Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher

Still a great, wild ride of a movie that showcases so many of director David Fincher's many strengths as a filmmaker. 

The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, follows an unnamed protagonist (Ed Norton) whose life has become such a drone that he is a virtual zombie. To paraphrase him, he is never fully awake but can never fully sleep. This continues until a chance meeting with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a whip-smart renegade with the ultimate punk rock sensibility. Durden squats in an abandoned house, refuses to live by any of society's rules, and eventually convinces our protagonist to begin an underground fight club for men like themselves - disenfranchised and feeling like they've been sold a bill of goods by capitalist, consumer culture. Eventually, Durden molds this ostensible underground MMA group into something much more potent and frightening, with our anonymous main character being pulled along in ways that he can't even begin to imagine. 

I can't recall just how many times I've seen this movie, but it's easily in the double digits. I saw it a couple of time in theaters upon its release back in 1999, and would routinely go back to it for many years after. I'd gone quite a few years since a full rewatch, until reading Brian Raftery's recent book Best. Movie. Year. Ever., which catalogs the insane number of great films that came out in 1999. My enthusiasm fully stoked, I snapped up a cheap blu-ray copy of Fight Club and took it all in again. My thoughts about the film have evolved over two decades, but I still find it to be a satisfying, subversive, funny, and extremely well-crafted middle finger to large segments of the film industry. 

In those first years after the movie came out, like a lot of guys in the early and mid-twenties, I saw the Tyler Durden character as an icon of cool. He was a take-no-bullshit badass who just got things done, and seemed to be on the side of righteousness. To slightly paraphrase Durden himself, he looks like you want to look, f***s like you want to f***. He is smart, capable, and most importantly, free in all the ways that you are not. It's a great sales pitch to young men who are in desperate need of leadership, wherever that leadership takes them. Durden's appeal to "enlightened" macho violence is one that is still fully relevant today, with the immense popularity of "smart" MMA bros like Joe Rogan and similar "intelligent" Alpha males who have millions of devoted fans and followers. Chuck Pahlaniuk was onto something when he wrote the novel, and David Fincher was clearly aware of it.

If you need to illustrate the idea of self-destructive anarchy
having sex appeal, then Brad Pitt is a pretty good choice
as your spokesmodel.

What has changed, though, is the realization that being punk rock isn't really the hard part. And looking and sounding cool while doing isn't even the hard part. As calculating and slick as Tyler Durden is, his plan doesn't go beyond "blow stuff up." It's really a punk rock sensibility, which has a very strong appeal in the hands of such a charismatic character. When I watch Fight Club now, I can't help but wonder just how likely it is that Durden's master plan actually works, after the credits roll. Or whether he ends up being happy with Marla. Yes, Project Mayhem's bombs go off, destroying the headquarters of major credit card companies, essentially annihilating debt and giving everyone a fresh start. But will that actually work? And yes, Durden's fractured mind reunifies, and he seems to reconcile with Marla. But they're both clearly still very damaged people. Such grounded thoughts, though, are not what Fincher had in mind. He was looking to tell a raucous tale of a modern anarchist, and he gave us just that.

If the themes are what elevate the story well above just being a sweaty trek through underground fight clubs, then the film technique is what makes the whole show so wildly entertaining. You have three actors in Norton, Pitt, and Carter, who are as good as they've ever been. And the sharp writing is still absolutely hilarious. The look of the movie, along with the editing and cool-as-hell Dust Brother soundtrack bring it all together to give us a movie that's simply a blast to watch.

It's both fascinating and unsurprising that this movie fell on its face when it was released back in 1999. Up until then, there really hadn't been anything quite like it - an in-your-face, crotch-grabbing "screw you" to capitalism lightly disguised by a "pretty boy" actor in Pitt and "up and coming" fresh face in Norton. There were obviously people like me, who saw it in the theaters and loved the dark humor and the deeper themes and ideas, but most people were either baffled, disgusted, or just stayed well away from it. However, you might view Fight Club now - a worthy, dark satire; flawed attempt at profundity; or something else - I think most would agree that there's more than a little solid film technique happening, and that the movie had a serious impact on movies for years to come. 

New Release! The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

No Spoilers. Read Away!

Director: Riley Stearns

A highly effective dark comedy in the vein of Repo Man, Sorry to Bother You, and other great social satires that create their own worlds around a single young man being suffocated by the warped worlds that surround them.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Casey, a rather quiet, skittish accountant who lives alone with his dachshund and does his best to stay out of other people's way. After being brutally mugged and nearly killed one night by a roving band of motorcycle thugs, Casey decides to take up karate at a local dojo. The dojo is run by an extremely intense trainer, known to us only as "Sensei" (Alessandro Nivola), who feels that karate contains everything that one requires to live a fulfilling life. The rather impressionable Casey quickly devotes himself to the dojo, growing ever more confident and violent as he continues to train. As he rises in the esteem of Sensei, however, it becomes clear that there is something much darker going on at the dojo and among some of its students.

