Film Series: Hit Movies with Matty - Fight Club

Matty joins me again today to talk about another big movie from 1999, David Fincher's Fight Club. Does it age well? Listen in to find out!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.

(00:29):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush. Hitting Movies with
Maddie Edition. Matt's back. Everyone. We had such a good
time talking to Matrix. Uh and everyone was so overcome
by our cheer joy. Matt said, let's keep it going
with more hit movies, and let's talk about a movie
that was number fifty four that year that the Matrix

(00:51):
came out on the Box Office Mojo list. Is this
another jam? It is? Wow? Was that accident? It was?
It came out on October when it was it was
earlier in the year. I want to say March or
May way, I've got in my notes right here, it
was March thirty one. People are writing books are about

(01:13):
movies of that year. Now, it's hard to believe that
was twenty years ago. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, production budget
just before we do anything else for this. Yeah, I
got sixty five million, six sixty five is what I'm seeing,
and it only grows thirty seven. But then it sold
six million DVDs. It did, and it says worldwide gross

(01:35):
in theaters over time was a hundred almost a hundred
one million, So yeah, it broke even, I guess, plus
the DVDs. That's nice. Well, let's go ahead and talk
about a couple of the behind the scenes things before
we get into it. I guess I read today that
David o' russell was supposed to direct this thing. It
was option for ten grand. Did you read the book? No?

(01:58):
I did not. Unfortunately I read the book after the movie.
Well You're a good man. Not necessarily. I was way
into this though, and we'll get to that and how
much I was into it then and how much I
am into it now. But um, David Russell, it was
brought to him. He didn't understand it, so he passed.
Fincher was way into it and saw it as a
wake up call against malaise. But he also felt like

(02:20):
he was making a satire. And the quote that I
saw from him was, this is as serious about blowing
up buildings as the graduate is about sucking your mom's friend.
And apparently he and Ed Norton had a lot of
clashes on the set because Ed Norton thought it was
a straight up comedy and so they kept having and
while Fincher thought it was had comedic elements and was

(02:44):
a satire, he they had a lot of disagreements about
tone interest as they were shooting, and they said there
were many many days where other actors were just wandering
around because he and and Fincher Ed Norton Finch were
just debating incessantly. Well, it certainly comes off in the
tone that they were, you know, not battling a line.

(03:06):
I think they found, at least in the edit bay,
they found the tone that is this extremely dark, funny
humorous many times Uh feel yeah, but uh, that's funny. Well,
now that I know that, though, I'm thinking about some
of these scenes with Ed Norton, and he's sort of
playing it for comedy more than I ever realized. I

(03:28):
don't want to jump too far in but jump around
when he's fighting himself in the boss's office to slapstick, right, yeah,
I mean it is slapstick just on the surface in
the in the writing of what's happening there, but the
way he plays it, the way he plays a lot
of that stuff. There's that scene at the end where he's, uh,
the cops have him on the table and he steals
the gun, and the way he jumps off the table

(03:49):
to get up and and threaten the guys is like
very comedic and slapsticky. Oh yeah, it's sort of all
over the place, and I never really like I took
this movie pretty seriously when I was twenty eight. Yeah,
it was you were a kid. It was the same
year that I saw The Matrix, which was what again,
you were I was a freshman, so okay in high school.
So yeah, I can't imagine being what I was fourteen

(04:14):
years old and seeing Fight Club. Yeah, it wasn't feel
like it was made for eight year olds. Well no,
it's sortaly it was made for people who had been
in the grind for a little right, Um. And it's
weird to watch it now at thirty six working at
this company for thirteen years, Right, I view it a

(04:34):
little differently. I can't wait to talk about this. Uh.
It always Also famously, um Fincher had no control over
the marketing and clashed a lot, apparently with a marketing group. Um,
and they said, they told him, we don't know who
this movie is for. Men don't want to see Brad
Pitt with his shirt off because it makes them feel

(04:55):
bad about themselves, and women don't want to see him
with a bloody face. So we don't know who to
sell this to that's what the that's what the marketing geniuses. Yeah,
but interesting, I wonder, I wonder how that actually plays
through because my my wife is a year younger than
I mean, we're in the same I guess grade level,

(05:15):
but she's a year younger than me. And she really
really enjoyed this movie. And she was a kid, and
she in her high school to a thirteen year old
girl like you in this movie. Well, I mean she
I don't know how to characterize her. She was she
was really cool and into art and music and like
really cool advan of music. Yeah, and in her high

(05:39):
school yearbook she used a quote about I believe it's
the we are the all singing, all dancing crap of
the world, a senior quote or something. Yeah, it was
that one. Or I think I did some dumb YouTube song.
It was up the moment. I pretty sure mine was
what was your biblically based? Well, I think my YouTube
quote was one of their biblically based songs? And there

(06:00):
you go. I'm not saying I think I know it was.
I was just I was hoping it would have been
the same Jars of Clay reference or something. I was
never into that, I will say that. Uh. And it's
interesting to look to where the sits in uh. Fincher's career.
So he debuted with Alien three, which is nuts, so
like that was his first film. Then he made the set, uh,

(06:21):
the Seven. Then he made Seven in the Game before
Fight Club, so he had some currency because seven was
a pretty big hit in the game. I don't know
how big of a hit it was, but it was
pretty well regarded, I think so the Michael Douglas the game, Yeah,
not bad. Uh. And then after this he did Panic Room, okay,
Zodiac Masterpiece but did not make money probably, no doubt it.

(06:46):
Um Benjamin Button, which I didn't like that movie then,
and I certainly don't think it holds up. Well did
you like it? I remember watching it and not being
you know, not walking out of the theater. You weren't offended,
but I was just like, Okay, yeah, man, it just
didn't do it for me. And it's weird for venture.

(07:07):
It's just not fentury. Yeah. Uh. And then he did
The Social Network of course, great film, the Dragon Tattoo
remake which I thought it was good, and Gone Girl,
which I loved. Yeah, still finish it, man, I mean
he's doing Mine Hunter now as a producer, and I
think he's directing a couple of those a season, but
in my opinion, knocked to those out of the park.
Yeah you like it, Yeah, big fan. I'm sort of

(07:30):
midway through season two. There you go, man, you gotta
wait till you get to Yeah. I think the little
Monster section. No, it's I'm right in the middle of that. Um.
I just don't think Mine Hunter is. I want more.
I don't care about the side stories really no, I
don't care about the guy in his family, and that's
certainly I'm kind of mad about this storyline going on

(07:52):
this year with his son. I don't want to spoil anything. Yeah, well,
you know it bugs me. All I want to see
is them interviewing ed kemper over a. Yeah. If he
was just a supporting character. They just brought him onto
the team to just go with him everywhere, and it
made the other people and the Manson stuff was cool too, obviously,
but you know the connection there to um oh, I can't.
I think it was his name, the partner of the

(08:14):
guy that John Douglas is based on. He's in Fight Club. Yes, yes,
his name was Robert Paulson in death, a member of
Project Mayhem has a name. Yeah, And you know what's
funny is one of our old longtime listeners from Stuff
You Should Know and Movie Crush is Robert Paulson. And
he's a he's a location manager and scout in l

(08:36):
A whoa. So we've been in touch over the years
about a lot of stuff, movie stuff, and I always
kid him. You know, his name is Robert Paulson forever
and he's listening to this right now. Oh my god. Well, hey, hey, Robert,
I hope you're doing well. I'm glad they did not
do what they did to meet your meat low version.
So this is it just feels very much especially watching

(08:57):
it now many years later. I saw it a bunch
of times back then, um, and like I said, it
was way into it. But it feels now very much
like an end of the millennium movie. Yes, and like
a perfect sort of coalescence of time and place and
director and writer, like it all really fit. Oh man,
you're you know. I couldn't agree more, especially and it's

