30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 01 Favorite Film

Fight Club (1999)

I know to some cinephiles this choice is blasphemous. I should be picking a universal classic like Gone With The Wind, the first two Godfather films or something else of that magnitude. Yes, I do love those films and have them in my library but at this point in my life I would not consider them all time favorites. Epics like Gone With The Wind are not something I can just pop into the player on a whim after a long day at work, I will want to watch the whole thing in its entirety because it was meant to be watched that way. Something like the Godfather series I have to be in the mood for, it’s not exactly an uplifting piece of cinema no matter how brilliant it is.

Fight Club on the other hand, I have a long history with. I never saw it in the movie theater and knew nothing about it until I watched it. I only had initial interest in seeing it because I was on a Brad Pitt film kick. Instantly, I loved the intelligence and wit of the writing, the brilliant acting performances by the three leads and the incomparable bleakness of filming by David Fincher. It was like all my criteria for the perfect film were being checked off as each scene went on. It would become my first ever DVD I bought for myself and even today whenever it is on TV I will watch it no matter at what point I tune in. It’s one of the few films that I personally feel is as much for men as it is for women. Yes, I get to see Brad Pitt with his shirt off for extended sequences but there is more to it than that for me.

The film was released right when the Y2K scare was at an all time high. Our stronghold on our material possessions, our society’s constant obsession with success in regards to what we own and our paycheck had never been higher. Then here comes a film that comments on our collective obsession of nothingness.  An anti-Capitalism, dare I say Communist friendly film if there ever was one, rooted in teachings and practices of eastern philosophy. It’s no wonder it wasn’t the hit most people expected it to be.

Since its release twelve years ago it has become an enormously popular cult classic that somehow still works on repeated viewings despite the plot twist, which I won’t give away here. The film’s relevance is just as strong today, if not more so than it was at the turn of the millennium. The nameless, office “everyman” of Edward Norton is still alive and well. While you have men beating each other to a bloody pulp it is balanced out by extended sequences where the characters wax philosophical about the place of man in today’s world and what is so wrong about the way we currently live our lives. It is thought provoking, not what I can say about many films even today.

I credit Chuck Palahniuk and David Fincher for creating a world where these characters stew in the never ending bleakness that society has created around them and in which they contently live. Where bigger is not always better and where the solution is not always an upgrade; my favorite film – Fight Club.

Day 1: Favorite film

Day 2: Least favorite film

Day 3: Favorite comedy

Day 4: Favorite drama

Day 5: Favorite action

Day 6: Favorite horror

Day 7: Favorite animated feature

Day 8: Favorite thriller

Day 9: Favorite musical

Day 10: Favorite foreign film

Day 11: Favorite kid’s movie

Day 12: Favorite love story

Day 13: Favorite chick flick

Day 14: Favorite documentary

Day 15: Favorite play adaptation

Day 16: Favorite book adaptation

Day 17: Least favorite book adaptation

Day 18: Film that is your guilty pleasure

Day 19: Film that made you cry the hardest

Day 20: Movie with your favorite actress

Day 21: Movie with your favorite actor

Day 22: Movie you wish you could live in

Day 23: Movie that inspires you

Day 24: Movie with your favorite soundtrack

Day 25: Movie with the most beautiful scenery

Day 26: Movie you’re most embarrassed to say you like

Day 27: Movie with your favorite villain

Day 28: Movie with your favorite hero

Day 29: First movie you ever remember watching

Day 30: Last movie you watched

Advertisement