Movies that make you go “oh yeah that’s right!”: Fight Club

This week we will be looking at movies that remind us of what the heck we are supposed to be doing with our lives, or remind us of some goal or ideal we believed in a long time ago that we’ve forgotten. The movie doesn’t have to be new, just something we’ve seen recently that made us go “oh yeah that’s right…”.

I’ll start this week off with Fight Club.

I saw this movie about 2 weeks ago at The Plaza in Atlanta (they show old movies in a vintage theater). I haven’t seen this movie completely since it came out in 1999, while I was in college. It was great then, its great now. As you know, in the beginning, Ed Norton’s character muses depressingly over his furniture purchases from Ikea and flits around his grandly purchased box in the sky, also known as a condo. Ok ladies and gents, as I was watching this 2 weeks ago, I began to choke on my reeses pieces. My mind instantly flashed to the new Ikea catalog on my kitchen table, pages neatly folded in the corner notifying which pieces I wanted to see in person as I scheduled some time early on Saturday morning to brave the crowds and get my Ikea shopping on, complete with a jumbo hotdog and a 50¢ Pepsi. Then my mind pinged to the listings of condos I had bookmarked on my computer, and flashed to the appointment I had with my realtor. I slowly slid down in my seat. Then they blew the condo up, I slid further in my seat. Then fight club was established and the systematic f u to the establishment committed by the fight club members once indoctrinated by Tyler made my heart both burst and shrivel. I’d remembered how much I couldn’t stand the establishment and conformity. How much I did NOT want to be a buppie, a young money hungry capitalistic neck stomping corporate drone. How I rebelled against all things I was “supposed” to do. Where had I gone wrong? What happened to my inner rebel? Had I chocked her into submission? Had turning 30 erased any memory of the rebellious devil-may-care wild child I’d vowed to always be? Had I grown up and was this the result of it? Well the flaws in Tyler and Ed Norton’s plan were clearly evident by the end of the movie, but it still had me shook as I walked out of the theater, still clutching my reeses pieces. Had I sold out? and when did it happen? Am I the conformist drone I once hated? This movie had me lost. I threw out my Ikea catalogue. I’m only half heartedly looking for a condo. I’m so confused.

Thanks Fight Club!