110: Fight Call/Night Club

into it. We went straight to the top of the uh nostalgia ladder and we're gonna be talking about Fight Club later on in the episode, as well as a couple other ninety nine movies. I think we took the London Eye because I was am right. You just told me to think about the London I just goes around and around a circle. Man, it's a cycle. I love when people are like, what great civic project can we do?

A giant ferris wheel? Like what kind of public transportation can we can we we undertake, you know, something to really put our money to good use. How about a thing that goes around and around and doesn't go anywhere. Um, yes, we are still talking about the Turn of the millennium.

The White two k Era the year two thousand all of the above, and we got a night email from a listener about the turn of the millennium in a very special and very happy part of the world, So Malia writes, when I was very young at the turn of the century, there was one celebration. I was the perfect Asian target audience for the Millennium Celebration at Walt

Disney World Resort, especially Epcot. They added temporary exhibits for other countries to add to the World Showcase side of the park, but the wildest and most aesthetic was the Taps Story of Nation's Parade, which Disney was so hype about they literally performed it at the two thousand Super Bowl.

Christina Aguilar and Enrique Iglesias, we're not staples of the daily park operations, unfortunately, this parade led by the Sage of Time and set to the theme song Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand, which is full of the exact type of Millennium inspiration lyrics you would imagine. Featured enormous abstract puppets that all had incredible names like Discman, Hammerman, wiggle Girl, Reverse Marionette, as tech Man, an Angel Girl. She linked us out to the song and to some

resources about this parade, the Millennium celebration. Uh, so we'll share that in the links. Yeah, Epcot seems like a particularly like a very very peak millennium kind of place to be for New Year's Eve. I'm jealous. It sounds aspirational to me to spend the Millennial celebration in Epcot. Yeah, I mean Epcot has seemed so weird. I have never been there, but I have definitely looked into it because

it's just like a permanent World's Fair essentially. Well, the thing about this parade, because I did listen to the song Celebrate the Future hand in Hand, which is just

like we're kind to reach for the future. Like it's just all this very kind of banal type stuff, and it just kind of reminds me about how, especially for stuff like Disney, I feel like Disney is sort of the peak example of this, but there's like this sort of because it's the millennium and it's supposed to be the future, the future also gets wrapped up in this idea of like being cool, So like Disney has to be like cool in some way for the turn of

the Millennium you're talking about, which they are physically incapable of doing. Yeah, so that's that's what I love, is like Disney, and like that's why I always loved Archie comics too. It's like people trying to understand youth culture who like fun to mentally have a contempt for youth culture, but you're like, this is what sells. Got to sell

this right now? Well, Disney. Disney is in kind of a bind though, because they're literally they're marketing to people who are like infants to preteens really, so it's I mean, you have to self censor. So there's no way to be cool if you're marketing to a group that includes like toddlers. And it's especially awkward at that time too, because Disney is in like a very um notorious slump at the time. Disney is not Disney is in there

like pre iMac phase. Like if you think of Disney and Apple as being these ascendant forces and the ohs like like it's right, it's I think it's right. Before they shut down their hand Rawn animation studio, they haven't had like an animated hit in a while. They're not the dominant force that they are today, and so like it does feel very like random, grab baggy the stuff that they like, they don't have any they don't have like it's when they're not with Pixar anymore too, so

they can't use those very popular problems. Just picture like Goofy with some some cool sunglasses on. It's totally that. It's like the Goofy movie aesthetic, which I kind of love, the everybody movie aesthetic. Um. I was watching a show about who framed Roger Rabbit that was edited, not surprisingly

because it was made by Disney, like a little misinformatively. Um, but I was just reading a lot about kind of that era of Disney the the news because I guess like that was also around the same time as a Little Mermaid was Roger Rabbit. But yeah, that kind of like pre pre getting back on track with all the you know, pre having a lot of product to sell or being sure that product is going to sell forever. I'm really dying to watch Oliver and Company, which is

the Billy Joel uh wait you in theaters? Just not so I saw it in theaters. I know it'll like unlock a weird part of my brain to see it again. Oh, I have the DVD, my friend, I have the DVD.

You're a Billy Joel enthusiasts, I am. I've been listening to Keep in the Faith once a week, got to listen to the most content, and I watched the video for Keeping the Faith just to keep myself, you know, on solid ground here, like the thing for us the eighties fifties as epitomized by Billy Joel also just a big part of the EPCOT dreams that compression of the future aesthetic that yeah, it's such a retro futuristic aesthetic, which, as Emily was saying, we all really enjoy, right, but

it feels so much like corporate musicals to me, which is also funny, not necessarily fun but interesting. Right. Well, the thing this was making me, this whole kind of the vibe of the EPCOT millennial celebration was making me think about kind of the early early days of Disney California Adventure, because that opened in two thousand one, so you know, kind of still in that. Oh yeah, it was a huge bomb at the time. Yeah, it was really really ticket Yeah, people hated it. It was sort

of like, what's the point of this thing? It was compared to like euro Disney because it was like some of the audience for these people for this place is Californians. Why would they want to go to California, right because they sell beer there. That's why maybe that was added later. Yeah, that might have been what they realized was the ticket