(09:20):
so weird that we watched the Matrix, or you know,
we did the Matrix and then this one, and it
was just an idea we had had nothing to do
with the year or the technology of the time and
all that, but all those conversations we had about imagining
the cell phone, um in the matrix and the sunglasses
and some of the technology, and then thinking about the
way technology is represented in this movie, things like Star

(09:42):
sixty nine is is in this movie? Um? Yeah? And
I was thinking, I do we have to explain what
Star sixty nine is? Two people? We might as well.
I mean, I think movie crushers are pretty savvy, but yeah,
go ahead, So okay, okay, everybody listening about back in
the day, so on your old landline generally, and then

(10:03):
even with cell phones for a time there, for mobile phones,
you didn't have a thing that told you who was calling.
It was just yeah, your phone would just ring and
you'd pick it up. You'd say hello, remember that surprise?
Who could it be? But I had a neighbor in

(10:23):
a friend of mine who lived in my neighborhood. His
father would make fun of me just consistently because I
would call the number to talk to my friend. The
father would pick up the home landline, the only phone
in their entire house, and he would say hello, and
I would say hello, this is Matt Frederick and he says, hello,
this is just a second. And he always made fun
of me because I would always announce myself that's cute,

(10:46):
because you're a good kid. Nobody knows who you are
in that situation. Yeah. So Star sixty nine was if
you could if someone called and hung up or something,
you could then pick up your phone dial Star six
nine and would it call it back. Yeah, it would
call the last number connected to your phone. I never
really used it. Um, yeah, I would call the last

(11:07):
thing back. But those are also the days of like, uh, ship,
I got call waiting hold on? Yeah. Uh. Here's there's
another thing that shows up in this movie pretty heavily
before we get into chronologically some of the stuff here. Um,
but CRT monitors. There are probably some people who haven't

(11:28):
really interacted with CRT monitors very much, Which was that
was just those big, huge green computer monitors. Right. Yeah,
they used a completely different technology to display stuff on
a screen where it was using this weird I was
going to say particle agun but it's a very different
way to display things than liquid crystals, right, And thank

(11:49):
god for liquid crystals are written a display because I
watched this movie on my laptop, something that you could
not have done back then. I didn't have laptops. That's right.
When was the first laptop? I think that was pretty
twenty years ago, but they were just as huge CRT behemoths. Yeah,
but this is the technology that existed, this kind of
stuff as we're moving to this new millennium, Like we're

(12:10):
talking crazy like because Fight Club seems so um, not
futuristic like the Matrix, but just so like it feels modern, modern,
and it now it feels dated because I guess just
twenty years on, you know. Yeah, but there's the camera
stuff though certainly holds up all that stuff he was

(12:31):
doing with the and what was he doing there? Do
you know? That wasn't CG? Was it? And when the
camera's flying around like through pipes and up through the
stove and all around and like how was he doing that?
Some of that is c G? I think. I mean,
I don't, I don't know. I didn't watch it behind
the scenes thing in preparation for this or anything, but
I I could tell there are a couple of places.

(12:54):
If you think about the first thing you see in
this movie, the gun sights, it's but well, you start
off as the credits are, the titles are coming off
with people, you're inside a brain essentially, right, those are
like synapses firing and stuff, right, But all that CG. Right,
And you're just pulling through all this stuff for a
long time, through all this CG. Then finally you get
that CG gun barrel as the camera is going across

(13:17):
it holds up. Yeah. Um so I don't think, at
least it feels that way. Maybe somebody correct us, maybe
that was all done practically, And I just don't know
was CG. Because I'm not mistaken. I used to own
this on DVD and had the and like really dove
into the making of and the behind the scenes stuff.
I really love this movie back in the day, Matt, Dude,

(13:37):
my wife is the same way it was. It was
speaking to me like, I'm I'm so interested in where
you were. How did you say you were? You were
like twelve? I was. I was twenty eight, and it
wasn't speaking to me and the uh like and we'll
talk about all the problematic stuff now, but like I
didn't want to be in a fight club, but it
did sort of ding me as a bit of a

(13:57):
wake up call. I wasn't in the system and the
corporates is him or anything. But this made me not
want to be in it even more. Yes, and it
made me want to issue consumer culture a bit more.
And I think, you know you're not your car, you
are not your fucking slacks, or you know your your
khakis khaki great line and all the lines, I mean,
this is all Chuck. How do you pronounce his name anyway?

(14:20):
Oh the pania, I've never known exactly how to say it.
But this is all straight from the book, like every
bit of juicy choice dialogue, every great line was from
his brain. And there's so many. I was, so, I've
got a notes, you know, I make just within my
my Apple computer. I make notes when I'm taking this

(14:41):
and I try and transcribe, you know, something that I
really really like. And my wife was getting so pissed
at me less because well, I would pause for a second.
She's like, this is my movie and it's in one
of those great monologues that generally Tyler Dirton would give
sometimes a narrator. It's it's funny too. It's even kind

(15:02):
of weird to talk about the movie shot because he
didn't have a name. Yeah, he is named Jack. I guess, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, Jack's Amygdala or whatever. But um, oh god, yeah,
I've I transcribed a whole bunch of stuff. And at
some point in here, I've got a note that says

(15:24):
Chuck and Matt should recite a scene. So I don't know, Well,
we'll get to that. We can, we can do that.
I don't mind. I got a lot of my favorite lines.
We used to read pornography and now it's the Horsehow collection.
That's the first one I have on my list. Oh man.
But this was shot by Jordan cronin With and I
have a I have a bit of a story here.

(15:46):
Matt Jordan cronin With as a brother named Tim who
came to Atlanta to shoot a TV commercial from l A.
I worked on this TV commercial as a p A.
Tim's sister, Christie was on the job and we ended
up doing a little hugging and a kissing while she
was in town from l A. And that developed into

(16:08):
a very very short, brief whirlwind romance to where I
went up to l A a a couple of times and
like I was debating on moving to l A. And
she was sort of like the straw where I was like,
I'm definitely moving to l A now because I thought
I had this great new girlfriend. She and jeez, I
hope if someone knows her and like tells her about this,

(16:30):
you probably forgot all about me, I'm sure. But she
goes on a cruise with her mom sort of in
the middle of this long distance thing that was brand new,
and uh, comes back from the cruise and has a
boyfriend broke my heart and I made a short film
about it. You can look it up on YouTube called

(16:52):
technical Knockout. I don't think it's probably pretty hard to find.
And the last time I saw like YouTube, the it
looks so shitty now the last time I looked at
it because it was from the earliest days of YouTube,
and like all their stuff is different now or whatever
their compression or whatever, so it doesn't look good anymore.
But it looked okay at the time. So if I

(17:12):
was going to search for it, search terms would be
technical knockout, Chuck Charles or probably I mean, did you
have a production company? Yeah, I think I called myself
Mudpie Pictures back in the day. Let me see here. Well,
while you're looking for it, just let me finish up.
So Christie, Uh wow, that's one of the first things

(17:34):
that came out came up when I typed it. I
must have looked at it recently. I'm not seeing it
I post. I posted it not too long ago on
the movie crush page. Yeah, it's really hard to find now.
That's probably good. So anyway, my dumb little heart was
broken because I was young and stupid and thought, you know,

(17:55):
this Whirlwind romance was like the big thing. And uh,
needless to say, I moved to l A anyway, and
I think we kept in touch a little bit after that,
but not really. So her dad, all right, I got
this wrong. Her brother is Jeff that's who shot it,
and her other brother was Tim, who did the commercial.

