[00:00:00.060] - Matthew

Hi everyone, and welcome to the first-ever episode of Movie Fight Club, where we duke it out about whether a movie is good or not. I'm Matthew, and I hate Fight Club.

[00:00:10.080] - Mandi

And I am Mandi. And I think Fight Club is the greatest movie of our generation.

[00:00:14.920] - Matthew

I mean, it's not Crossroads. So you're already losing, frankly.

[00:00:17.930] - Mandi

[laughter] [Theme Music]

[00:00:32.640] - Mandi

I expected you to question whether or not this was a movie of our generation.

[00:00:39.840] - Matthew

[laughter]

[00:00:39.840] - Mandi

Because, I mean, it's on the line. Like it's really for the Gen Xers, but it's like... Do you consider yourself Gen X?

[00:00:48.040] - Matthew

No.

[00:00:48.850] - Mandi

OK, I didn't think so.

[00:00:50.010] - Matthew

Because I'm a millennial.

[00:00:53.070] - Mandi

Well, we are both on that line. Right? And the people who made this, they were all in their 30s in 1999.

[00:01:02.010] - Matthew

Yeah.

[00:01:02.460] - Mandi

It is really for Gen Xers and not for millennials.

[00:01:06.900] - Matthew

Exactly, yeah. The movie for our generation also came out this summer and was The Matrix.

[00:01:13.710] - Mandi

[laughter]

[00:01:13.710] - Matthew

You know, and they are vastly different films.

[00:01:15.900] - Mandi

They are vastly different.

[00:01:17.310] - Matthew

One is better than the other.

[00:01:18.660] - Mandi

They are both very good movies.

[00:01:21.930] - Matthew

Hmmmm.

[00:01:23.830] - Mandi

Hmmmm. So, Matthew, we are podcasting together again after what feels like years and years and years.

[00:01:29.790] - Matthew

107 days since we recorded together and almost as long since we released something together.

[00:01:36.090] - Mandi

Wow. I did not go back and figure that out. It's been a while. But we've both been doing wonderful podcasting things, just not with each other.

[00:01:45.900] - Matthew

Exactly. Before we dive into it, let's set some of the rules of what we're doing.

[00:01:51.480] - Mandi

Yes.

[00:01:52.110] - Matthew

I think this is a trash movie that no one should have to watch, and no one should have to watch three times as I have had to do in my life now. And I am going to be arguing that point with you.

[00:02:03.320] - Mandi

slightly offended by that. Hmph. I mean, I'm not really--

[00:02:08.300] - Mandi

[laughter] Only slightly though, because mostly you agree.

[00:02:11.120] - Mandi

No, I think this is one of the best movies of our generation. But this is Movie Fight Club, and we probably should actually reiterate what the rules are. The rule is not this movie is trash, Matthew. [laughter]

[00:02:29.840] - Matthew

[laughter] If we're talking rules, we have been randomly allocated our viewpoints on this film, no matter what we actually think. And we're going to argue those viewpoints. Yes?

[00:02:40.350] - Mandi

Yes, yes. Every week we will have a random movie and we will randomly be assigned--

[00:02:48.850] - Matthew

Yes.

[00:02:49.960] - Mandi

Our side.

[00:02:50.990] - Matthew

So we're kicking off with Fanclub. I think this is trash. think this is [inaudible 00:02:55] generation?

[00:02:57.490] - Mandi

Yes!

[00:02:58.840] - Matthew

[laughter] And I would like to throw in an addendum to the rules. No personal attacks.

[00:03:06.760] - Mandi

Oh, absolutely. We can have personal stories about ourselves, but no personal attacks.

[00:03:12.150] - Matthew

Yes.

[00:03:12.550] - Mandi

Like, I can't say, "Matthew, you're stupid because you don't like this movie." [laughter]

[00:03:17.110] - Matthew

[laughter] And I'm not going to hold it against you that you'd like one of the worst films ever made.

[00:03:20.950] - Mandi

All right. [laughter]

[00:03:24.340] - Mandi

All right. Let's jump into it.

[00:03:26.680] - Matthew

Absolutely.

[00:03:27.250] - Mandi

I'm sure everybody's dying to know how this debate is going to go. So Fight Club is the 1999 adaptation of the 1996 Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name. Directed by David Fincher, it stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter. It is an anticapitalist satire meant to remind you that getting everything you've been told to want will still leave you with nothing. On the 10th anniversary of its release, The New York Times called it the defining cult movie of our time.

[00:03:59.120] - Mandi

You can tell I wrote that because it is positive and favorable.

[00:04:02.270] - Matthew

Yes. [laughter]

[00:04:03.020] - Mandi

And Matthew is giving me a look that I wish you guys could see.

[00:04:08.450] - Matthew

And we'll probably say this on further episodes, but we will be spoiling-- we're just going to talk about the films.

[00:04:13.880] - Mandi

Absolutely.

[00:04:14.900] - Matthew

You know, I'm imagining if you've not seen the film, you're not listening to this anyway, so. Right. Fight Club.