for it. But there was this ride. I mean I didn't go to California Venture until like this decade, this past decade, but there was UM an early ride in the first that was part of their like a flagship ride at California Adventure called Superstar Limo. That's on the website the Excellent resource Yesterland. There's a whole record of it. And it was like a UM two thousand one era tour through like Hollywood. Like the thing is that like

your celebrity in it. So you're in a limo and you're like going to an award show or something and getting asked questions by Joan Rivers and there are all these like horrifying caricatures of actual celebrities because it's like, look, it's bread Pitt or whoever, and it's like an animatronic Brad Pitt. It's like really really strange, and it is this Disney UM, you know, kind of trying to be edgy or cool or hit or something in a way that I think just obviously it was a flop from

the get go. Probably part of the reason that people are like, what the hell is California Adventure? Why does it exist? Yeah, my boyfriend has told me about there was like a section of Disney World called MGM Studios that I think had a lot of the proto versions of the Hollywood rides from California Adventure. Um, but there's a ride from there that I've watched ride throughs of

that is also fucking terrifying. I believe it's called the Movie Ride, and it just takes you through a bunch of random movies, um, including some movies I think maybe Alien isn't because I think it was like anything Aliens on an MGM property. I forget what it was, just like the back Lot Tour Universal Universal version of the Scarier because there's like an animatronic Wizard of Oz in it. It's like weird. It's like a David The back Lot Tour though has the backdraft. The draft part of that

is super scary. It's very scary, and it's also like who thinks about backdraft now? Except for in the context of the study it overtook the movie. It's because it was quite an experience. Although Backdraft is a good movie, yeah, Backdraft rules. I've never been on the studio tour really, yeah, the Night Call tour. Actually will never be able to do that. Probably. I love thinking about that shark just being there by itself. Right. The only time I ever

went to Universal was with Tess. We went didn't you go to but you went to CityWalk? Oh? But yeah, you just didn't go to inside the park on the park parks expensive so expensive, it's it's crazy. It's basically I mean, I think it's like almost comparable to Disneyland, but there's so much less to do. California Adventure, to its credit, has gotten better in some ways, although they've gotten rid of the things I really liked, like Tower of Terror. But the Car's Ride probably is one of

the best rides in the whole park system. Which one the Bumper the Cars themed Bumper ride or isn't there. There's also like made ors something or other. No, there's like a dark ride where the Canyon ride it's outside. Actually that's part of the magic of it, is like you're actually under the blue California skies in this completely

artificial canyon. It's like this fair environment. That was like the thing my parents like the best when I took them to California Adventure once and we had the past, was that was like they were like, this is great, Like it's the magical environment. They loved Fake California. I also loved fake yosebody. I love the fake the Shining Hotel that they have there, which is just exactly a replica of the Shining Hotel because it's the a Wani.

I think somebody, we're going to take a break real quick, and when we come back, we're going to break the first rule of fight club and talk about fight club. And we're back. Welcome back to Night Call. This week, we allowed ourselves one week to talk about the movies, and of course, if we had to pick just one,

we picked David Fincher adaptation of Chuck Palinus Fight Club. Um, and I would like to know a little bit like why we came to this decision, not not because I disagree with it, but like Molly, maybe you can like talk a little bit about why this is our pick. I bullied you guys into it like a real man. Well, this is because this is our fight Club obviously, but also yeah, Emily made the salient point that everybody did their best year from movies things last year when it

was the twenty year of that. So I did feel that if we were going to do one movie, we should do Fight Club. But it was Emily was because you said it was the last movie where terrorism could be good. I don't even know if this movie thinks that terrorism is good, Like it's really really soft pedals nearly haven't watched it again. I forgot how noncommittal it is.

It's very not ready to commit to terrorism. I think you know, ocleshomann City had been fairly recent, um, but this is truly one of the last years where if you say terrorists in a movie, you imagine a white man.

Uh you. It's before terrorism gets completely encoded in this whole like com Land security were against terror type thing, um, which is super interesting, and it doesn't I don't think it necessarily lets it be have a leer about it, but it's certainly a different thing to have a movie be about or like play with, than it would be two years later. Well. Also, if I'm not wrong, I think I read somewhere and I'll have to double check this and um put it in the notes, but I

am pretty sure that this was me. Columbine happened in April, and so there are a bunch of lines and scenes obviously in in fight Club that happened or you know, the movie was completed before Columbine, So when test audiences were responding to these scenes, they thought they were funny, and by the time the movie was released they didn't land And that makes perfect sense, but it's it's bizarre how much the world shifted just in that brief period,

and how the movie you know, it was like being edgy, well it could be edgy in a certain way, and then by the time it was released it was like you know right, I mean, it's it's funny, Like I think, I I can't think about Fight Club really without thinking of the Matrix at the same time. And it is very largely about both the Columbne thing, because both of those films got kind of like a stink of Columbine

on them through no intention of their own, um. But then also the way that both of those films got really um some might say not say co opted in the case of Fight Club, but I think definitely co opted in the case of The Matrix by men's rights activists. That's sort of you know, all the all the terrible people that live on our internet now, um and have always been there. Uh and and kind of you know, the world philosophy in it is kind of molded to

the to the ideals of of these different groups. And so that makes both of these movies, even though they're like pretty I would say, both really important movies, especially for that time period. They have this sort of like bad reputation now because of all the stuff that's happened since well, it's also so hilarious for men's rights guys to take either The Matrix or Fight Club as the like symbol of macho nests because both of these movies