(18:15):
Her dad was Jordan's who shot a little movie called
Blade Runner, whoa and was a huge, huge DP and
um so she was telling me all these stories about
going to the Blade Runner set and growing up in
Malibu and hanging going to high school with like sucking
uh Rob Low and the Esta Vezza's and all this
stuff and Sean Penn and She's like Malibu was different
back then. It was just this little small town. It

(18:37):
wasn't a movie Starry and so you know me, stars
are in my eyes in a big, big way. Yeah.
And so anyway, it never it never happened. But she
is in this movie. She has a very small part, uh,
the part at near the beginning, about twenty minutes in
where he's going to the airport and he goes to
a ticket agent and she's like, she has one line
that's her. Oh no way, I remember that. So everything

(19:00):
worked out great because I moved to l A and
that's where Emily and I became good friends and then
started hugging and kissing. And then I made a business
where you're now spouse makes soap. Then, yes, exactly, and
she always gets kidded about fight club to this day.
People walk into emily shop and say, is this made
from the soap from Ladies Asses or from the fat

(19:22):
from Ladies Asses? And she's like, I'm really tired of
hearing that. I know. Sorry Emily. Anyway, that's my cronin
west story. It all worked out for everyone. I'm sure
she's doing great. Uh and probably has no memory of
any of this. Yeah, well, who knows. You never know.
You may get, you know, an interesting email in a

(19:42):
couple of days. Here, I doubt it. So I also
have a great meat love story. Uh that is very quick.
My friend John, it's still my really good friend. When
he was in l a briefly dated uh meat Loaf's
wife's assistant, personal assistant. So I hang hung out a
meat Loaves house of few times. He wasn't there, but
like got to know his daughter a little bit, and like,

(20:05):
you know, towards the meat Loaf house, it was cool.
It's like a colonial but you know, I had like
all his memorabilia and gold records and it was cool. Wow.
So anyway, those are my two brushes with fame from
this film. He by the way, in this movie, he's
pretty fantastic as Bob. Oh my gosh, he's so good.

(20:26):
I mean, not only is he so physically transformed just
from the character that he's playing, but he he commits
so fully to that character. Yeah, and he's the one,
He's the character that really gets it all going because
at the beginning of the film, Ed Norton is going
to these support groups, becomes addicted to these groups, which
I think is a really interesting thing to explore because

(20:46):
of Bob. Because of Bob, and Bob's the one who
kind of gets him going on the whole thing like
he's the key piece. He really is that It's it's
a scene I forgot about again. We're gonna jell around
a lot. I know that kind of happens on the show,
and I love going through it a little more chronologically.
But the scene where Project Mayhem is is officially on

(21:10):
and they're at that house and on paper Street, you
mean where they become a terrorist organization, and not just
like it's no longer homework in sealed envelopes. It is
now guys showing up where with one two black shirts,
two black socks, personal burial money. But you know, the
first recruit gets in and a couple of others maybe

(21:32):
get through. But then Bob is standing there and Tyler
Dirton comes out and it's like you're too old, Fatty,
get out of here, and he's like all right, and
he just starts walking down and then the narrators like
you see you don't hear anything, but you see the
narrator go to him and say ostensibly like no, Bob,
it's okay. It's part of the thing, just part of
the test. Yeah, And they called him meat to two.

(21:54):
By the way, that's how you're supposed to refer to him.
But Meat was great. Meat. Really He's like, call me
meat crap, I know. I mean, what would you think
you'd think he just used his real name in real life? Right? Yeah, absolutely,
I said they said to call him meat. That was
my understanding. Oh man. All the acting is great. I mean,

(22:23):
Brad Pitt is great, ed Norton's awesome, and Helena Bottom
Carter is fucking awesome. Yes, she like steals this movie
in a lot of ways. I think, yes, Marla she does.
She is in a lot of ways. Or she functions
at least as a clear vision of what is occurring
within the narrator's mind as her her perspective at least,

(22:48):
whether we we don't realize it, especially on your first
viewing this movie, is you're so rewarded the second time
you start this movie up, especially if it's soon after
you watched it the first time, because it is it
does create a nice circle, right, and then you see
the whole movie with new eyes, and when you look
at when you look at let's say, the narrator sitting

(23:12):
at that paper street house um which they built, by
the way, dude for this awesome set. But he's sitting
there in the kitchen and he's just eating something and
talking tomorrow low while we're walking around the way she
reacts to him in the words he says, you can
see it in her eyes. You can see it, uh,
and just in her performance, in the words that she

(23:33):
responds with, exactly what's going on? If if you're if
you're really listening, you can read the entire movie through
through her perspective. I think, yeah, because the reality is
that she's in a relationship with a really fucked up
guy who treats her like ship part of the time
and is a normal part of the time. And she
says that at the end of the movie, you know,

(23:53):
in the whole spilled the Beans segment. But yeah, I mean,
she's and it's weird to see this movie is a
forty eight year old because all I can think of
is poor Marlae. Back then, I didn't really think about
it that much. Yeah, But and you know, and I
guess that kind of takes us to one of the
problems in this movie. It was like, the the number

(24:14):
of female characters with important roles is uh, one one, Yeah,
And and that important role doesn't even get expanded very much.
I mean a little bit, but I mean that's how
it was written in the book. Um. Well, and it's
also about the larger themes that this movie is trying
to to tackle. Like I don't, I don't know, you know,

(24:34):
I'm not a film theorist, but I would say it's
largely about a perceived emasculation of the American male. Um.
It has certainly been co opted for that. Well, I mean,
it wasn't its original purpose. Dude, it's I mean, it's
right on the face with a lot of this stuff.
And and there there's an anger. There's a level of

(24:56):
anger at women I think, or at least discontent with
um monogamous heterosexual relationships. There seems to be like a
real uh, I don't know, it's not and it's not
anti that nes No, it is. I mean again, it's
a lot of the writing, like you said, it's complicated.
I mean, there's the one line where Tyler says we're

(25:22):
a generation of men. There he's in the tub and
they're having the conversation about their parents and Ed Norton
is talking about how his dad left, and Tyler is
talking about how his dad said, you know, do this
now go to college, now get married, and ed Norton's
kind of nodding like, yeah, same here, obviously same guy.
But uh. He says at that point where a generation

(25:42):
of men raised by women, I'm wondering if another woman
is really the answer we need. Yes, I rewounded a
couple of times, and inflection is really key in that line,
because he could be saying I'm wondering if another woman
is really the answer we need or like really the
answer we need need. It's all in how he says it,
and he says it in sort of a between way there.

(26:04):
I'm not even quite sure what he means. Yeah, you know,
it certainly feels like I don't know it feels to me,
and the way I read it was we don't need
another woman, there's no reason to have another woman. It's
certainly but comes across that way. But in the end
we realize that that is indeed what the narrator wanted

(26:25):
or needed um in Marla, to have a true connection
to another person, right Like that's he was missing a
true close connection to anybody in his life and he
finally achieved that at the end. Yeah, I mean, it
weirdly becomes this little love story at the end, because
the last you know, I think that the Reddit dudes

(26:48):
stop this movie twenty minutes from the end every time
they watch it, because the last twenty minutes of this film,
he's trying to undo everything he's done, and you kind
of forget that, like once he learns what's happening, he's
going to the cops. He's trying to stop it. He's
trying to find Marla, and like that doesn't fit the
narrative of the of how this movie has been co

(27:09):
opted by the men's rights movement. Yeah, you're right, but
it's still a crazy abusive relationship that he's in. No
matter what right, that would require so much healing for
both people in that relationship if there was going to
continue to move on. It's like it's a little a
bit mind boggling, but um, but you're you're you're totally right.

