored. Their marriage has run aground on the rocky coastline of middle-aged suburban boredom. It’s only when their little boy disappears, kidnapped by Tyler, that Jack is dragged back into the world of Mayhem.

the AP musical is Broadway ready...

http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/benjamin-walker-in-american-psycho-on-broadway_73630.html

When he first talked to Fincher about Fight Club, Norton says, “I said, ‘You’re going to do this as a comedy, right?’” And he was like, ‘Oh, yeah—that’s the whole point.’ ”

https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/3/26/18281406/fight-club-davis-fincher-making-of-brad-pitt-edward-norton

Misread this title as Fight Club vs American Beauty - which is best? and had a momentary jaw-drop when I clicked in to see Fight Club not in first place.

Throughout their conversations, all four contributed ideas to a long spiel they dubbed “a Mamet rant”—“as if to aspire to the greatness of David Mamet,” says Walker. “It was stuff like ‘You’re not the contents of your wallet.’ ” Some of their Nerf session conversations were incorporated into a long anti–pep talk Tyler gives the narrator early on. “Fuck off with your sofa units and green stripe patterns,” he tells him. “I say: Never be complete. I say: Stop being perfect.”

this is a v embarrassing story

meh

i never knew that the 20th Century Fox HQ blows up in the last shot of the film.

...or... does it??

https://i.imgur.com/YAOgPqK.jpg

i mean that is kinda closer to the book's ending i guess...

LOL, this thread ...

FIGHT CLUB is a story of men breaking out of the longhouse no matter the loss of blood, reputation, and sanity. It shows how the grimy floor of a parking lot can be more satisfying and honest than an air conditioned cubicle. The arc of civilization bends towards men snapping pic.twitter.com/WP9OTqE0hI

— Jash Dholani (@oldbooksguy) February 21, 2023

Is death not an option?

RIP Morbs

Fight Club was one of the first - and is still the best - critique of consooomerism.

good lord that thread

did someone tell ChatGPT to summarize the movie wrong

lmao thank you for this needed this laugh

Why is everyone talking about Fight Club? Isn’t there supposed to be a rule?

— Matt Scott (@MattScottMusic) February 21, 2023

Wish I didn’t read that. Thanks eric

Wish I didn’t read that. Thanks eric

'american psycho' is 1,000,000x better than its source novel.

it's a good film but this is silly. they're both very good.