are exceptionally gender queer, and that is why they're good. Um. I love Fight Club. I'm a Fight Club homer. I think it's so funny. And my memory was that they were marketing it badly because nobody knew how to market it. Rupert Murdoch absolutely hated it because of the anti corporation stance, and they thought they would just play up the fighting part rather than the comedy. So they ran ads during UFC and WWF and stuff, and then it bombed in

theaters and they blamed it on Columbine. But then it was like one of the first big movies to be a hit on DVD. It was everybody immediately discovered by teenagers, who I think also could relate to the Columbine thing in a different way of like, yes, people do have a lot of suppressed rage and like what should we do about that? Right? And when you're a teenager, the stuff that Edward Norton's character is frustrated with the conformity and the corporate values and stuff like that, it's just

stuff that you feel like your parents are into. Yeah, so that's what you're you feel. Let's what feels conthartic about it to you as a teenager. UM, without necessarily having the experience of being like a salary man in his early thirties or however all Edward nor is supposed to be. UM, it's so it's it's a weird it's a weird kind of jump to make, and it's weird

to have that. Like I think I asked on the night called Twitter specifically, I was asking about like men over thirty five because I wanted to like get an idea of what somebody who at least had a little bit of an experience in the working world of the nineties, of the entire decade of the nineties, like whether or not Fight Club resonated for them, because the micro surfs have to say, yeah, because like this is about, like this is at its core story about like rejecting corporate

values and like overthrowing credit card company. Somebody else sent me a message where they were like, it's the same exact plot as Office Space. Yes it is. Yeah, it seems like that was a big point of contention then. And I only say seems because I wasn't the age

where that was relevant to me at all. But I watched those movies of course, and like internalized the stuff that they were making fun of, right, and there was like the Adbusters mentality, like we should be questioning these corporations. It's interesting to watch Fight Club and be like, wow, like, I Kea is what they talk about as being the like fast fashion, you know, churn and burned company. But obviously now you could just like slot in Amazon and

it would be more dystopian even, you know. I think Ikea is easy though to mock, especially for visual purposes, and like I always remember the like kind of pan across his living room where they're filling in all the Ikea items. Yeah, they're very timeless, but I mean I think about that every time I walk into an Ikea too.

But Ikia has such an aesthetic, Like it's such a I think I get, especially like tests you wrote a little bit about internet cafes in in the night called newsletter this month, and like that kind of aesthetic of just sort of like the clean future. I guess this is a lot of stuff you're talking about last week, just like the aesthetic of of this point in time being. So I guess comparatively an aseptic too, especially to like the Gruner and everything that had been at the beginning

of the decade. I don't know, it's it's it's interesting to think that like that was a time when when all this fiction decided that like the design and values of the late nineties were emasculating um. But I don't think it's just emasculating. I think it's like dehumanizing to anybody,

you know. Yeah, but it also kind of shows you how obsessed we were at a certain point in time with how the white man who was a white collar, white guy with angry feelings, like what about him, Let's really focus on the issues that are confronting him, And it's I mean, I always think of this movie as kind of an interesting companion to American Psycho, because both of them are really focused so much on kind of rejecting polite society and how wonderful it feels to like

go against society, but obviously in very different ways. But when I was watching it, I hadn't seen it in so long because I think I I was at a certain point really turned off by how I remembered it. Um, And it's so much funnier than I thought it was when I last watched it a long time ago. Fight Club Yeah, fight club Yeah, fight close hilarious. I think

that's why it's good. I I also just feel like I was just talking about this, but like the postmodern directors, it's like this is the point where they were still making movies that were about something, you know, I had like a statement of purpose in some way, and then in the two thousands it just all became twee design based, you know, just aesthetic and sort of Yeah, at the same time, I get like a little bit of a dip in my stomach for all the CG shots of

like going through the hair or going down into the gas range or something like that, because I'm like, this is the beginning of people being like the camera can go anywhere with g I the intro where they go through the brain, and so that the sex scene was done in matrix bullet time because they were they had to be completely clothed at the same time. Yeah, just

when and then at the same time. There were some other things too that even though it's the top of the line, I love like finding stuff like this out the little breath when he's in the ice cape with the penguin was recycled from Titanic Love that im DV trivia for this is a really it's a good page. Yeah, I think also like I saw this movie. I guess we were in high school. We were like juniors or seniors in high school. Uh, maybe a little younger or older.

Softwores are juniors. Yeah, And I just like I watched it by myself when I was at that you know, my parents house, by myself, Um, and it just completely blew my mind. I was and it was the first of you that then I watched every DVD commentary track four because there were like four commentary tracks on it, um, and they're all so good as commentary. Just yeah, I don't know, I can't probably disentangle it from my feelings

about it. But what I'm realizing watching it now is that I think the first few times I watched it, I just completely is to the m r. A angle because my tendency is to just insert myself as the narrator into any story, you know, so like that they were all men, like didn't really cross my mind, you know. I was like, we all need fight clubs. Everybody could use a fight club, and then we turn it into eco terrorism for the purposes of good Like that all

checks out. Um. So, watching it again and trying to think of it as the m R A stuff, it's still just like it's such a it's making fun of