(27:31):
There is a redemption there that that is occurring, with
lots and lots of an attempted redemption at least. Yeah,
but also at the end, you know, he like it's
certainly not a feminist film because at the end he says,
you know, and met you at a very strange time
in my life, and they hold hands and it's all
sweet while the buildings come down, Like what she should
be saying is fucking you man. Well, and she does

(27:53):
I'm so out of here that great scene right right
before the end, right before the big turn when he
goes to the ops, when I think they're in the
diner or something, and she's just like, na, dude, if
you yeah, I'm getting out of here. And uh. But
again he's a like he does the thing where he
doesn't want to see where she's going, just gives her

(28:14):
a bunch of money, just say just get out of here,
to leave I don't you know, right, because he's trying
to save her. Yeah. Oh man, it's a mixed bag.
It's certainly. Seeing this movie twenty years on is it
was a much different experience for me because I was
into the like I said, I was into the anti
consumerism angle and and this movie sort of starts innocently
enough like that um railing against things like Ikea and

(28:40):
getting that job and having that status, and I'm all
down with that. But then it becomes something else. Then
they become a terrorist organization. Yeah, Like he gets so
out of hand, but I didn't see it his out
of hand back then I was like, yeah, man sucking anarchy.
We fight the man, bring down the banks. That's a
that is Oh my god. So that version of you

(29:01):
was me when I was guest producer Matt back in
the day on stuff you should Know, and I was
like writing you all those like insanely liberal things like
all the time on social media and like just talking
to remember, like that version of me, sure that is.
That was my stage right in my like mid late twenties,
when I was just like, we've got we've got to

(29:23):
burn this institution laden terrible cesspool to the ground. Right um,
But not really, not literally, please don't take my words
really in that way. It's just I just meant we
have to reform so much because everything is broken, that
feeling rum and now and now. Um, you gotta work

(29:43):
within the system to make small changes in order to
make big As Obama would say, he said, you gotta
steer that that mammoth cruise liner two inches in the
right direction, so in twenty years it ends up in
a very different place. That is a very inspiring thing
to say, you know, I would agree. I'm I'm a

(30:03):
little more pessimistic unfortunately really in my later days about
the whole thing, and not not in like a you
gotta burn the thing to the ground. It's more like
it doesn't matter. Um anyway, does any of it matter? Matt?
That's u But it a lot a lot of this
goes back to I was trying to find I was
trying to really understand the primary motivation for that disconnection.

(30:29):
You know, the insomnia that he that our narrator is
experiencing so I couldn't sleep. Yeah, I thought that was
really cool. Yeah. And and he's again he's like, not
pursuing relationships with anyone, but he's saying it's almost impossible
to have these relationships now, especially in the nature of
his job where he's traveling all the time. What does

(30:51):
he call them? Single serving friends? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And
he's tried to explains one of my favorite scenes when
he tries to explain it, Yes, you see have this thing,
and he's like, oh, no, I get it. It's very clever.
How's that working out for you? Clever dude. But in
that same I think it's that same scene where he's
having he starts that conversation with the person sitting next

(31:12):
to him is in the plane, um, and it's it's
this woman that he's explaining to her the nature of
his job specialists, the mathematics of it. Yeah. I still
fully get chills up my spine when I see that,
because I'm sure that's how it works. And yeah, and
he's just explained like, if if it costs more for
us to do a recall than it does to fight

(31:35):
a couple of handful or however many hundred or accidents, yeah,
then we just don't do the recall. She's like, who,
which company do you work for? She's just like a
major one And she's like, and how often does this?
Did these crashes happen? He's like, more than you would
more than you know, or something like that. You wouldn't believe,

(31:55):
you wouldn't. Oh man, Yeah, I mean that had such
an impact on me at the time, and that part
still does. Ah. I love how he calls marl a tourists,
too big tourists, You're just a tourist. She's always one
step ahead of him though, like she's the I mean,

(32:15):
she's she's fucked up in her as a character because
she's like stealing meals on wheels and she's gaming the system.
But she's sort of one step ahead of everybody, like
he's always the one chasing her, you know, exactly, dude. Well,
it's it's weird because their their relationship goes through some

(32:36):
of these very odd things. Because I think about the
death threat that you're, the suicide threat that she gives
to get him over or or I mean, I guess,
I mean, I'm assuming that's a way to get the
narrator slash Tyler to her house and it works. And
then also the call about she needs someone to inspect

(32:57):
her forces cancer. Yeah, um, yeah, it's so. But I'm
gonna I'm gonna get lost in this movie a little
bit because I end up latching onto some of the weird,
the metaphysical moments when Tyler and the narrator shouldn't be
able to be doing what they're doing at the same
time in my mind. But they still explain it pretty well,

(33:21):
and they give you that fantastic montage at the end
where you know, you get to see the security cam
footage of just the narrator fighting, but then the film
action sequence of Tyler and the narrator fighting. Yeah. See,
here's my thing is, I didn't like that as much
this time. I think I loved it at the time,
but today I was like, you know, I don't know

(33:42):
if you need all that It was that Scooby Doo
moment at the end where Brad Pitt fully explains everything
like no, that was me all along, that was me,
that was me doing or that was you? How long
it was you doing this? That was you? And when
it blew my mind right out of the fucking back
of my head when I saw it then. But now
I's like, I don't know if you needed all that stuff.

(34:03):
And then I started really second guessing, like all the
things like he shot himself through the cheek, yet Tyler
is shot through the head. Yeah, I don't know. I
started maybe I overthought it for the first time today.
There were there are a lot more details there then,

(34:23):
And you know what it is over analyzation because if
you're in the moment, you're watching the movie and you're
you're not even thinking about them being the same person
in the beginning, it doesn't even phase you. Um on
the second viewing, you probably notice it this time. But
I've seen this movie so many times at this point
that they're there are little moments now that I've just

(34:46):
never caught before because I'm already on autopilot watching the
movie kind of because I know what's coming and I
know the beats and I feel it, and I'm excited
that they're coming. But yeah, I'm looking at the periphery
of the screen sometimes with the frame. What did you
catch this time? Anything like there were there were a
whole bunch in here. Oh man, I've got too many
notes now, I'm never gonna be able to find it. Um. Well,

(35:06):
there's so many hints throughout the film about the fact
that he is one and the same and I believe
and and I marked a bunch of him here. I
think the first one is we have the exact same
briefcase on the plane, Yeah, which is when they first meet. Yes. Well, actually,
I don't wanna, I don't want to disprove you or

(35:28):
anything right here, but I I did you write down
the first thing that said by our narrator narrator in
the movie? Oh, you mean the very beginning, the very
you see but that's at the end. Uh, what does
he say? People are always asking me if I know
Tyler Dirton right? Um? And then very soon after that

(35:49):
he says, I know this because Tyler knows this, right,
And they literally tell you at the very beginning. But
but like the way they tell you yeah, which is
which was so fascinating to me. It was. And also, uh,
I mean that's sort of the playful, not comedic, but
playful aspect of the film looking at it a second time,

(36:12):
like you know that if you can craft a movie
where it bears the second viewing, like where people leaving like,
oh man, I gotta see that again because then you
got to watch it through different eyes, like you've really
achieved something and it's all and it's also a bit
of you know, it's a bit of a sleight of
hand with getting more money out of someone's pockets. The
movie you gotta see twice unless you just hated it

(36:33):
the first time. Why didn't more people see this in
the theater? Because I think I'm pretty sure I saw
I saw it twice. At least I saw twice in
the theater. And I mean it feels like if they
had what do we say, whatever was thirty something million dollars,

(36:55):
uh you in the US in ticket sales, it's not much.
I mean, how many times well I don't know, me,
that's true. I wonder how many times people saw the matrix?
We would probably. I think I saw it like three times. Well,
I mean, fight Club was regarded as a as a
bomb by the studio until it cleaned up, you know,
with DVDs as cult film status. That's why the DVD

(37:17):
was so popular though, because you can and play the
scene again and watch fight Club sheez, then play like, uh,
you know, thump each other's knuckles. That's that was my
version of the fight Club. Oh dude, Yeah, I've never
been hit in the phase and I've never hit anybody.
That's what this is what I wanted to get into.