[00:04:22.290] - Mandi

Fight Club.

[00:04:23.160] - Matthew

"Anticapitalist satire."

[00:04:25.560] - Mandi

Yes.

[00:04:26.670] - Matthew

This film wants to have a philosophy. It wants to be deep and discussive about modern trends and ideas and ideals, and it does not do any of those things. It says things. It says things that it thinks are incredibly clever. (deep voice) "After a month, I didn't even miss television." And they talk about hunter-gatherers, and they talk about what it means to be a man, but they never do anything with it. They never say about why one thing is better than the other.

[00:04:53.590] - Matthew

They never say about why you should be raging against the machine. And then suddenly you start seeing them taking money from the machine and watching television and finding it fun to watch television together. It wants to say--

[00:05:08.350] - Mandi

Oh, come on! They are just watching the news about their own exploits. That doesn't count.

[00:05:12.600] - Matthew

It never commits to what its ideas are. It says one thing--

[00:05:18.030] - Mandi

I think it absolutely does.

[00:05:18.030] - Matthew

--And then it never, never backs it up.

[00:05:20.700] - Mandi

Okay. I 100 percent disagree with you. Which, hey! I'm supposed to, right?

[00:05:26.830] - Matthew

You're supposed to! I'm hoping you give me examples of where it does so I can go, "OK, I missed that."

[00:05:33.160] - Mandi

Oh, but you're going to want specific things. My notes don't have specifics because I didn't know what your specifics were gonna be. [laughter]

[00:05:38.790] - Matthew

[laughter]Just so we're clear, I didn't come to play.

[00:05:46.300] - Mandi

I see that. I think I'm going to start with kind of my more academic point that I wanted to make. And I will have a link. We will have a link in the show notes to a specific article that I read because I'm going to quote it, and I want us to source our material and not steal ideas of other people. So on the website, LitHub.com, a woman named Rebecca Renner wrote an article that she calls "Everyone Misunderstands the Point of Fight Club."

[00:06:15.020] - Mandi

And I'm going to say, Matthew, you have misunderstood the point of Fight Club.

[00:06:19.040] - Matthew

OK.

[00:06:19.550] - Mandi

Like I will be right there with you and say Fight Club has not aged well, but it's largely because everybody's misunderstood it the point of Fight Club. People have latched onto the repression and how it's a hyper-masculine way of expressing anger against the world. But that's not what it's doing. It has a message, and it's a very specific message. It's not glorifying like toxic masculinity, and just beating things up for the sake of beating things up. Like it's arguing and recognizing that the patriarchy hurts men, too. At its core, this movie is trying to teach us that the American Dream is a lie. That's really what it's doing. And I don't know if because it's so very American that you and I would have such a different perspective on it? Maybe?

[00:07:12.280] - Matthew

Mmmm. Yeah, because the American Dream means very little to me.

[00:07:14.950] - Mandi

Right. Like this movie is very specifically talking about the American Dream, and the American Dream being a lie that we have all been fed. And you get that through a lot of the quotes in the movie. Things like Brad Pitt says at one point,

[00:07:31.360] - Brad Pitt Voiceover

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes. Working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't."

[00:07:48.510] - Mandi

That's kind of one of the big points, is that we've been fed this lie and coming up to the beginning of the end of Gen X and the beginning of the millennial generation, like this is huge because up until then, the American Dream was what we lived for. That's what our parents lived for. That's what our grandparents lived for. The loss of that is why many millennials struggle to feel like we're adults.

[00:08:17.590] - Matthew

OK? [laughter]

[00:08:18.160] - Mandi

And I think this movie came at a perfect time because it's addressing that and it's specifically saying, "no, don't do that." Rebecca Renner says, "Fight Club's real philosophy is [censored] the rules. The dream isn't worth the struggle. Our freedom, our souls or the time we have on this earth. Be who you are, whether that looks like traditional masculinity or not." And I think that's just so relatable to American millennials.

[00:08:48.590] - Matthew

OK. OK, but it doesn't say those things. He does, you have the quote in there that he does say, and he talks about the middle children of America. And it's a point I've seen made by comedians and on other shows and other things. But they never do anything with it. They want to, they want to disrupt the status quo or the American Dream or the way things are done. And the way they decide to do it is by blowing up buildings.

[00:09:19.310] - Mandi

By specifically blowing up the buildings that contain the debt of Americans.

[00:09:24.880] - Matthew

Mm. Hmm, that's no, it's the credit card companies.

[00:09:30.550] - Mandi

Yes, the credit card companies.

[00:09:32.530] - Matthew

And they don't have the debt. The banks have the debt. The mortgage owners and the landowners. If the credit cards are blown up, if the credit cards are blown up, the people who have money to fall back on will be OK. The people who have $20,000 dollar AmEx's and two million in the bank, they won't care about their credit cards.