This movie won't be for everyone, just like any dark satire. It operates on its own wavelength, simplifying and distilling its elements in order to create an altered reality which is clearly not meant to be an accurate representation of the world which we really live in. Like any good satire, though, it does an excellent job in honing in on the subject of its commentary - in this case, toxic masculinity - and giving us plenty of great laughs along the way. One just needs to realize that the humor is very much of a satirical nature: dark, dry, and making liberal use of oversimplifying very real facets of society in order to draw us down the paths of their logical conclusions.

Casey, under the tutelage of his eerily intense sensei, puts
everything he has into becoming a lethal practitioner of
karate. This includes hard work and listening to metal.

Like any well done satire, this movie isn't for everyone. In fact, I could tell that more than a few viewers around my wife and me seemed a bit perplexed by the film. "I thought this was supposed to be a comedy," stated one semi-confused fellow. And more than once, my wife and I were among only a few people laughing at what, to us, were obviously meant to be moments of dark humor.  If one isn't picking up the vibe of the movie, it will seem very strange; twisted, even. For those who lock in, though, it provides some thoughtful commentary and plenty of laughs to go along with the rather brutal and violent shocks.

As an aside, we were treated to a post-show Q-and-A with the Austin-based writer/director Riley Stearns (very much to my wife's and my surprise), and he seemed a very thoughtful, talented, and rather grounded young director. I'll be keeping my eyes out for what he does next, as The Art of Self-Defense is a really strong piece of work. 

New Release! Sorry to Bother You (2018) [No Spoilers]

Director: Boots Riley

A wild ride of social satire, and one of the most unique films I've seen in a while.

Sorry to Bother You follows Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) in Oakland set within a near-dystopian alternate version of our modern world. Cassius is a smart enough guy, but he's down on his luck and desperate for a job. Desperate enough to take a gig at a telemarketing agency and do cold calls to sell customers all sorts of useless products that they don't need. When Cassius, an African-American, is given the suggestion to "talk white," he adopts a stereotypical "nerdy" white guy voice (by David Cross), and his sales go through the roof. Before long, Cassius is offered the highly-coveted job as a "power caller" - a mysteriously powerful position granted only to the best of the best ground-level telemarketers. Though he has to break a picket line formed by his exploited co-workers, Cassius is initially elated at the immense salary increase. However, what he is selling gives him some serious pangs of conscience. Cassius climbs the corporate ladder, things become ever stranger and more terrifying.

The relatively simple summary above gives a reader no actual idea of what this movie does. Sorry to Bother You is a satire that punches you in the face with all sorts of criticisms about modern culture. Some of them are biting. Many of them are funny. And nearly every one of them is about as subtle as a set of brass knuckles to the teeth. But this is OK. The primary targets of writer/director Boots Riley deserve no quarter: rampant capitalism; creeping cultural homogeneity; commodification of the bodies and souls of everyone on the planet by the ultra-rich. These are what Riley is bringing our attention to, and it is quite a trip.

Cassius celebrates his massive successes as a "power caller."
Only later do his full realizations about his action hit him,
along with the horrors connected to them all.

While unlike nearly anything I've seen before, Sorry to Bother You does show clear elements of several other great satires and counter-culture films of cinema's past. The vision of consumerism run wild bring to mind John Carpenter's low-budget They Live. The commentary on both office culture and the dumbing down of mass populations is not unlike Mike Judge's Office Space and Idiocracy. But none of these can quite prepare you for just how gonzo things get in the third act of the movie. It threw me off for a moment, but it quickly becomes clear that Riley has a cogent point, although one that is using a really far-out story device.

The acting is great here. Lakeith Stanfield, whom I only know from the excellent TV show Atlanta plays a great protagonist. Cassius is, while intelligent, not the strongest-willed guy, and his journey of getting buffeted around by forces far stronger than him is portrayed with the right blend of confusion and humor. The supporting cast, from Tessa Thompson to Armie Hammer to a smaller role by A-lister and longtime Boots Riley family friend Danny Glover, all bring just the right tone to this uniquely strange picture.

You have to be in the right state of mind for this one. If you enjoy satire, then this one is well worth checking out. It's a form of cinema that isn't attempted much, but Riley gets it right. 

Retro Duo: Idiocracy (2006); The Babadook (2014)

Idiocracy (2006)

Director: Mike Judge

Flawed but still funny, semi-forgotten work by one of the great comic minds of our generation.

Mike Judge has a rather singular place in American humor. As the creative mind behind Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, and the more modern Silicon Valley, he has shown to be a distinctive voice by tapping into elements endemic to recent generations of the denizens of the U.S. and mining them for comic gold again and again. He also gave us Office Space, the cult hit that to this day, nearly two decades after its release, is perhaps the defining parody of cubicle culture.