(37:38):
Never been in a fight in my life me, neither
really Yeah, good for you, dude, dude. I was bullied
like crazy in middle school. I was not bullied. I
never had the opportunity to get in a fight. So
it's not like I was some gandhi who would walk
away from a fight like I don't know. I just
try to get people like me from the beginning. We'll
see what that that's really good. You learned to be

(37:59):
funny and likable, Chuck. I learned how to play magic
the gathering, and it didn't help anything. It didn't help
an I don't love Neither one has ever been in
a fight. Maybe we should fight each other. I think
that would be the worst fight ever. I could never
Are you okay? Are you okay? That's all you would
ask each other, but that you're so right. The thing

(38:19):
about it is it does make me. I I it's
so weird. I have this thing. Okay, I'm gonna get
really real with you for here, for a moment um.
I have this thing where I have always wanted to
be in a fight because I want to know how
it feels. I want to know how my body would react.
I want to know how my mind would react. And

(38:39):
I'm entirely too into like m m a and fighting
like that. Not me actually physically doing it, but the
concept of, uh, two persons, two persons gladiator style, getting
into an enclosed space and just having to use their
will to prevail. Well, it's the most it's the original sport.

(39:03):
It's the most primordial. Uh. The thing is is two
people in combat with one another with their this yeah,
and well, and that's what this movie, you know, this
story is really getting at that most people walking around
in the world today, you know, have never been in

(39:26):
a physical altercation, or at least one with any real
Steaks and wanting for some reason viewing that as the
key to unlocking whatever it is inside of all of
us that is powerful, but not necessarily just alive. I think, yeah,
because it's not, well, it's not about being physically power powerful,

(39:47):
even though that is achieved they talk about in the
movie like you're within a couple of weeks, you're you're whatever. Um,
But it's it's the thing that Tyler always is trying
to get like through the chemical burn on the hand
of like losing everything. Yeah, so that you can do anything. Yeah.
I mean there is something to some of this, but

(40:11):
I don't know. It feels so like wrapped in a
just sort of a base way of thinking about things.
Like there's only one way to think about it in
this movie, which is, uh, you're not alive unless you
have unless you're living like me, Yeah, you've hit absolute
rock bottom and you are are this person who's dad abandoned. Like,

(40:35):
unless you're doing it this way, then you're just asleep man. Yeah,
And that's bullshit. Yeah. And at forty eight I see
that clearly, like the scene where they uh, the scene
where where they take the convenient store work out back.
I think when I saw that at twenty eight. I
was like, yeah, man, that guy's never gonna feel more alive.

(40:56):
And now I'm thinking, this poor guy has this job
not because that's what he aspired to do, because he's
trying to put food on the table. Now he's got
fucking ptsde on top of that, Like, you just made
his life worse. Dude, you did not save anybody. It
felt it felt different this time, like you said, that's

(41:17):
that's what I would say, especially you know, especially that
it's Um, I don't know, man, it's a This whole
movie is a bunch of largely bunch of white dudes
exerting their will, yeah, and saying this is the way. Yeah. Um,
but again we're in it's by the way, almost exactly

(41:40):
twenty years since this movie came out. Yeah, while we're
while we're in here, like ten days away or whatever. Yeah,
I mean, it's it's They didn't have the words toxic
masculinity back then to say what this is, but that's
really what it is. Like, while it doesn't happen in
the film, imagine if a woman came to Paper Street
with all those men there, like there's no way she

(42:01):
would have been treated with afforded any kind of respect. Well,
I mean Marla did and she did not get any respect, right, Well,
I'm in addition to but yeah, I mean we we
see a pretty heavy example there. Um. Yeah, it's there's
there are a lot of rough things to this and
I hope people listening out there don't think that we

(42:24):
I mean we were talking about it. We It's not
that we're blind to the problems with this movie. Now
they're all over the place. But I don't think that
that means we can't still enjoy it for the other reasons.
Because there are problems with this movie, I still appreciate
it for a film, and I think it's okay for
a film to make someone uncomfortable. And that's one of
the things I love about movies is it doesn't always

(42:45):
have to be something you agree with to elicit a reaction.
Like I love movies that can push a button and
make you angry yes uh, and make you see things
differently twenty years on. It's like reading a book, you know.
I read The Catcher in the Rye like every five years.
I was fifteen and as an experiment, and it's different
every time. The older I get, uh, And it's it's

(43:07):
just kind of the same thing with movies like this,
like it's okay too. At one point in life to
think this was the end alb all and gotta thought
the message was so bad ass, and then later on
being kind of like it's kind of bullshit. It's still
a great achievement, very well made film. Oh man, I
love again. It's it's a Fincher's style. A lot of
the time. It feels the the on the screen if

(43:31):
you're just if you're just looking at it for color
and contrast. He's he's so good, you know, working with
his DP just to get that um. He has a
style about him and it's really evident in seven and
in this movie of the Yeah, almost for for the
nineties movies. For me, it's about it's about this gritty

(43:56):
nature of everything has like a filth to it. This
is this movie is so dank and like yeah wet, yeah,
like everything feels moist. Yeah. Sorry for people who triggered
by that word, but especially once they get to Paper Street.
I mean that's one of the plot points, is like
the basement's always full of water, but the whole thing
like it just feels like there's mold growing on his movies. Yeah,

(44:17):
oh god, you know. But it's a texture thing though, too.
It makes it makes the uh the extreme blacks on
screen film more nuanced, right, Yeah, like there's more going
on there than just darkness. Yeah. I don't know. I
think he's one of the great directors. He apparently is
not a lot of fun on set. I've heard some

(44:38):
horror stories about him, like fucking throwing, you know, cameras
against the wall and stuff like that. I don't know
if it's true, but um, supposedly, I can imagine a hothead. Yeah.
But it is interesting though to look at some of
the messages that do still resonate, because I'm not throwing
out this whole movie, because when I hear a line
like the things you own end up owning you ye

(45:00):
at forty eight, I'm like, I know that now more
than ever. Oh my gosh, yeah, you know, and well
you know in okay, so let's go back to um,
same same guy that was there a freshman in high school,
the same kid. Um. You know, that concept was very
spiritual to me, of the things that you own, so
like the things of this world are not of any

(45:22):
import And I really truly felt that way Jesus's words. Yeah,
you know, yeah, they really are. And then he you know,
Tyler's biggest problem is with this the world of material
that we're so obsessed with that we've created a cult
around um that we nest with IKEA and and our
our identity are the things. And uh, that's that's why

(45:46):
you get to the scene where Project Mayhem is in
full swing and you get listen up, maggots. You are
not special. You are not beautiful or unique snow flakes.
You are the same, decaying organic matter is everything else.
We are you all singing, all dancing crap of the world.
We are all part of the same compost, heap and

(46:06):
the loudspeaker, over and over. Brainwashing, brainwashing. Yeah, so Chuck, Yeah,
would you, um, do you think you've ever been in
a cult before? Because I grew up Baptist. Is that
what you're getting it? I'm just getting it. I feel
like maybe we escaped maybe. Uh yeah, man, I mean

(46:32):
I think it's a great film because I can it's
still is confounding in uh in a lot of ways.
It's not black and white, because I can look at
certain things of it and still it gets get something
out of it. And other parts of it. I just
roll my eyes at now and think it's just a
bunch of crap. Yeah, uh, this, but it's interesting to

(46:52):
think of it in terms like this is an audience
member watching a movie. Like think about the character of
of Jack uh being so disgusted and lost within himself
that he creates this other identity to kill off the self.
Like when he's walking around and that's the Ikea catalog