it so much. It's such a satire about extreme masculinity, and it's so unbelievably homoerotic and like unafraid to sexualize Brad Pitt, you know, like jokes about how it's like a yeah, I mean they have a meat cute on a plane, and it's like very flirty and it's like you're You're the best single serving friend I've ever made, and like brusque older man and like young young Neophyight. It's just it's classic. So it's it's very it reads. I mean it's a it's a very easy read. It's

not a stretch at all. I don't know, yeah, that they thought that, like just the marketing was so bad that they thought women would hate this movie because they were like women to see men fighting, and it's like, no, women want to see like shirtless Brad Pitt like wrestling some other guys, like that is totally something women want. Um. I don't Yeah. I never felt like this was like a particularly macho movie. I would say, like a like

a Christopher Nolan like Batman movie. You know that to me is like masculine and fascist and like has no sense of humor about it. This to me is about masculinity and fascism, but it's like totally has a sense of humor about both of those things. I think the thing that happens with this movie and I kind of experienced it myself when you get into the movie second half.

I think this movie is a little too long, and I think it does suffer from the thing of like, people remember the first half of this movie, and they

don't remember the second half. They remember all the cool stuff where they start to fight club and brad put is cool and every and their friends and they're living in a nasty house because men like nasty houses, and then they don't remember the part where they start a terrorism cell and the dudes are all like these brainwashed idiots, Like they don't remember the part where it's like, oh, okay, this is what Like this is why this idea is ultimately kind of silly in execution when you tie it

to the idea of masculinity. Like I'm not saying I'm not saying that the idea of of fucking were credit card companies through any means, take your pick, uh, is necessarily a bad thing. But I'm saying that, like when it's tied to like this notion of we're doing this to reclaim our place in the world as men, and that that like consumerism is necessarily feminine, um and feminine

I've seen. Then That's that's the thing that I think this movie it's still making fun of and it's very like aware of, but I just don't think people remember that part of the movie, you know, And I think that like any kind of I think you're right, And that also just happens with any kind of like math

masculine college movie. Like people don't remember the second half of Scarface, remember the second half of Wolf of Wall Street, like Everybody Goes On and yeah, and all those movies that tend to be three hours long, maybe people don't always watch them all the way to the end. Is this a case for shorter movies? Finally, a really good case for shorter movie. I shocked at how long it was because I also did not I didn't remember the

third act at all. Really, I I clearly have smoked so much pot in my days that I just like erased fight Club to save a room or something. But yeah, I mean a Project Mayhem and that whole third act. I was like, I guess this is a movie that most people, including myself, upon rewatch you start it, and then two hours in you're like, I'm it now, I

remember it now, I'm good. I feel like it was the perfect Like you know, also just reading about like what could have been and who could have been in it and who directed it instead, like like that Fincher and Danny Boyle like might have swapped on this in the beach at some point. It's like an interesting alternate universe.

But I do just feel like the fact that it ended up being a David Fincher movie is what made it work so well, because he has his background from commercials and music videos where it's like he knows how to sell objects with a camera. He's like at the you know, all time genius of being able to do that and also do it in a way where you're critiquing it at the same time. Yeah. Um. And the fact that did you make Zodiac next after this? Now? Panic? Right?

Panic Room, which he said he didn't want as many setups, is why he made Panic Room because he's like got undone by his own ambitiousness. But I mean it is so expensive, um, But it's also like, what would you know? There's something in the commentary where he talks about because the buildings they blow up at the under actually the Century City Fox buildings, because you can see afraid they get in trouble if they blew up the real l

A skyline. The people who owned the rights to those buildings would get the agencies didn't care right well, they were like we own these buildings, and David Fincher's was something like, who hasn't dreamed about like blowing up these buildings and Century City when they're empty? You know, Well,

that's what I mean. I mean that That's kind of what's so much fun about revisiting Fight Club too, is looking back at all of these anecdotes, Like I think another one was how David Fincher in there the quote from the IMDb trivias the original Pillow Talk scene had Marla saying I want to have your abortion when this was objected to you by a Fox two thousand Pictures president of production Laura zisk and David Fincher said he would change it um if if she would promise that

the line wouldn't be cut. Ziskin agreed, and Fincher wrote the replacement line, I haven't been fun like that since grade school. Then they had to keep that in because that was the deal. So there's so much of the kind of this is like an anti corporate movie, and you're dealing with all of these corporate forces and you have to just like kind of stand up for what you can. I guess, and I don't think we've moved that far from the Angry White Guy movie, because like

Joker got nominated for Oscars. You know, obviously I was just saying, like I would have loved to see what other people of gen X like had to say about this besides just a bunch of dudes. It's just so crazy that Joker was lauded at all for basically making many of the same points that Fight Club made, but like with well, like for first just tragedy then as far well, that's like Joker is like a fight Club

poster that has never seen the movie. It's like, but Molly, you still haven't seen Joker, right, No, but I feel like it's the same had a similar thing where it's like the people who saw the movie where like this isn't actually going to inspire copycats, but the like wave of hysteria over copycasts. There's a big wave of hysteria about fight Club too, that it was going to like inspire young men to violence. Uh, And some people did

start some fight clubs. Somebody sent us a really good Twitter message saying that they owned the website fight club dot org and they were going to turn it into a Tinder where you could do fight clubs, where you could meet people to fight them, but that they're friends are like, don't do that because of liabilities. Yeah, I

don't do that. So stressful it does. It does remind me of that time, just of the millennium being sort of a hinging time between early Internet and you know, modern Internet, where it was still like how far will this go? Would people meet up randomly with strangers to fight them because it's a possibility of something you can do now. Yeah, and we also got a call from a listener who also got inspired to start throwing a fight club, which we're going to listen to after the break. Hello, nightcall,