[00:09:54.400] - Matthew

The people who need their credit cards to survive will now no longer be able to get credit. And will not have the thing that allows them to go and buy things. They won't have the debt. You're absolutely right, there. But money that might be paying for something. But I don't think that philosophy is the thing that they're doing at the end, works.

[00:10:13.210] - Mandi

Well, I think you can't pull on that thread too hard. I will give you that.

[00:10:17.710] - Matthew

[laughter]

[00:10:17.710] - Mandi

You can't pull on that thread too hard. But I understand the-- [sigh] I understand the reason behind it and how you might expect that to work, even though it wouldn't.

[00:10:30.770] - Matthew

OK. So OK, so I'm going to drop the thing of what it actually does in financial institutions, because you've conceded the point, good.

[00:10:42.340] - Mandi

[laughter]

[00:10:42.340] - Matthew

[laughter] It never says blowing up buildings is wrong. The film does not say that blowing up buildings is wrong.

[00:10:48.970] - Mandi

No, it doesn't.

[00:10:48.970] - Matthew

He tries to stop it. And in the end, he stands there in a very romantic way, watching it.

[00:10:54.630] - Mandi

He does. I don't think the movie is meant to say... I mean, it's called Fight Club. It's about, it's not actually about fighting people, but that's like, the vehicle for the message is violence. So I don't see how this movie would ever be able to say that blowing up a building is bad.

[00:11:20.100] - Matthew

There would be a way. I'm not going to rewrite the film for them because I want to move on from the film, frankly. The issue is, and this is where we move into where I think the film has a distraction going on from where it could be. It could be an interesting film discussing the philosophy of the American Dream, capitalist consumerism, culture, something along those lines. It has Tyler Durden.

[00:11:41.890] - Mandi

Mm hmm.

[00:11:42.460] - Matthew

And it has this "twist," in inverted commas, at the end.

[00:11:46.090] - Mandi

Mm hmm.

[00:11:46.990] - Matthew

Which dominates a large chunk of the discussion about the film.

[00:11:50.830] - Mandi

Yes.

[00:11:51.200] - Matthew

And therefore distracts from the thing. From the sort of message it's trying to give.

[00:11:56.920] - Mandi

I don't think it does. I don't think it distracts, but OK.

[00:11:59.720] - Matthew

Tyler Durden is the inner voice of the narrator, and its annoyingly obtuse that they never give his name. Because he is asked his name on several occasions and doesn't give it, and it's like just don't have him say it. We just don't learn it. It doesn't matter. He's an everyman in that way. Fine.

[00:12:19.640] - Mandi

Just call him Jack.

[00:12:20.210] - Matthew

He's the person where you're sat on the bus and you want to knock the hat off the person on the seat in front of you because you think it would be funny. You don't do it. You have an inner voice that stops you from doing those things. But Tyler Durden would do that just to see what happens.

[00:12:34.820] - Mandi

Mm hmm.

[00:12:35.510] - Matthew

And then it's gone to the nth degree of, "I wish I could tell my my boss to go flip himself and blackmail him for lots and lots of money."

[00:12:43.880] - Mandi

Mm hmm.

[00:12:45.110] - Matthew

And again, it never says that those things are wrong. It makes Tyler Durden cool. And you want to be him because he is Brad Pitt and he is charming. And as the film goes on, and I quite like this, Brad Pitt was working out more and more as the film went on and going to salons while Edward Norton was eating less and becoming emaciated. So as the film goes on, you want to be more like Tyler and less like Edward Norton.

[00:13:11.520] - Matthew

And that's not right! It should be-- There should be something saying that you don't do this, we live in a society where you should work with the people around you.

[00:13:19.740] - Mandi

So one of the themes about this movie is identity. Who are you? Who do you want to be? How do you reconcile those two things? And we very specifically get that, right? We get who Jack, quote unquote "Jack" is. We get who Tyler is. Once Jack recognizes how destructive Tyler is, he realizes, I don't want to be that. And then once he figures out that Tyler is actually himself, he takes steps to stop him.

[00:13:54.620] - Mandi

To the point that he literally puts a gun in his mouth and shoots out part of his internal psyche--

[00:14:01.190] - Matthew

[audible groan]

[00:14:01.190] - Mandi

--which would never actually work in real life, but this is fiction, right?

[00:14:06.020] - Matthew

OK. [laughter]

[00:14:06.020] - Mandi

I think by having Jack put the gun in his mouth and pull that trigger, they are explicitly saying Tyler is bad on his own. Now, they don't do it-- Because of the way they end the movie, and I had a conversation with my husband about this, they don't clearly specify whether or not Tyler is actually reintegrated into Jack. Like, did we get a melding of the two? And Jack has now grown from this experience or did we just kill Tyler? Like, it's not clear in the movie.

[00:14:39.600] - Matthew

Or did we just kill Jack?

[00:14:42.620] - Mandi

I think we're clear that Tyler's gone.

[00:14:45.620] - Matthew

OK. [skeptical]

[00:14:47.090] - Mandi

I do believe that.