(47:15):
and he's making fun of everything, like he's making fun
of himself, like he's becoming Tyler even before Tyler is there. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, you know, it's interesting to kind of
unpack that. Yeah, and then through insomnia he gets there
or what it is is he mentally ill? Well, he
goes to the doctor, right, Um, it's early on in
the movie. Yeah, when he wants pills. Yeah, and um,

(47:40):
the doctor's like, no, you can't die from insomnia. He's like,
he's the one that actually gets him to the support
groups exactly. Yeah, but that idea. He immediately says, what
about NARCOLEPSI I gnawed off. I wake up in strange places.
I have no idea how I got there. It's like, dude,
you need to lighten up. You need a healthy natural sleep,
choose some Valerian root and get some exercise. You can
go of good with one of these things. Yeah. But

(48:02):
but yeah, so he's he's fully dealing with a break
or or you know, a potential break and needs help
and instead he you know, gets this which is basically
like just take care of yourself. Yeah, and he does.
He just does it a little differently, right, And that's

(48:25):
what gets him going though on all these support groups though,
which really is what drives the plot forward. Oh yeah, dude,
I totally forgot the whole testicul the testicular cancer thing. Yeah,
that's why he's there, right. Yeah. But when we're getting
back to emasculation as like one of the major themes
in this um, the first place he goes is to
this meeting who are men dealing with testicular cancer? And

(48:47):
the guy telling the story is about his ex wife
they couldn't have a baby, and it's it's him, and
he ends up weeping because his ex wife is having
her first child, a girl, with her new husband, and
how happy he would have been. The whole thing is
how happy it would have been if it was him,

(49:07):
And uh, he's just crying and just like so sad
and um like, holy crap. Okay, so that's one of
the main stories you're gonna tell us right up front? Yeah,
I mean he's basically saying like, I'm gonna throw him
in a room with men who have lost their testicles. Yeah, like,
it's pretty on the nose. It's it's pretty crazy. Man.
I didn't think about that at the time, but yeah,

(49:29):
you're totally right. Well then then Bob's backstory, which another
thing I didn't think about. He was a power lifter
who uh, I won't even say the condition that they
call it. But yeah, he end up getting breasts because
of whatever diabonol and wist all. Yeah, exactly. Um. But
but also he's bankrupt, he's divorced, and his two kids

(49:51):
from his divorced wife won't call him back. It's all
just emasculation of and family. So it's like how family
has failed all of these men, essentially both their parents
and now the families that they've tried to create and
or at least a lot of them, and now they're
looking for something else. And instead of finding a new

(50:12):
another woman the way Tyler says in that seeing we
referenced earlier. There you are finding each other right and
beating the crap out of each other to feel something,
to feel something, to feel alive, to shake off that malaise.
So that's what this movie is about. It is and
it is funny to think about how into this I

(50:33):
was for someone who wasn't. I wasn't an anarchist. I
didn't want to fight people, but there was something about
this that shook me a little bit, you know, and
kind of slapped me in the face. I remember leaving
this theater feeling sort of invigorated. Yeah, you know, yeah,
and not like let me go out and start a
fight with someone, but just like, yeah, I'm a little

(50:53):
bit more awake than I was before. I would agree,
But also for me, I mean, and I will admit this,
Like I it did make me want to get in
a fight, but not in a bad way. I wanted
it to be the way they set up in the
movie where Tyler makes them all go out get into
a fight with somebody and lose, you know what I mean,
Like I wanted to just like that part, well, me too,

(51:14):
And it's again like that's where the comedy stuff comes
in from the soundtrack to the shots to the sporting
and preacher with the host. I mean, yeah, that part
in the other really comedic part on the thing we're
just on is the scene where Marla and and Jack
divide up the support groups. It's like, you take this one,
you can't have all of the brain. Like that's a

(51:36):
very sort of almost classic you know, man woman banter. Yeah,
comedy scene, it really is. But you know what, here's
something else I never read in or at least I
never read in the movie as I was watching before,
is Marla. Marla's reaction to traffic in that scene in
that early yeah, when she just walks out into traffic,

(51:57):
But it's not just once. It it's as though she's
impervious to traffic or something. And I started to think, well,
maybe Marla isn't actually there. Maybe and I know this
is not part of the fight club thing that he
created her too. Yeah, in my mind, at least I
can imagine if I was watching for the first time again. Actually, no,

(52:19):
I wouldn't think of it that way, But upon watching
it again, yeah, it feels like, well, maybe she's actually
a part of his imagination as well, like another piece
of him that he's had to splinter off. That would
have been the real mind funk at the end, as
if everyone walks in and they're like, you know, it's
just me and Marla and they're like, who's Marla? That's
the sequel. But Brad Pitt says, straight out, straight out,

(52:41):
you're talking a second ago about um the family for
everyone else and for them, for them, I'm saying that
for Tyler and Jack there, and I keep calling him Jack,
you know, just for the us. But he says straight up,
I'd fight. My dad is the first person he says
that he would fight. He'd go back and fight anyone.

(53:04):
And it's really an indictment against fathers in a lot
of ways because that's where he's talking about, where a
nation of men raised by mother by her mothers, like
our father's abandoned us and our fathers bailed on us.
Uh for that generation of men setting up franchises. Yeah,
setting up franchises. That's a great line. But then that's
exactly what Tyler does. He goes around the world and

(53:25):
they referenced that again, setting up franchises. Uh. Self improvement
is masturbation now self destruction, which is such a like
that's a line that I think really got me back
in the day, and now I hear that. I'm like
this so dumb. Self improvement is the best and that
is the only way for it as humans. Dude, you know, hey,

(53:47):
what do you think about the I remember a theory
back in the day, and and I don't think it's
actually a it's I don't think it's an actual reading
of the movie. But he's on the airplane. He's discussed,
you know, traveling and all that stuff. He falls asleep
and begins to dream about a mid air collision. Yeah,
that plane crashing. Insane you're talking about, like, how did

(54:10):
they get this done? How do they shoot this? I
don't remember the DVD extras. I've watched all of it
at some point in my life. I may have been
a little drunk back in the day when I was
in colluch or whatever, But I don't remember if all
of that, Like that's a if that's fully a set
that was like pull away stuff or was all c

(54:32):
G I. But anyway, that occurs and then he wakes
up in that seat, And I always wondered if there
was a reading where that that actually did occur and
he just died and the rest of this was like
it was all the dream. You know, there's always that
reading to be had somewhere in a movie where there's
something big that occurs where a mad character gets unconscious.

(54:53):
I bet there's someone on the Internet that is further
that and Champion that probably figured the whole thing out. Man. Yeah,
it's on Reddit, for sure. I keep making fun of Reddit.
I'm not on Reddit, so I have no idea what
it's like, but well, I love Reddit. Just putting that
out there. No great, And that's just to appease you
read it? Or is it? Do I actually love you? Why?

(55:13):
Because if you say you don't like redd, it are
they gonna come after you? I don't know. The dark
web is everywhere, man, I don't know anything about Reddit,
so um, I just know that when I was reading
up on fight Club at twenty and there are quite
a few articles about this. Yes, they say that Reddit
is where a lot of like is where Tyler Diddon
has becomes sort of the face of the men's rights movement.

(55:34):
Yeah that's uh, it's that great. No, not great? And
Chuck uh polanniuc is gay? Correct? Oh I don't know.
I think he is, which makes this all just a
little bit more interesting. I think, dude, one other thing,

(55:59):
There's so much to get into here, and just not
I don't want to to get away from that at all.
It's just I keep thinking about that mid air collision
scene and the statement that Tyler has about oxygen masks,
where the concept there is not that the oxygen is
actually to save you from not you know, smokinghilation or
whatever it is, is to make your dosside and accept

(56:21):
your fate. You're going down well. And then you connect
that back to the way he feels about stuff in
the world and all these things, and it's just all
meant to pacify us. And everything that we do within
the economic system is to consume. We're we're the all
consuming creatures of this planet and it and it um.