It's head from Detroit A long time. First time. I actually have a two for for today. I'm a man over thirty five with the fight club story and ahead of bizarre hy Uk story. So, me and my friends sawt fight Club in the theaters. We were about sixteen years old. We snuck in, and I'm actually very ashamed to say that we were so blown away by it that we started our own fight club, but thankfully that

was short lived. I know that it was originally intended at the Staff High but it's from my point of view, every dude in my high school got a very different message from that film, and I can really only see it now at this I can only see it through my original lives, which was this kind of proto in cell message with Edward Norton his character being a kind of socially isolated but very aggros shy dude who just dreams and dreams and getting his own violent revenge on

everyone in his life. Uh yeah, But anyway, from my wife UK story, I went to a concert at the Pontiac Silver Dome where Metallica, Kid Rock and Ted NuGet played and Pamela Anderson was there and was on stage and did the countdown for the ball drop. On December, I spent my wife UK at the pony E Silverdome. I didn't even like the music, but I had to go to because all my friends were going. And it was a terrible concert because the Silverdome was an awful venue.

So I love the show, keep going right, Thank you so much for that call. Uh We're gonna talk a little more pam Anderson next week, So let's like table that that half of it for right now. But that's like the most incredible, that perfect that sounds incredible, sounds like a dream a dream y two. K. Yeah, well we'll we'll dig more into it next week. But U but let's talk starting your own five club in high school. I mean, I think that he's like, I think he's

totally right. I think I think teenage Boys did. No matter how much we can appreciate the satire and the condemnation all of a lot of things that Fincher's doing, Team Boys are kind of dumb, like, and they were the primary target for this movie. I don't know, I don't think they were the primary target for this movie because I feel like we were the primary target for this movie. You know, Like, but I don't see it in theaters. I saw it on DVD. I'll tell you.

I saw it on DVD at a sleepover, A corred sleepover. That what I'm saying. I feel like there's a co ed sleepover we were waiting for. We were gonna go wait in line or Lee the next morning to see to see the X Men movie. Um so, so this is the year two thousand and we were just like watching movies all night to like get amped and and

Fight Club was one of them. Um And I thought it was like, you know, very edgy and mind blowing I will say, though, I want to shift briefly to talk about the woman skill Woman of five of Marla, who like truly that that was the bigger thing that I was the bigger impression left on me as a um fourteen year old. I guess what I saw a girl, Yeah, because I was just like, oh, that's that's who I want to be when I grow up. Um, I don't know.

It was just the grunge aesthetic, the like their store dress and ship and and wearing big hats and sunglasses. I just thought it was cool and I liked her. She was such a pill. I liked like she was just so annoying. Um, I wanted to I wanted the guts to be annoying like Marla, and I don't think I ever truly got them. But I was watching this, Yeah it's been a while since I've seen it, and she was always like a very big style icon for me.

But I didn't think it was funny how I actually have like more of a wardrobe that mirrors Brad pitts now than incredible style in this in this movie. I think it's also like if, yeah, if you saw this movie and you were a teenager, any movie that reinforce the idea that like the adult world was bullshit and you already we're finding out about it without even having to experience it hit a super hit with the kids. Always, Well, there's also that feeling. I mean, we were, like you said,

we were either sophomores or juniors. We were. It's the it's the the idea of like being put under so much pressure to achieve something that you're told that you want, you know, without really understanding how that fits in with

what you want for yourself. I mean that's why it appeal is it's like it's such a nine a late nineties movie, but like what it's about is really like a fifties anxiety about just like the man in the gray flannel suit stuff that you're like just to cog in a machine and you know you're not a real person because work has turned you into this other thing. Now watching it, I'm like, wow, imagine being so dissatisfied

about having a stable, high paying job. That aspect of it, and the matrix too is interesting because it is like, well, now there's like a much lower wrong than that, you know. Yeah, it truly makes the nineties feel like salad days, Like which is funny complaining about having like health care right or just complaining about having like too many choices, which is you know, is like we do have way too many choices. I think I was also just like full

space communist at that point in my life. I was like, yes, like we start the banks from zero, everybody gets twenty dollars. The end, we have money again. And I think this movie The Matrix like that again. Now, Actually I should watch The Matrix. Oh yeah, always The Matrix is so good, Like I think that people. I think that it's always worth the rewatch, especially because it's been so tarnished by the culture and the discourse, Like it's worth the rewatch

to remember that The Matrix is actually incredible. Yeah, I feel like we've gotten so off track. You know, even though people hate corporations, it's like there's this thing now where people hate them and also use them because they are so octopus, like you have no choice in a lot of scenarios. But what Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we just feel so powerless. It's like what can what can we do? Yeah? Fight, I'm gonna say I think that like this movie The Matrix and another movie I

watched this past week. Magnolia are very interesting snapshot of masculinity and movies in the turn of the millennia and really like just really interesting to see the seeds for all the stuff that we're dealing with kind of like germinating around them. But it feels like so long ago. But obviously the whole Frank T. J McKee plot line