[00:14:48.830] - Matthew

That's only because we've never seen Tyler as Jack, except for the moment of revelation.

[00:14:54.920] - Mandi

Well that's true.

[00:14:54.920] - Matthew

Where we have those short clips.

[00:14:56.930] - Mandi

That's true.

[00:15:00.350] - Matthew

I think this is the thing that annoys me, then, that you have this big discussion about identity and about Jack and about Tyler, on top of a film that's trying to do some, some philosophizing about the world or the nature of the world, how we treat people around us and what we can and can't get away with.

[00:15:18.170] - Mandi

So you think it's doing too much, trying to do too much?

[00:15:20.670] - Matthew

And yeah, I think I think it is a distraction. And it's one of those things that when you then watch it back, knowing the twist, it's not as good. This is, this is why it really has annoyed me. This is the third time I've seen it. And I'm just going, but but that doesn't work! How does... You know, these things... You're right in saying we shouldn't pull on these threads because it suddenly starts coming apart like, wait, so he just doesn't remember days and doing these things and--

[00:15:47.450] - Mandi

Oh no, I buy that. I don't have any problems with that.

[00:15:50.390] - Matthew

The stuff that he's set up and not notice that he's setting up, and that he doesn't realize he's been up all night having sex. That I don't buy.

[00:16:01.960] - Mandi

[laughter]

[00:16:03.074] - Matthew

It's, hrmmmm. [growl]

[00:16:04.100] - Mandi

I love the idea that Jack is an unreliable narrator, and we just don't know it until the end. And it changes the entire spec of the movie, right. Because then, like you think of the times when he's actually, physically he's in the room with Marla, but we're seeing Jack outside. He's imagining himself as Jack in that moment because Jack didn't live that, right. Like Jack/Tyler is actually in that room with Marla. But we're seeing his hallucinated--

[00:16:35.060] - Matthew

Yeah.

[00:16:35.600] - Mandi

--version of himself. And that's all sorts of crazy, mind[censored]ckery. But I love it! I do. I really-- I, I don't know how to explain it, other than to say I think, I think it's clever. When I watched it this time, knowing the twist, I spent the entire movie watching it, trying to find subtle examples of how it was set up and didn't find very many.

[00:17:03.400] - Matthew

Okay. [laughter]

[00:17:05.520] - Mandi

Which could be good or bad, you could argue that means they're lying to their audience.

[00:17:10.570] - Mandi

But I don't actually think they are because they did do a good job of going back and showing flashbacks of things that actually happened. And showing the scenes that we watched with only Jack there, right. They did try to show us that and so I don't fault them for that. And so I find it immensely clever.

[00:17:33.020] - Matthew

OK. It's reminiscent of films, sort of older films with Spencer Tracy type actors or, you know, great actors of yore doing these interesting things with two roles and acting against themselves or pretending things are there or aren't there. And it could make a really interesting thing about, you're right, about identity and about what you can get away with, but because it's also trying to do this big stuff, I wish it committed somewhere to either of them. In fact, what it reminds me of is The Machinist, a Christian Bale film, which has a lot of this sort of thing.

[00:18:14.700] - Mandi

I haven't seen that one.

[00:18:14.700] - Matthew

It has a lot of this sort of thing going on about as well. And you sort of realize some of the stuff he's seen, when you get to the end, you go, "ah! I can see it all." And even then, and this is you know, I'll go back to the Matrix comparison. The Matrix has revelations as it goes that are not necessarily reveals, but understanding who the characters are and what they're capable of in this world.

[00:18:33.540] - Matthew

And then when you go back to the beginning and watch it again, there's subtle references and things going on that you pick up on where the guy turns up and buys the stuff for him and says, "You are my own personal savior." Little things that just make the whole experience a little bit more complete and a little bit more interesting for repeat watches.

[00:18:53.070] - Mandi

Okay.

[00:18:53.070] - Matthew

I think, I think this is deteriorated by repeat watchings.

[00:18:56.430] - Mandi

I just disagree, honestly. I found... Like, even let's put the story aside for a minute, right. Because it's the story that you seem to have the most problem with.

[00:19:08.790] - Mandi

So far, that's where we started.

[00:19:10.980] - Matthew

[crosstalk 00:19:10] That's where we started.

[00:19:10.440] - Mandi

[laughter] OK, all right.

[00:19:11.667] - Matthew

[laughter] Well, we want to note, too, so....

[00:19:14.790] - Mandi

I think the performances are stunning. I think Edward Norton and Brad Pitt both gave amaze-- and even Helena Bonham Carter, like all three of them, I think gave stunning performances. Edward Norton as the unreliable narrator that we don't realize until the end. He pulled that off wonderfully. Before this, we had really only ever seen Brad Pitt in those pretty boy roles. And here he stepped up to kind of be that darker, edgier character, and I think he nailed it.

[00:19:44.110] - Matthew

Hmm.