(56:43):
I don't know it it really, I don't even know
where I'm going with this, dude. I just know that
I sometimes even now feel as though I really am
pretty much a consumer in my everyday life outside of
you know, the the joint fulfillment I get from making
shows like this. Uh, I'm pretty much just buying things

(57:06):
and using things and throwing things away and then buying
new things and using things, and you can't get depressing
and people do need to check themselves. So if that's
what you're saying, then good. Yeah, I'm saying like, maybe
maybe there's a world where that is bad, not necessarily
bad on the surface, but it's not really healthy for us,

(57:27):
or maybe not fulfilling and maybe fighting like let's say
a martial arts class where you're actually honing your body
and getting some kind of spiritual fulfillment out of that
or something like that isn't a bad thing, but it
doesn't mean we need to beat each other up in
a darkened basement owned by lou Man. That's same with Luke.

(57:47):
Who are you, um fucking lou how and he's just
bleeding all over him acting crazy? Your word, lou God,
you don't know where I have been so dark? Yeah,
And the of it all like this movie almost as
like a hand in a glove with the matrix. As

(58:07):
different as they seem, they're both about being asleep and
not being awake in the real world. And I think
there was something about the the the Dawn of the
Millennium that like people were in a different mindset because
of that. I think, like, what does this mean for
humanity to cross over to the year two thousand into

(58:28):
a new century, and the Y two K bug was
looming and which ended up being nothing. And then everyone
woke up in two thousand and they're like, Oh, it's
really time marches on And it isn't no different. These
are all human constructs that we've put on this thing. Yeah.
I I would just say that I think humanity was
was ready for a change because it felt like we're new,

(58:50):
We're starting a new We know that there are a
lot of problems in our society. We know there are
a lot of problems with our economy, within the global economy,
within local ECOSM to me is the power structures that exist.
The um we were We were aware, we have been
as a society for a long time, aware that there's
this um issue of of lack of power for most people,

(59:15):
in massive power for a tiny, tiny few. And it's
been you know, we we all know it. We all
just kind of live our lives and we most of
us don't have any real power. We pretend like voting
is Sorry, I'm not gonna get on my soapbox, but
I know, you know it is a Voting is a
wonderful um privilege that we have that we were able

(59:37):
to cast our vote and use our voice and all
of that. But in the end, the way the system
really works when you look at the whole thing, right,
do we have a certain number of choices and and
those choices are largely decided for us? Yeah, and even
what we get, Like I've had friends that worked on
Capitol Hill and the true inside or stuff. It's just

(01:00:01):
like frightening that you don't even see the stuff on
TV and in the news, like what really goes on
and how things are really decided. It's all the corporations,
It's all. And I'm not being Mr. Tinfoil hat guy,
but I mean that's just the reality of it. The
lobby and the corporate lobby is so massive. It's just humans.
Regular humans can't change that. So at forty eight years old,

(01:00:26):
what I've decided is to like take my little small
world and my little small piece of it and do
as as good as I can, and do good things
in my house, on my block, in my community, and
try and make a difference in a little tiny ways,
like in the square mile around me. You know, have

(01:00:47):
you ever thought about running for like city council or
like a like low no seriously, I can can can Hey,
everybody listening, can you imagine if Chuck got to make
the decisions about what roads got to go where in
a small town. No, I get self righteous to everyone,
and it's just I would get corrupted Tyler's words coming

(01:01:09):
out of my mouth. And I used to be such
a nice guy. Yes, Oh, I remember that, such a
great scene with the boss, And that's one that I
that will look at now and think that's kind of
great when he when he manipulates his way out of
a job, out of going to work, but takes all
the money and all the stuff and the airline coupons.

(01:01:30):
That's one where I was still like, oh, that's pretty great. Yeah,
and funny, just that look the look on the boss's
face when the other employees opened the door and he's
standing there with his hands are all bloody, and the
narrator is just completely messed up. And that's that's when
the that's sort of the last thing he has to
lose two in order to move forward, because he's he

(01:01:53):
lost his apartment at the beginning, he lost he's losing
a sense of himself the whole time. But the final thing,
the final sort of peace like he's losing all these
material things, and the final piece to his regular life
is that job. Like he's got to lose that. Well,
it's one of the most important things because it's the

(01:02:16):
only place where where the narrator has to be, Like,
it's the only thing on his schedule is to be
at work from this tea. Yeah, now he is free
to be Tyler whenever. And that's when things really ramp
up with Project Mayhem. And that's where it changes for
me now mentally to where I'm like, yeah, this isn't
Robin Hood any longer, Like this is a full blown

(01:02:39):
terrorist group. Yeah, is what's happening in front of my eyes.
And I didn't see it that way back then. You know,
blow up, blow up the buildings. And now all I
can think of it's like, how many people were hurt
and killed? Well, yeah, I know, and those buildings came down,
and they made it, may make it such a big
deal of you know, these are all our people, all
the all the working class people who were in those buildings.

(01:03:03):
We got everybody out and it's fine, right at least
they say that, and then they blow up just blocks, yeah,
blocks of buildings. I mean, I thought the same thing
when I saw that Superman movie and they destroyed the
city Metropolis and that big fight scene in the end,
all I can think about was all those people that
are dying because of this, and like Superman is the cause. Yeah,

(01:03:26):
or at least a willing participant. A Superman was retroactively
saving everybody after the things came down. Yeah, he reconstructively.
Are you doing anything? It's good. I will say though,
that this third act, like obviously the surprises you can
only experience that once the big reveal, and it was

(01:03:46):
mind blowing when we all saw it for the first time.
The second viewing is so exciting because you get to
go back and look at all that stuff like we're
talking about um and seeing it now like that is, uh,
you can still delight. I think in some of this stuff,
Oh yeah, the surprise isn't there. But like watching it today,

(01:04:06):
I was like, that was really cool. That part where
he finally gets that guy in the bar that's exactly
wanted to talk about with the head cage and he goes,
you're Mr Dirton, You're the one who gave me this,
and he shows him his scar and please return your
seat back to its upright and lock position. We just
lost Cavin Fretcher. Yes, it was great. Oh my god,

(01:04:26):
it's so great. And and I actually wrote the whole
thing out because it's, um, we don't have to do
this whole thing. But just the fact that he walked in.
You know, you're going through this montage of him going
to all these places and he's saying, yeah, He's like,
was I asleep? Had I slept? Is Tyler my bad dream?
Or am I Tyler's? Um? I was living in a

(01:04:47):
state of perpetual deja vu. Everywhere I went, I felt
I had already been there. It was like I was
following the invisible man. I was always just one step
behind Tyler. Then he walks into that place and they're
saying his name was Robert Paul. Yeah, and he's like, wait,
what the hell, and that dude just like, oh, welcome back, sir,
how you been? Yeah? Have we met? It? Holds up? Man?

