We Don’t Talk About Fight Club!

I know its the first and second rule but I want to talk about Fight Club. The Rio Theatre played a Late Night screening of this Gen X classic and it not only holds up, it may be getting better with age. It’s enduring coolness was recently verified while me and some friends were on the bar patio and my bud chastized me with “What’s the first rule of Fight Club?” and without missing a beat a hot, nicely dressed woman walking by chastizes him with “You Do Not Talk About Fight Club!” Fight Club lives on, as long as we go on not talking about it. (also SPOILERS WARNING!)

Fight Club is also one of those phenoms where initially a large segment of its fan base utterly missed the point. These were the angsty aggro dudes who bought into the mythos of the testosterone fueled vigilante, toughen up, pseudo-rebellion that is actually being parodied in the film. Its the danger of the charismatic sociopath as a protagonist, A Clockwork Orange  being another example. This contingent of Fight Clubers who are immune to irony seem to have dwindled with time. The Rio Theater was packed with people, more then half women, who were eager to revisit the joke of guys getting together to punch each other in the face as a last desperate grasp at manhood.

The biting cynical humour hasn’t lost its edge. In many ways it harkens us back to a pre 9/11 world where being a smart ass cynic wasn’t tantamount to treason. Rewatching Fight Club in the post-post 9/11 world is to show how cowed we’ve become to the culture of control. Try making a film where the climax is the bombing of all the credit company skyscrapers around the country, or where a woman whispers romanticallyin her lovers ear that she wants to have his abortion, or the viscious subverting of the think positive, support group self-help mentality which now seems to reign supreme. Not bloody likely.

They All Fall Down

When I last watched this film in 2010, in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, the films climax seemed both precient and  liberating. We would all have been better off had Tyler Durden carried out his plan, cleared the debt record and wiped out Lehman Brothers and the like. It had always puzzled me why Edward Norton’s character was so resistent to Project Mayhem, I mean, the buildings were emptied and nobody was hurt and it was more a representation of liberation from the unfair debt load increasingly hoisted upon the lower classes rather then actual physical distruction.  I guess it was that Norton played Tyler’s reasonable civilized side, that as much as he enjoyed the rebellion, he was at core the domesticated human, whereas Brad Pitt embodied his feral side. Norton couldn’t sleep because this human animal side was denied him by modern, middle class existence, thus Pitt manifested those drives supressed by domestication.

This time it all rang a little different. It’s 2013 and our Great Depression has been dragging on for five years now. So rather then the triumphant stick-it-to-em-ness while watching in 2010, this time it was another moment that shone through. It was Pitt’s speech about his generation not having their war, or their Great Depression, that in place of this was his rebellion against the numbing power of secured complacency. Watching this speech now is to view the passing of the Gen X ethos. Gen Y has its wars, Gen Y has its Great Depression, so as much as the themes of Fight Club are still relevent, this moment exposes a certain preveledged perpective where their acts of vandalism seem petty. Gen Y will not be the screw the system generation, Gen Y will be the take over the system generation. Sorry Gen X, at least we can all agree on disliking the Boomers.

“History calling, Marla speaking, how may I help you?”

Regardless of reading things into it, Fight Club is still awesomely entertaining. The film is flawlessly crafted, the humour sharp, the imagery powerful, the writing is tight.

I also had a genuine Fight Club moment at the screening. About half way through the movie I got really light headed and had to head to the washroom. I splashed my face with cold water to cool down and took a piss. I’m teetering on the edge of passing out so I sit down on the floor by the stalls. Not sure what the deal was, maybe dehydrated, so I sat dranking cold water from my beer glass (I only had 2 I swear!) Now, my hair is frazzled, I’m wearing some old plaid shirt, my fly is down, and I’m struggling to remain concious on the floor by some unflushed toilets with toilet paper strewn about. However, I’m not in an unpleasant way at all so I chat cheerfully with a dude when he comes in to take a piss. Anouther dude comes in, he’s dressed as the office version of Edward Norton with a large hand scrawled note pinned to his chest which I can’t quite read. The first dude leaves and office dude says “How are things sir?” I say I’m fine. “Can I brew you up some coffee sir?” I say no, I have some nice cold water and I should be good to go shortly. “Can I get you some more water sir?” I’m getting low so I accept. He takes my glass, empties it, waits for the tap to run cold fills it and hands it over. “Have a good night sir,” he says and takes off back to the movie. I feel better shortly after and head back myself. Watching the rest of the movie is when I realized why he kept calling me “sir,” its because I was Tyler Durden.

Fight Club will likely be a regular on the Rio Theatre roster, so next time it plays, be sure to check it out.

Oscar Party Proper II: Post Party and All That

So I’m finally over the hangover and had some time to digest the spectacle.

Watching the Oscars from the balcony of a single screen cinema was awesome. The Rio Theatre was packed, people dressed up, the cash bar was flowing and JJ’s Trucketeria outside kept us all in much needed BBQ pork.

As for the show I had low expectations and so was pleasantly surprised. I was also surprised reviews of the show, but I suppose I shouldn’t be, it seems to be part of the Oscar tradition to trash it, the host, the stars, the winners, the losers, the industry and everything in general. Not that it doesn’t often deserve it but really, this time it just seemed like easy pickings for a cranky populace.

The VFX industry snafoo is the most significant of the politics at play this year. As an industry they’ve been getting screwed but at the same time they set up there own industry to get screwed, putting it up along libertarian lines, and mismanaging their business’ to leave their industry open to exploitation. It’s not right or just but it was predictable. Form a Guild guys, fantasies of fierce individualism and a ruthless attitude just end up leaving you vulnerable.

Argo did deserved best picture.

Jennifer Lawrence deserved Best Actress but more for Winter’s Bone and even Hunger Games then for Silver Linings Playbook which i just saw. It’s pretty blah even if she was hot in it, though the movie did start to feel like an excuse to have her jumping around in spandex.

The music was great, the banter moved along and Jack Nicholson was able to steal the whole show with one turn of his head. Then he flirts with Jennifer Lawrence and steals the show again. damn.

So yeah, good times at this years Academy Awards and it’s the Rio again for next years awards.

Oscar Party Proper

First blog so let’s go right to the glitzy heart of movies, of Tinsel Town, of Hollywood, of The Academy Awards with blazing red carpets and blinding star power.

Now, I’m not even a regular follower of the Oscar’s. As an Award, its habitually off the mark.  As performance, wildly uneven and often bogged down under its own hubris. Yet the Oscars remain the defacto Award of Awards. Next to perhaps the Nobel Prize, the Oscar has come to define our very concept of Award, the statue itself the defining awards statue. Like it or lump it, the Oscars is anchored in our collective mindset.

So I’ll be watching this year. In fact I’ll be dressing up and going down to the Rio Theatre’s free admission live feed presentation to watch it on the big screen. I don’t even know who’s nominated but that doesn’t matter, because they’ll let me know. I don’t care for the host but I’ll have a glass of campaign at the ready. It’s a long, glitzy, ceremonial ritual but that’s fine, I plan to schmooze and flirt my way through the doldrums.

It’s also a chance to be in a place with hundreds of other movie fans, to talk, debate and discuss with the casual drunkenness that lends itself so well to conversation.  I love movies. I came to Vancouver for the movie business. I’m going to watch the Oscar’s in one of this cities few remaining movie houses. I’m here making movies, may as well aim for an Oscar while I’m doing it.