[00:19:44.610] - Mandi

I think the visuals in this movie are actually quite stunning. I love the way, you know, you, you pointed this out. Tyler's becoming more colorful and fit while Edward Norton is becoming thin and sallow. Norton's scenes are usually in shades of blue and you get a lot of red with Tyler's. I like those things, like there was a lot of care and thought put into the visuals of this movie.

[00:20:12.490] - Matthew

OK.

[00:20:14.810] - Mandi

It's super quotable. I can't tell you how-- I haven't seen this movie since I was in high school. And I still say things like, "I am Jack's raging bile duct."

[00:20:24.530] - Matthew

[laughter]

[00:20:24.530] - Mandi

Come on. I do.

[00:20:27.560] - Matthew

The rules of Fight Club are the only thing I think--

[00:20:30.270] - Mandi

OK.

[00:20:30.710] - Matthew

--I hear quoted from this film.

[00:20:32.480] - Mandi

Oh, I hear other people do, "I am Jack's, blah, blah."

[00:20:36.200] - Matthew

OK. I would agree with you on the performances. I mean, Edward Norton is the main actor in this. And you were looking back on Fight Club, you would say a Brad Pitt film.

[00:20:47.540] - Mandi

Yeah.

[00:20:48.020] - Matthew

But no, it is, it is all on what Edward Norton does in this film. Helena Bonham Carter rocks up and does what she does. So if that works for you, terrific. It's making me think you haven't seen 12 Monkeys.

[00:21:02.150] - Mandi

I have not.

[00:21:03.620] - Matthew

And maybe Seven?

[00:21:05.750] - Mandi

I did see Seven. The only thing I really remember from Seven is, "What's in the box?"

[00:21:11.760] - Matthew

OK. So, Brad Pitt was, you're right, he did a lot of pretty boy things.

[00:21:17.580] - Mandi

He did Meet Joe Black right before this.

[00:21:19.590] - Matthew

Meet Joe Black, Interview with a Vampire, various other things of that ilk. But he was experimenting with what he was doing, and he gives a very good performance here as well.

[00:21:28.540] - Mandi

OK, yeah. No, he does. Absolutely. Yes.

[00:21:31.340] - Matthew

Um, you mentioned-- Oh and the effects. The effects are really good. I was genuinely impressed with some of the like CG visuals. Every time I watch something from the 90s, if the CG is half good, I'm like, "oh, that's good. Well done them!"

[00:21:45.900] - Mandi

Right. [laughter]

[00:21:46.320] - Matthew

You know. [laughter]

[00:21:46.620] - Mandi

Yeah.

[00:21:47.040] - Matthew

Bless them.

[00:21:49.020] - Mandi

[laughter] They tried so hard!

[00:21:50.640] - Matthew

Yeah. It does feel like there's this thing of the late 2000s or the first decade of the 2000s, that that's when CG actually gets good. But no, there are good examples to be found. So, that's fine. You mentioned the film and being about toxic masculinity.

[00:22:06.000] - Mandi

It's not about toxic masculinity.

[00:22:09.870] - Matthew

Mmmm. [skeptical] I don't want to use that they don't denounce that argument again, but there were fight clubs set up following this film and still are fight clubs set up following this film. And people in those fight clubs were filmed making pipe bombs and so on.

[00:22:30.650] - Mandi

That's because people don't understand Fight Club.

[00:22:35.690] - Matthew

The film does not go far enough on, "this is a bad way to live." Because it does talk about "isn't it great to feel like a man?" and "you're going to taste stuff the best you've ever tasted it and feel the best you've ever felt by going through this process."

[00:22:52.120] - Mandi

Mmhmm.

[00:22:52.120] - Matthew

It never it never goes into, "and look at what you've lost. Look at how bad it goes for you." And it then denounces people like Bob. And Bob is the one who gets killed, and he is the most womanly, possibly even more so than Helena Bonham Carter of any character in this film.

[00:23:11.730] - Mandi

But they do roll that back a little bit. I mean, "his name is Robert Paulson."

[00:23:16.560] - Matthew

Yeah, he's he's deified in dying, but it's still the womanly character is the one who can get killed. And even the way that Helena Bonham Carter is treated, the the-- [sigh].

[00:23:29.850] - Matthew

I know she talks about, "I've never had it that good since grade school" and so on. But it doesn't sound like fun, and it doesn't sound like she's being treated well to enjoy it.

[00:23:43.940] - Mandi

Oh, she's not, she's not.

[00:23:46.070] - Matthew

You know, it's...

[00:23:47.970] - Mandi

All right. I really want to read this whole long thing to you, but I can't.

[00:23:54.530] - Matthew

No, you can't.

[00:23:55.490] - Mandi

We are going to link to it.

[00:23:56.690] - Matthew

Because you also want to read anything from ONE person who says everyone else is wrong about this film.

[00:24:01.130] - Mandi

[laughter]

[00:24:01.130] - Matthew

Do you know who writes that stuff? Incels. Do you know who likes this film? Incels.

