[PenultimateManStanding]

I'm watching the movie again, for only the second time. The raging nihilism is it's appeal. This is a Expletive deleted. world of plastic values, etc. Rage is the answer and so on. I get it, the movie appeals to me too. At the same time, I'm reading James Michener's novel, Chesapeake about the history of a region. The history of the settlement of the Virginia/Maryland area up to the present. The descriptions of the land and the people is marvelous. He's a fine writer. What has impressed me so far is how the various characters are so different. Very fine writing. It was a different world completely. As different from ours as possible. The over-all sense is of a world of so much potential. Then you come back to Edward Norton and Brad Pitt and think, "Christ! we're done for! We're finished. This is what it's all come to." My son says this is his favorite movie. I talk from time to time with kids about peak oil and they seem to get it immediately. Adults seem to want to shrug it off, but the kids get it. I talked with some kids today about it, and they were right on it, peppering me with questions. I think they know in their hearts that something is coming.

[I_Like_Plants]

Yep Norman Rockwell may have laid it on a bit thick, but the world he describes did in fact largely exist. He put it once that he preferred "not to look at the dirty-hankerchief side of life" but the settled neighborhoods, the cute kids playing marbles in the dirt, all that really existed. The friendly postman, etc.

Just like in Maasai kraals once upon a time, the cute kids playing with their little clay bulls, the guy who runs good coming back from his circuit of 3 other kraals with the news and gossip, the settled order of things.

Cheap energy, the worldwide Machine, has changed that.

[perdition79]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'F')ight Club is a facinating and perhaps very serious movie. I am not yet sure why. I do not really understand it yet.

[I_Like_Plants]

Anyone read the book? It's pretty good.

[WildRose]

It's been a while since I saw the movie, so my recollection of it is somewhat vague. However, what occurs to me now is that it's easier for me to view the Normandy scene in Saving Private Ryan than it is to watch brutal fight scenes like those in Fight Club. I don't know why, really, except that war seems like a more valid reason to be in the position of causing such harm to another human being, although there may be some war veterans who would set me straight on that idea.

[PenultimateManStanding]

memorable line, "you are not your khakis."

[NEOPO]

Good stuff - may have been a way to deal with mental illness yet honestly some of us just like to fight -no prerequisite mental illness required

No video linkage? yer kungfu grows weak old grasshopper
Fight Club

Its okay bro - I would love to beat the shit out of you if it makes you feel better
Reach out you poor soul....

Yet one up on fight club would be Snatch:
SNATCH
I mean - techno banjo plus the ladies enjoy it lil' more.
Do you like dags?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '
')Its okay bro - I would love to beat the shit out of you if it makes you feel better
Reach out you poor soul....

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'W')ildrose my initial reaction is why? Fists bruise, but bullets tear, maim and kill.

Then I remember those Fight Clubs on concrete. Ouch.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', ' ')
Once, when I was eight months pregnant, I jumped out of my car at an intersection to scream at some guys who were punching and kicking a person on the ground.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', ' ')
Once, when I was eight months pregnant, I jumped out of my car at an intersection to scream at some guys who were punching and kicking a person on the ground.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', '
')I don't know if it's simply a difference between the sexes. Not all men/boys need to fight and/or kill. If that were so, why do men return from wars with posttraumatic stress disorder? They didn't know what they were going to encounter in war? Maybe they just like all the tanks and planes and have a need for war games.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', '
')I don't know if it's simply a difference between the sexes. Not all men/boys need to fight and/or kill. If that were so, why do men return from wars with posttraumatic stress disorder? They didn't know what they were going to encounter in war? Maybe they just like all the tanks and planes and have a need for war games.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', '
') I agree that there have been tribal wars since the beginning, though - perhaps the programming has been diminished in some by our modern culture/affluence?

[Loki]

Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. I've watched it many times. There are many themes, many "messages." There's the rebellion against the feminization of men in our society ("We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need."). There's the rebellion against corporate consumerist conformism ("You're not your fucking khakis"), and the rebellion against the soul-crushing nature of most menial jobs ("God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars"). There's class struggle ("We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them"). There's the struggle with mental illness. There's the coming to terms with mortality ("First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die."). There's the taming of the savage man, readying himself for marriage (the end scene where "Jack" and Marla get together after "Jack" rids himself of Tyler). And of course the simmering homoeroticism (Chuck P is gay).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'T')hat is why I love the music of my youth.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', '
') I agree that there have been tribal wars since the beginning, though - perhaps the programming has been diminished in some by our modern culture/affluence?

[worrier]

I think what we often forget is that we evolved to live in small tribal groups, trying to survive periodic food shortages, and other competing humans and large mammals. I don't think we're well suited to the modern society we live in.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'T')hat is why I love the music of my youth.