of Magnolia is like kind of this. It's almost this like tragic parody of being a men's rights guy, being like a pickup artist, that kind of person who like this is all like pre pre uh the game, pre mystery and all that like that. This is still kind of a lot of what that film is about. But like, in general, Magnolia is a movie about how men are

pieces of ship. Like that's the running theme of the movie is that like men ruin everybody's lives, and um, it's just it's just it was an interesting kind of semi back to back watch because I watched both of these movies within a couple of days of each other, and I felt them in conversation. It's funny because again, I'm just like I saw these movies and just framed them entirely around my own like sexual pleasure instead of

whatever else was going on. I was just like, I like to see Tom Cruise be like a greasy But do you think he's hot in Magnolia? Like only in Magnolia. I have never found Tom Cruise sexy business. Oh yeah, risky business maybe, but there's still there's something a little off there. You can always tell you're like something about the future cult member. Well, that's why he's interesting as this character though, because like I and I think it's applied in the film that he like doesn't really have

that much. And that's the thing. It's like he's hot. He's hot because it's a good performance. You know, he's a good actor, and he really throws himself into it and it uses the Tom Cruise energy for something sinister. Yeah, it's like this may be in Collateral. Are the only real Tom Cruise performances that I think use him correctly great, And he did a few of those and then he

went back into making action movies. But just to like see a glimpse of like, you know, the weird seventies actor Tom Cruise that does exist inside Top Gun Tom Cruise UM is what makes that movie good to me. I also think about Um fight Club just I don't know, like it's homorotic because they're wrestling, but also just watching it this time, I was like, this movie could also

just be about cruising, you know. Well, I think that the other homoerotic element is how jealous the narrator is when Tyler Dirton starts having sex with Marla and he becomes like obsessed with it, not only because she's taken yet again something that he wants just for himself, but he's obviously it threatens his connection. I think that that kind of makes the homo eroticism stand out even more because it just does feel like a weird kind of

love triangle. What's also about having a secret life. Yeah, and it's also what makes this movie better and more insightful than something like Joker, because it is about like wanting and needing people, even if in this case, sorry if you haven't seen Fight Club yet, but like they are one and the same person, but like it's still this thing of like I want to be a part of something like his loneliness is the I would say

the biggest problem for loneliness is killing him. Yeah. Well, it's also that's why watching Fight Club has been so it is interesting now. Is like the in the beginning of the movie when he's going to these support groups just to like cry and hug people, I was like, whoa great timing, Yeah, totally yeah, yeah, Well, it's like the messages modern society is alienating and now we're looking at it from a point of view of like, oh, you don't even know how much more alienating it will

get with twenty more years of this. But do you think I was thinking about this because I remember watching this as a teen and feeling like it was sending up the notion of support groups altogether, that like, this isn't actually what this character needs. He doesn't need to cry into meatloafs boobs, like he needs to like be a man and get dirty and break his face and stuff, and and that is still I think like there's sort of a parodic feeling to the support groups that I

think wouldn't necessarily be there now. I think if you made this movie now, because I think that stuff has kind of taken more seriously now, but it's seen as like kind of fake or something in the film, well I think, I mean, I I actually really do I agree with that, But I think that there's also this idea that we can't you can't like touch or physically engage with people without permission, and that support groups do you have this kind of like cheesy but necessary way

of forcing people to do things that you would think would happen organically more often than they do. And it's still I mean, support groups are still kind of fascinating to me, and we're fascinating to me in the nineties too, just in terms of like it they do fulfill any not just for people who are you know who, alcoholics or whatever, but like just people who are isolated and lonely and need to kind of have a space created

just to connect um. And it did back when I first said it definitely did seem very kind of like cruelly poking fun but rewatching it. It's it's not as cruel as I remember, Like you can you can kind of feel that. It's like there's a little bit of genuine empathy for for people that I felt like maybe

I didn't read the first time. Yeah, And I think part of that is just like we're adults now too, and we know we probably know people who have gone to one of these groups, whether it's like a A or something like that like, we know that real people use this and need this, and sometimes it can really help people, but when you're a teenager and you're watching it, you're like, look at all the sad adults who are failures crying in each other's arms, and it makes you

like resent that. I think, if you're a certain kind of I thought you were just supposed to think that he was a dick for like arging in on the meetings where he didn't know because he was but he was genuinely emoting and and he was he was leaving an imposter and he didn't want to be out at as an impostor. But then you know, after meat Loaf kind of joins him in fight club, like you see that that they were, you know, maybe more imposters than

one might have guessed. Well, sort of this idea of like the the only thing lamer than going to support group and like relying on other people is like pretending to go to a support group or something like that. Kind of like that that's what it feels like, because it's just like it's like his it's the only way he can deal with his insomnia and his own kind of mental instability at the time, and it's like all you know, and I think that the movie is saying that, like,

these aren't weaknesses. These are all symptoms of like how fucked up society is. But like if you treat them as weaknesses, and you treat them as something that easy to get beat out of you, then you're gonna, you know, have a problem on your hands. Um, so you take another nightcall. Let's take another nightcall. Hello. I am a forty three year old white man and I like Fight Club and I'm not embarrassed to say it, but not in the same way that some people are really not

embarrassed to say it. Um. I think there's some good nuggets of Taoism in there. UM at the time that I thought. Of course, when it came out, I was younger, and it really made a point things like you're not your wallet, you're not your checking account. M just the whole of rejection of um materialism really spoke to me.