[00:24:05.690] - Mandi

No, no no. You know, OK, actually, that's great. So there's something in here specifically that says... [laughter] "If this story was happening today, Project Mayhem would be rounding up incels and turning them into anticapitalist freedom fighters, men who try to destroy the patriarchy instead of bending to its will and lining its pockets."

[00:24:23.540] - Matthew

So they say they would be recruiting incels?

[00:24:26.000] - Mandi

To change them. Yes.

[00:24:28.250] - Matthew

To change them.

[00:24:29.390] - Mandi

Rounding them up to change them. Yes.

[00:24:30.260] - Matthew

By blowing up buildings.

[00:24:31.850] - Mandi

Well, they wouldn't be blowing up buildings now.

[00:24:33.260] - Matthew

Because these are the people who go to schools with guns and stand in casino hotels with guns. And, and like, it is disturbing. And it's even more annoying that the film, the one person we see shot with a gun to death, is shot by a black police officer. Well, that's not the truth we know.

[00:24:51.620] - Mandi

No, no, it's not. But... [sigh] This-- I mean, OK, the movie hasn't aged well. But I still think a lot of that is because of its misinterpretation. I think, these specific people that you're talking about misinterpret this movie instead of thinking that it denounces capitalism and denounces toxic masculinity, they believe it caters to their entitlement. And I think that's what you're seeing. And I see this movie as not that.

[00:25:23.750] - Matthew

OK.

[00:25:24.520] - Mandi

I see it as-- and I can understand why someone would get that. But that's because they're just looking at the surface level. And this movie has layers. And...

[00:25:35.410] - Matthew

Okay, well... I think the film, the film does have layers. There are many ways of reading it. And it's been interesting doing the reading, building up to this, that it has those layers.

[00:25:44.560] - Mandi

Mmhmm.

[00:25:44.560] - Matthew

But it's absolute surface that you watch this film and can take away is about isn't it great to be a man and punch things and blow up buildings and and it should not have that as its most obvious and easy reading.

[00:25:57.390] - Mandi

So, I'm going to read this bit because I think this makes sense. But she writes, "Instead of consumerist culture, MRA Fight Club fanboys want power, silent women and, wait for it, the American Dream just by another name. In other words, they're a bunch of rule followers trying to remake the world in the way they've always been told it should be."

[00:26:18.780] - Matthew

Oh, that's good.

[00:26:19.740] - Mandi

That is specifically the antithesis of Fight Club, though, because the rule, the ethos of Fight Club is [censored] the rules. I'm sorry I keep saying that because you're going to have to bleep it out, but but that's what this movie is! And if you misinterpret it, if you don't see that, if you think that this movie is glorifying those toxic traits, then you're... This sounds like I'm saying you specifically, and I'm not.

[00:26:50.070] - Mandi

[laughter] I'm not talking about you!

[00:26:54.300] - Matthew

[laughter]

[00:26:54.300] - Mandi

But, I guess I just, I really think that the disconnect is American versus British in this specific context, honestly. Because I think being an American millennial coming in at the tail end of the American Dream, still struggling with the idea, because, I mean, we've got, quote unquote "boomers" now who are still advocating that lifestyle. Very much so. Right? And the political climate in America is still very much boomers versus millennials. And I think, this movie just speaks to that so much.

[00:27:34.890] - Matthew

And that point in the middle, the middle children, the generation between that are the Gen Xers, the MTV generation, who inherited enough of the way boomers could live and earn money and the system set up to privilege from them or to gain privilege from them, but at the same time saw the world needed to change. So there's a massive split in there.

[00:28:00.540] - Mandi

Yeah.

[00:28:00.540] - Matthew

And you're absolutely right, there are ways of doing these things. The thing that I'm reminded of is American Beauty, that has some of this about identity and sticking two fingers up at the world.

[00:28:11.510] - Mandi

Yeah.

[00:28:12.450] - Matthew

And blackmailing your boss to make money from it. And so on.

[00:28:15.490] - Mandi

Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:15.890] - Matthew

And it has a person who believes in the military and living an honest lifestyle and it ends up being very homophobic despite being gay themselves and kills our protagonist.

[00:28:30.080] - Matthew

And I feel like within all that, it does speak to, it was his choices that led him to the point where someone did stick a gun in his head. And it shows us the destructive nature of what he did. That it drove his family apart, and his daughter was running away because of his decisions and...

[00:28:48.280] - Mandi

Yeah.

[00:28:51.540] - Matthew

So I think, I think that does a good thing. And it's odd because this is a film that has this, wants to have this counterculture, counter-capitalist consumerist--

[00:29:00.360] - Mandi

It's very subversive.

[00:29:03.910] - Matthew

That had a video game made about it.

[00:29:06.250] - Mandi

I know! It shouldn't have.

[00:29:07.060] - Matthew

There was a fight club video game! [laughter]

[00:29:08.810] - Mandi

I was looking through, like, kind of like the pop culture ramifications of this movie. And I was like, "oh, my God, they all missed the point."