(01:05:10):
It was it was. It was cool. I mean, it's
one of the great twists in movie history, you know.
I mean it's up there, and uh, I didn't see
it coming the first time, I remember distinctly. And as
it was sort of building towards this, I don't remember
if I was thinking, like Waites he him. I think
I was just so in the movie that I was

(01:05:31):
just letting it happen for me. Oh yeah, I wasn't
trying to figure it out, No, I I because when
you're doing that, you're not watching the film anymore. Yeah,
in the moment, you're the stakes are so high that
exists outside of whether or not he's Tyler Dirton. Yeah,
you don't really care, at least for me, That's how
it was, because you're like, oh my god, he's what

(01:05:53):
are they doing with all that soap? Those are explosives?
Oh god, he's trying he's finding all these things. Wait,
why is he doing? You know, you're thinking about all
that off and they're giving you pieces of all that
while they're telling you on the face if you know
what's going on, I'm Tyler Dirton. I'm Tyler Dirton literally
through the whole movie. Yeah, yeah, oh sure. I mean
it's all over the place once you go back and
start looking at it, And I was noticing even more

(01:06:13):
and more things like at this this thirty viewing or
whatever it was. Um, but I'm still not sure about
the scene where he explains everything at the end. I
didn't hate it, but I think what I would like
to see as a version without it, because I don't
think it would suffer. Is it just the scene? Is
it just the scene where Tyler appears in the hotel room,

(01:06:36):
just that scene where he's going it was me, you
were being all along like I just don't think it
needs it, or at least like to test it out
and see if that was gone if you miss it,
But then you would miss that one shot where where
the narrator is having a beer on the curb and
he's he's like, oh, yeah, that's really great. He hands

(01:06:58):
the beer over and just it just falls on the ground.
I don't love that. Now he still loved Yeah, that's
all right. And also I love I love that first
fight that he has with Tyler when he's out, when
he's out in that bar and then a bunch of
those guys. It's not the first fight, but it's one
of the times where he's fighting on the parking lot
and those guys, um, what do they say? Those guys

(01:07:23):
come out and they're just like, what do we have here?
And they just walk over to him and you think,
like sure, like why are these two guys fighting, but
in their reality it's like, what the hell is this
guy doing out here by himself? Yeah, that's really funny.
I didn't think about that. Uh. And then you know
that last that last scene is is truly great. You know,

(01:07:45):
the only way out there is to put that gun
in his mouth or at least that's what as far
as the film is concerned, um, or at least that
realization that you know, Tyler is holding a gun. Wait, no,
the guns in my hand. Like that was cool. And
that last line he said, as you know, it's like
I want you to listen or whatever he has. My
eyes are open. He shoots himself and then Brad Pitt

(01:08:07):
I forgot about the line. Yes, he just goes, what's
that smell? It's your's your brains and the smoke coming
out of his mouth and all that stuff was really
well done. I think, Oh yeah, well in the and everybody, um,
all the other Project Mayhem guys show up and they
see him like that. Yeah, as they're getting on the

(01:08:29):
elevator like I can't believe he's standing. There's one tough motherfucker.
And one of the great last lines in movie history
I think is, uh, you met me at a very
strange time in my life. It's great. Oh my god,
still holds up. So I wrote, can I just tell
you the very end? Remember last time it was just

(01:08:49):
my reaction and we both reactions to the end. Okay, um,
and this is what I've got. Who did this? I
did actually find some gauze you shot yourself. Yes, but
it's okay. I'm really okay. Trust me, Everything's gonna be fine.
Pixees holding hands, buildings fall. You met me at a

(01:09:12):
very strange time in my life, with your feeding in
the air and your head on the ground, trying to
trick you in. Yeah, your headl claps and there's nothing
in it. And you'll ask yourself, nice big cock subliminal
dick pick? Yeah, where's my mind? That's exactly that's the
sequence there. Yuh. But we didn't even talk about Tyler

(01:09:33):
showing up in uh in those quick little flashes like
a couple of frames throughout the movie, and he did
it very early on. There's one. I didn't catch any
of those the first time I saw it. Oh no,
And I don't think you're into but it's just but
now it's funny, like maybe you're looking for them and
you're subconscious or something. It's like by the copier when

(01:09:55):
they're at a meeting, he's stand there in his red jacket,
a bunch of those and then they immediately take you
to the to the or not immediately, but you get
the backstory of Tyler and they explain the whole thing
of you know, reels and yeah, he works, and that
was pretty cool too well. And that's another technology that
it's no longer. I missed those cigarette burns, and I

(01:10:16):
remember after that movie, I'd always sort of noticed them
here and there, but after Fight Club, I'd like was
obsessed was seeing those little pop up on the screen,
and it got to the point where it bug me.
I was like, God, damn it. Like now all I
can do is sit there and look for that stupid
red dot or not red dot but the circle or whatever. Uh. Overall,

(01:10:37):
I know we're getting up to time here. Um. Overall,
I really really still appreciate this movie because and maybe
it's just because it's nostalgia at this point, and because
there are some really cool moments. Um now, I'm I
still think it's a great film. I don't know how
many more times I want to see it now, though, agreed.

(01:10:58):
You know, like that might have been my last fight
club until my son is old enough to so I
could be like, look, let's watch this for a reason.
We'll take notes. Uh, it's a learning experience, son. We'll
talk afterwards. Yeah, when you donna show him, I mean
he'll have to he'll have to ask. No, I don't know.
I don't know what the rules are gonna be yet.

(01:11:19):
He's four, he's got some time. Yeah, I don't know
if I want my daughter to ever see a fight club.
You know what, You're right? Maybe maybe we really shouldn't.
Oh God, maybe, or maybe we should talk quickly before
we're done here about what we should do next, because
we're doing hit movies with Maddie. But now I'm thinking, like,

(01:11:39):
should we just go through? And there's so many good
ones in there. I mean, I'm looking at the list.
There's three Kings. Yeah, Blair Witch. We've done Being Bitten,
John Malkovich um or actually no, he didn't. We did Adaptation. Oh,
you haven't done being John Malkovich. No. Six Cents and

(01:12:00):
Air Compauty, Office Space, Phantom, Menace, American Pie, Eyes Wide Shut.
I've got I've got a couple of weird ones. I
just want to see how you react to these. If
they're not all right, we'll just have you been thinking
about films? All right, let's hear it. Um. I don't
know if anybody actually loves this movie as much as
I did. Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shacked Me? You

(01:12:22):
didn't like it, okay? Team America, World Police? Yeah, I
never saw Team America. I know, right, I never saw it.
Would you watch it for me? Is there enough to
dig into? Like? That's why like Austin Powers. I loved
Austin Powers. I'm just trying to think if that's you,
if there's enough meat on that bone, Yeah, there's not,
Or if it's just us sitting here in giggling and

(01:12:44):
talking about our favorite lines doing a bad Austin Powers impressions?
Oh god, most of those. You're right, you've done the
sixth sense right now. I would do the sixth sense
all day. Pan's Labyrinth. Have you done that? I've never
seen it? Oh man, Okay, Tree of Life, I have
not done that. That one's kind of a little slow
for people. Whiplash, Oh god, I love that movie. I

(01:13:07):
would do whip Lash just because I'm a Drummer and
like it hit me hard. Well, I haven't seen that
since I saw it the first time, and I loved
that movie. Well, well, well we'll figure out one. Those
are some great okays, I think in that is for sure.
The next couple. Okay, we'll see if we can get
you in here before the end of the year for
one more. Oh sure, it's early October. Oh yeah, we'll

(01:13:30):
do at least one more for the end of the year.
Galaxy questions. You guys are getting a peek into Maddy's brain.
I'm just looking at all your favorite movies. If fight
Club is fifty four and above, it is Cruel Intentions.
Fight Club is what? Fight Club is number fifty four
in the highest grossing movie movies of like Cruel Intentions.

(01:13:52):
Oh me too, it's one of my I don't even
know if I call it a guilty pleasure. Oh shit, Pokemon,
the first movie. I don't know anything about Pokemon. All right, Well,
bow Fingers in there too, by the way, hmm, I
liked Bofinger. I think we'll just keep doing this as
the episode fades out. All right, by everyone, Thank you, Maddie,

(01:14:15):
thanks for having me again. Yeah, looking forward to hearing
what people think about Fight Club, but at uh compared
to what they thought about it back then, So chime in.
We want to hear from you. Good Day. Bloody Crush

(01:14:36):
has produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsey unt here in
our home studio at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For
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