And then I think it kind of took on a life of its own, and I like to compare it to you know, Nirvana, when Kurt Cobain would complain about the jocks and all these people getting into the music. That was never his intention. Um. You know, I know Chuck Polemics not great and doesn't have the best track record, but I think he has a voice and it speaks

to people who live on the edges. And I took in more as a self improvement through looking at what masculinity really means and not how it took off to be to some brace of toxic masculinity and raw violence. The violence is a symptom, it's not the prescription anyway. That's a forty three year old man's thoughts on Fight Club. Keep up the good work. Thank you so much for

that night call. We we really we liked that well put Yeah, um, I think that the whole the kind of Taoist stuff in it and the non materialism, that's the stuff that's almost most frustrating to me because I'm just like, why isn't this what took off like totally, like that should be the that should have if that became a cult thing that all these dudes got into and they were at a pressurable age, Like why didn't

that hang on like for sure? And that's one of the things that was the most frustrating about the two thousand's. After that, it was then things got like hyper materialistic across all media, and we made a bunch of famous people of you know, just rich people. It went like it went so far in the other direction. Um, and I feel like a case of I mean and we all, like, I think we're all big David Fincher fans and we

like him as a director. But does this just feel like a kind of thing where you can't have a glossy Brad Pitt starring Fox Studios UM movie about anti consumerism, Like it just doesn't work because it's automatic, especially like directed, as you're saying, I like, buy a commercial director by a music video director. It's all gonna look glamorous and cool and like a product. No, because I think I think that can exist and fly over the head of

the audience. Um. I have also talked about Josie and the Pussycats as a great YE two K movie that satirizes consumerism, but in a way where it would also be easy to think it was endorsing it if you were not very smart. Um, I think that's just a hazard. Again, It's like nobody would say that the Wolf of Wall Street is endorsing insider trading, but that was what a

lot of people took from it. I think people are just afraid of the chaotic energy of teenage boys at every time in history because this movie got compared to Clockwork Orange a lot. Yeah, they were afraid that it was going to have the same effect. Yeah. Um, and it must be cool to have so much power that people are that afraid of you. You didn't know what that was like at all as teenage girls. Well, we we had the craft. It was we if we only

achieved magically. But I read that, um Marla Helena Bottom Carter based her performance on Judy Garland at the end of her life. That's great, makes perfect sense. And I was doing a lot of jokes about how Judy is the joker for women, because it's like about a joker, but instead of like turning it on society, it's just like into yourself. You just like fuck yourself up. And you know, I do think there's a lot of room

for stuff about that. And whenever there is something like that, like Black Swan that's about like how does female rage work, I'm always super into it. Um. But I also love all the male rage movies because again, I just think they're about me. I'm always like, yeah, there's to identify with Tony Soprano. You know, there's a like I think it's possible to identify with those characters, But I also think like there should I'm always down for movies about

men if they are in critique of all this stuff. Like, I don't think like the solution to all of these problems that we're talking about that have really kind of turned super toxic over the last couple of decades. I don't think that the answer is don't talk about masculinity, don't talk about like white male problem, because I think that like the less that you address them, unless you art kind of like address them and and and rude out stuff out of them, then I think like it's

just it's not gonna go away. Like Yeah, And I really liked Vice Principles on HBO. I thought that was like the best show that sort of summed up the moment of white male rage that we're in currently, uh without kind of like looking away at how uncomfortable that is to think about or endorsing it. Because I also think that that happened with Danny McBride with East Bounding Down that a lot of people were just like Kenny Power's rule, like this is in no way an indictment

of like southern white masculinity. It's just an endorsement because it's on television, you know. And so I feel like with the Vice Principles, they were like, we're going to double down on like you do not like these people.

They are not good people. Yeah, And I also think at a certain point it's like and it suck, but it's like, truly, we can't go down the path of like having art being an instruction manual for how to do life, Like if people take the wrong message from Fight Club or Eastbound and Down or anything else, I don't think that invalidates it as a work just because people are fucking stupid. And I think Fincher, you know, like the Social Network doesn't valorize Mark Zuckerberg at all,

you know, I think that's just casting though. Yeah, but I feel like that movie, this movie are in are definitely in conversation because that movie is like, what about a totally different type of toxic masculinity that makes the type of toxic toxic masculinity and fight Clubs seem really wholesome in comparison. Total, it also seems like kind of an evolution from it's a fight club is the starting place.

Then maybe you end up kind of you know, by isolating yourself so much from that culture, you turn up with some other kind end of toxic. Yeah. I think the message of both is like, if you let it fester unchecked, it's gonna it's gonna take over, yeah, and destroy your male bonding with your best friend flesh. That's why we all love Zodiac the most though, because that's a movie about like male tenderness, like everybody um is like.

That was also movie about just like people trying to connect with each other and they just can't because they're all siloed off. And now we're all literally siloed off. So we could all use a good fight I could I all use a good fight club. Howe either of you guys have ever boxed or fodd or anything a curiosity? No, I like slap somebody once in junior high slap fight. Yeah, I've had some slap fights. Um, I did, we didn't. You didn't do wrestling, Molly. When I did some wrestling,

I did some I did, like a boxing class. Uh, but it's not I worry too much. I've never been in a real fist pit, but I definitely remember as a teenager, especially being like I wish girls would work their conflicts out physically. I had to say I always wanted to get into fights with people. I was not as aggressive person physically. I just wanted it to happen, like, yeah, just because like mental warfare is so much worse. Yes, yeah, girl based mental warfare. It's like truly hell on earth.