[00:29:15.190] - Matthew

Yeah, right?

[00:29:16.090] - Mandi

They completely missed the point!

[00:29:18.670] - Matthew

To the extent I don't think that message works in a film, I'm not sure it works in a film fronted by Brad Pitt.

[00:29:24.380] - Mandi

Mmm.

[00:29:25.450] - Matthew

I don't think it works as a film that I thinkis trying to be as flashy as this. David Fincher...

[00:29:31.600] - Mandi

Well, I mean, to be honest, it didn't work to start with. It was, for all intents and purposes, it was a box office flop. It didn't gain notoriety until the DVD release.

[00:29:44.630] - Mandi

So maybe that, maybe that helps its anticapitalist... I'm kidding, it doesn't, because it sold so so many. [laughter]

[00:29:51.350] - Matthew

Cause it sold huge numbers. [laughter]

[00:29:52.490] - Mandi

Yeah, I don't know. I just, I think that for what it is, what it's intended to be, I think... They made the best possible movie they could make out of this story.

[00:30:08.280] - Matthew

Okay.

[00:30:08.280] - Mandi

To put it in that format. The book is better. I read the book.

[00:30:14.660] - Matthew

Okay.

[00:30:14.660] - Mandi

The book is better. It's a little bit different. But I think translating the book to a visual medium, I don't know that anybody could have done a better job than what these guys did.

[00:30:24.170] - Matthew

Right.

[00:30:24.620] - Mandi

And I think it's a movie that's... It was a book worth being adapted. And I think I'm still going to stay on, on this train that I think it's supremely clever, and I think it has a strong message. And unfortunately, most people who watch it just don't understand it.

[00:30:48.710] - Matthew

OK.

[00:30:49.620] - Mandi

That's all.

[00:30:50.330] - Matthew

I...think it's trash, for everything I've said.

[00:30:53.440] - Mandi

Yep.

[00:30:53.950] - Matthew

And it is a film that uses the phrase "bitch tits" a lot.

[00:30:59.760] - Mandi

[laughter]

[00:30:59.760] - Matthew

To describe a man suffering the side effects of his cancer treatment.

[00:31:04.410] - Mandi

Yes, yes.

[00:31:05.600] - Matthew

Yes.

[00:31:06.090] - Mandi

So, when I was-- This movie came out in 1999. I had just, I was senior in high school. And I remember the following summer... I had graduated high school, a group of my girlfriends and I went to the beach for a week to celebrate graduating high school, and we watched this movie no less than... I'm going to say, two, maybe three times that week.

[00:31:31.800] - Matthew

Ooof. [laughter]

[00:31:32.580] - Mandi

One, because we thought we were supremely intellectual.

[00:31:35.600] - Matthew

[laughter]

[00:31:38.310] - Mandi

Two, I mean, have you seen Brad Pitt in this movie?

[00:31:42.280] - Matthew

He does have a bit in the middle where he mocks the look of men in adverts advertising underwear with their tops off.

[00:31:52.620] - Mandi

I, I think "mock" is a strong word..

[00:31:55.780] - Matthew

He does look at it and go, "is that what a man looks like?" Well, yes. Because that's you in the picture, Brad. Brad, Brad. [laughter]

[00:32:08.080] - Mandi

[laughter] I don't know. I think in... I... You did not change my mind. How about that? That's what I'm going to say, is I still very much believe this is one of the greatest movies of our generation. Or perhaps the generation before us. I'm unclear on that line.

[00:32:25.230] - Matthew

Well, it's not down to us. If you're listening, and you're listening in a short time after we released this, you get to have your say as well. We will put up a poll on social media. We'll definitely put something up on Twitter, because I know I can do polls there. I suspect I can on Facebook, so I'll try to do on Facebook. I'll even try to put something up on Discord as well. So have a look out, have a vote for whether you think #TeamMandiGreatestFilmOfOurGeneration or you think #TeamMatthewThisFilmIsTrash and uses the phrase "bitch tits". [laughter]

[00:32:53.370] - Mandi

[laughter] OK, now, I don't want to make people wait until the next episode to find out what our true feelings will be.

[00:33:07.090] - Matthew

Oh, really? [laughter]

[00:33:07.090] - Mandi

So can we do that? I mean, this one is easy. This one's easy. [laughter] But I... I just don't want people to have to wait. So you're fine with us doing this? Like telling people now?

[00:33:22.660] - Matthew

Yeah? Well, OK,

[00:33:25.110] - Mandi

You don't look convinced.

[00:33:25.110] - Matthew

I'll tell you, tell you what we'll do. We'll let the listeners help us on this. We will reveal now what we actually think about this film, and we will do that maybe a different way in a future episode. And we'll see how they come out. And people can give us feedback and tell us on all the social media accounts where you can find us @EloquentGushing. [laughter]

[00:33:43.820] - Mandi

[laughter] All right. I am hoping... Well, we are either the world's best actors or we both randomly got assigned our true feelings.