Back in 2006, Judge wrote and directed Idiocracy, which was something of a departure from his comfort zones. Instead of lampooning dumbed-down pop culture or office hell, he went for a full-on satire in the form of future dystopia. The story follows Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), a completely average guy (yes, this makes him an "Average Joe." Get it?) who happily does his meaningless job as an army librarian. Joe is selected for a military experiment in suspended animation, along with a prostitute, Rita (Maya Rudolph), which goes awry and leads to Joe and Rita emerging from their cocoons 500 years into the future. When they awake, they find that the world has been overrun by all of the worst elements of human nature, turning earth into a nightmare of corporate ubiquity and a population too stupid to deal with even the simplest problems. The previously-average Joe, however, is now literally the smartest man in the world, leading the population to turn to him to solve all of their many massive problems.

Joe rides along with President Camacho's cabinet/entourage.
The notion that the highest position in the land is held by the
brashest, most ultra-macho trash-talker isn't such a stretch.

The movie is a fun watch, despite the fact that it noticeably loses steam in its second and third acts. The first ten or fifteen minutes feature some great comic dialogue and typically hilarious Mike Judge-type gags. Once Joe awakes in the hellishly dysfunctional future, there is still plenty of hilarious commentary on the more negative trends towards homogenization, oversexualization, and commercialization that we see today. Hospital nurses who are using a fast-food style picture board to admit patients. An entire TV channel dedicated to watching a guy get his testicles pummeled in various ways. A foul-mouthed, trash-talking president who was a famous porn star and professional wrestler. These bits are as hilarious as they are the logical conclusions of certain disturbing trends in our popular culture.

What takes some wind out of the movie's sails towards the end for me is that the future depicted on the screen is simply ugly. Much of this is by design, as Judge envisioned a world where basic services like garbage disposal and environmental protection have long since been abandoned. That, and the fact that nearly every person and object has been branded by large corporations, create a visually unappealing world. It also doesn't help that the film didn't seem to have enough funding to bring the vision fully alive. In doing a touch of research, it doesn't seem like any funding was pulled from the film, but the effects, sets, and costumed have a rather cheap look to them. The movie is much more about the humor and social commentary, to be sure, but the B-grade aesthetics bring the experience down a notch.

Despite its flaws, I recommend this one to just about everybody. It's fun and silly, with a healthy amount of clever, old-school satire. While its overall scope outstripped its resources, but the ideas and gags are still well worth a look.

The Babadook (2014)

Director: Jennifer Kent

Now that is how a horror movie should be. Subtle when necessary. Profound and thoughtful. And creepy enough to make you soil your underpants.

For those who haven't seen it but plan to, I'll keep this spoiler-free, at least in terms of key plot points in the second and third acts of the movie. The tale follows Amelia, a widow whose son, Samuel, shows some concerning behavioral problems. His active imagination has him afraid of monsters to the point that he creates weapons to fend them off and sometimes acts out his violent defenses. One night, Samuel pulls a pop-up book previously unseen by Amelia off of his reading shelf. The book is titled "Mister Babadook." Amelia begins to read the book, despite its extremely creepy images and haunting narrative, and too late glances ahead to see that the story takes a horribly grim turn. She tries to hide the book, but the damage seems to be done. Samuel is so scared now that after a night of little sleep, he claims to be able to see the Babadook in many other places. As Samuel's behavior concerns and frightens other children, parents, and other adults around him, Amelia grows more and more concerned.

While I could nitpick a few things in terms of the imagery and a few of the connections from one point to another in this story, I found it to be astounding. It's not often that I'm riveted to a screen the way that I was during this picture. I can't call myself a devotee of the horror genre, but I do enjoy a well-crafted and well-executed scary movie that makes my skin crawl, and The Babadook delivers. It does rely on a few conventions, such as the odd squeaky door or shadow-shrouded closet, but the emotional and psychological context I found to be highly original. There is something of a "twist" in the story, I suppose, but it's not of the M. Night Shyamalan variety. Figuring it out early (for me it was about halfway through the picture) doesn't diminish the effect, and the film is subtle enough to not offer a grand "reveal" at any point, trusting us viewers to piece it all together on our own. And just when I was afraid that the resolution was going to be way too tidy, we get an ending that is far from completely comforting.

Little Samuel is creepy at hell much of the time, but you
learn that this impression is a bit of a red herring. This is one
of several clever wrinkles the movie offers the horror genre.

I would love to dig deeper into the psychological elements explored in the movie, as it comprises what I feel elevates this movie above just a genre picture. In the name of staying spoiler-free, though, I cannot write too much. I will only say that this was a brilliant use of the visual medium to convey the terror and confusion that I imagine people might feel when certain foundations of reality begin to crumble around them.

I will point out that this is a grim story. There are no beautiful people involved, and there is nary a joke cracked through the whole film. It is intense, and when one realizes what lies at the movie's heart, one can see why it needs to be intense. For those looking for one of those "fun" horror movies with jump-scares and maybe even a little sexual titillation, this is absolutely not the movie for you.

I'll be keeping my eye out for what the writer/director Jennifer Kent comes up with next, as The Babadook was good enough to make me regret not getting out to see it in theaters a few years ago.