So it always seemed like, yeah, just punch it out, everybody hugs and goes home. Yeah. Um, Well, when all this is over, I was gonna I was truly going to get back into boxing, like last month and then and that was like the first thing that I realized was going to be closed was the boxing gym. Boxing will never do you think that two people will ever be able to like sweat on each other? Yes, sweat

and the spit. And like they just announced that they're trying to reopen the NFL for the fall speaking of fight clubs, which seems like a very bad idea um, and also like they're just using it to pump up the brand so they can get advertising and then if it doesn't happen, it's like not on them. The answer of if people are ever going to fight each other

and like get spit and punch each other. Is yes, well we have a vaccine, like of course I can't wait, Like I I have to say, like it was a brief sidebar about coronavirus stuff, like I true, like right now my stance is just like I refuse to be like I'm never gonna go to anybody's house ever again or something, because it's just like we will like when we have a vaccine, I'm gonna be going to so many people's houses. Oh my god, you have no idea. I'm gonna show up unannounced, like I'm gonna lick all

your plates. It's gonna be amazing. Like I just I like, I get too depressed if I think about a future in which, even with a vaccine, because of all of this, like I don't want to do the things that I

used to do, not that I used to like anybody's plates. No, but I think we're also just like stop stop making people feel like this will all be fine by the fault, because like we don't know, nobody knows for sure, and if there's a second wave in the fall, I think because people are dumb, uh, they just wanted to open all back up one once and for good. You know, we look some of the people are dumb, but I also, like my I there there are many, many horrible dumb people.

But then I think there are also reasonable people who just don't know what to do and they're just really anxious. I'm not one of those people. No, I think we're getting to wait it out, I guess. But there's this information, and also they won't they don't want to say anything definitive in case that turns out to be wrong. You know, like it seems like people can gather outside, but if they say everyone can gather outside and then a bunch of people get sick and they're like, whoops, that would

also be bad. So I feel like they're hurring way too far on the side of just like not giving enough guidance, and so people are interpreting it in a lot of different ways. Like people are definitely interpreting the guidance like talmudically because it's confusing. Yeah, but the newest information seems to say that the real hazard is congregating

indoors in groups. So yeah, it feels like if they did just come out and say, like you can go to the park, just don't have a dinner party that would like clear it up for a lot of people. But again they don't want to say that because we don't know that for sure about dinner parties. Yeah. Also, so that just says to me that in the future that there will be fight clubs, but they'll just be in parksdoor beach fight club. It sounds very modern. Um, should we take one last quick more of a statement

than a question call before we wrap it up? Okay, Hi, this is Curtis from Iowa. I'm a man over thirty five and I love fight clubs. I really like the part where Jordan Catalan don't gets beat up. I was always much more of a Brian crack out guy. Thanks such a good note to end. Also shout out to the three one nine area code. Uh yeah, thanks for calling in. I totally forgot that Jared Letter was in this movie that completely escaped. He wants to destroy something beautiful.

Who doesn't. I love to see Jared Jared leto get punched in the face. Just as satisfying as seeing a bunch of credit card buildings is Jared Letos face the credit card building actors. This was right at the point when he when Jared Letto had like segued to rock stars. That is that true? I think it's right about there. And it's funny because he's standing beside behind Brad Pitt when he's giving the speech about how you won't be

rock stars. Like everybody was really really coming down hard on Mr Letto for his involvement with thirty Seconds to St. Jordan's Catalano and Brian Cracko both have their problems. I never watched that show, so I don't wait a second. Excuse me, Emily, you have to watch it. Sometimes we'll do a nineties month sometime. Yeah, it's really good. It's a really good show. I'm sure it is. I was too young for it when it was on. Yeah, I'm

just surprised you haven't seen it since then because it's available. Uh. Brian crack was the nice guy, so he's got nice guy problems. He's got stress or energy though crack Yeah crack, I was really speaking of like proto in cell. There's a vibeto in cell, like Mark Zuckerberg, like I feel entitled to female attention even though I don't look like Brad Pitton Fight Club. But that said, it's also easy even I identified slightly with Brian Krakow. I mean a

lot of multidimensional characters who aren't Jordan Catalina. I love it because it's like he understands that, like Angela is his intellectual equal, but she likes she likes Jared Letto because he's hot, and let's save it. Were just understand, you'll understand why you want to see him bleed without without my so called life. It's fine, I mean, and I meet that in a nice way. I don't watch just any actual physical violence. Blood blood. Okay, that does

it for us this week. Thanks for listening to Night Call. You can subscribe to us on iTunes wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you haven't already. You can follow us on social media Twitter at Nightcall Pod, Instagram, and Facebook at Nightcalled Podcast. You can support us on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall, where we have a newsletter, bonus episodes, merch all sorts of fun stuff, and we will be back next week with another Y two May episode.

Give us a Nightcall at one to four oh four six night if you have any Millennium specific questions, comments or concerns, and we'll all see you next week see if