[00:33:52.770] - Matthew

Do you actually like this film?

[00:33:54.300] - Mandi

I do actually like this movie.

[00:33:55.740] - Matthew

This film was appalling. It's terrible.

[00:33:58.200] - Mandi

No, I like it.

[00:33:58.200] - Matthew

There is nothing to like about this film. It's disgusting and violent. It does not make its points cohesively.

[00:34:06.300] - Mandi

I stand by everything that I said.

[00:34:08.100] - Matthew

Wow!

[00:34:08.850] - Mandi

100 percent.

[00:34:10.290] - Matthew

Crikey.

[00:34:12.900] - Mandi

[laughter] No personal attacks, Matthew.

[00:34:14.510] - Matthew

[laughter] No, I'm not. But oofa doofa.

[00:34:19.230] - Mandi

All right. Well, what are we going to argue about next time?

[00:34:25.240] - Matthew

Let's hit-- so we have exciting randomising buttons in spreadsheets. Let's hit randomise. So I think this was our first, sort of chosen one, so let's do a "classic" in inverted commas.

[00:34:35.220] - Mandi

OK

[00:34:35.580] - Matthew

Classics are AFI Top 100, best picture winners, Cannes winners, all sorts of, you know, great and worthy as chosen by critics films. So when I click the button we get... film one hundred and sixty eight, The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

[00:34:51.950] - Mandi

Oh my gosh. That was... Oh. That's going to be really hard for somebody.

[00:34:58.770] - Matthew

It's going to be really hard to argue about why it's bad.

[00:35:01.470] - Mandi

Yeah.

[00:35:02.040] - Matthew

Yeah.

[00:35:02.610] - Mandi

I think so. It's going to be really hard for somebody.

[00:35:04.920] - Matthew

Because, you know, they are classics for a reason. So that might be the thing.

[00:35:08.690] - Mandi

Well, that's true, but there are classics that are not good.

[00:35:11.910] - Matthew

That's true. That's true. Right. Shall we find out who is doing what?

[00:35:17.120] - Mandi

Please.

[00:35:17.690] - Matthew

I'm going to hit the spinner.

[00:35:19.010] - Mandi

Spin the button.

[00:35:20.230] - Spinner

[spinning]

[00:35:27.080] - Matthew

It has chosen that I am the fanatic of the Wizard of Oz.

[00:35:34.720] - Mandi

Mother...

[00:35:34.720] - Matthew

[laughter]

[00:35:34.720] - Mandi

All right, so maybe on rewatch, I will actually hate it.

[00:35:39.650] - Matthew

Maybe, maybe you will watch it and go it's, it's, um, color phobic against green people. [laughter] And ladies in striped socks.

[00:35:52.160] - Mandi

All right. I have to argue that The Wizard of Oz is a bad movie.

[00:35:56.000] - Matthew

Yes, you do.

[00:35:56.990] - Mandi

All right, I can do it. OK, Matthew, where can folks find us on the internet?

[00:36:04.760] - Matthew

So you can find us pretty much anywhere. Look up Eloquent Gushing. That's our podcast network. And you can find us on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, all sorts of places.

[00:36:13.220] - Matthew

You can find us, especially on Patreon. If you like what you hear, we do have a patreon and we love all our supporters who help us to deliver exactly the shows you're hearing, as well as other shows such as Marvellous and Enter the Fold.

[00:36:26.090] - Mandi

I am Mandi Kaye. You can find me @mandikaye, M-A-N-D-I K-A-Y-E on Twitter where you will also find me talking about some of my other podcasts. Enter the Fold is about Shadow and Bone, the show on Netflix. And even though we recorded and released our Season 2 Discovery of Witches episodes months and months and months ago, the show is just dropping live on AMC here in the States. So we are talking about it all over again.

[00:36:56.160] - Matthew

Nice.

[00:36:56.640] - Mandi

So check us out. Where can folks find you?

[00:37:01.040] - Matthew

You can find me anywhere, particularly on Twitter @MatthewVose. V-O-S-E. And I talk about all sorts of things. You never know what's coming next, but particularly lots of Marvel stuff as I co-host a show called Marvellous, where we talk about the Marvel TV and films in the MCU.

[00:37:20.930] - Mandi

It's so good, you guys. Go, listen, it's good. I'm not on that one! And I'm still telling you it's really good.

[00:37:27.290] - Matthew

It's basically, if you like hearing me chat with smart women... Hey! It's another show where I get to...[inaudible 00:37:31]

[00:37:32.170] - Mandi

[laughter]

[00:37:36.710] - Matthew

Because that's how how smart and chatty I am. [laughter]

[00:37:39.950] - Mandi

Oh yeah. [laughter]

[00:37:42.200] - Matthew

And don't forget, the first rule of Movie Fight Club is to tell all your friends about Movie Fight Club, which weirdly is the second rule as well.

[00:37:49.140] - Mandi

[laughter]