The New AND Improved MoFo Top 100 Films of All-Time

The Departed, huh? Didn't predict that one. Although I like it well enough. Guess that means I was wrong about Oldboy making the top 10.

Fight Club is a well-made, stylish, clever film and I've never understood why people pick on it because apparently teenagers think it's cool. So what? Why does teen popularity not count against Pulp Fiction?

I do and I'm not a tween. Taylor Lautner is ****** hot. And yes, I can go way gayer than this even though I'm straight.

Now seriously, why do you find the list to be frustrating?

The order was out of whack..but all in all, its shaping up pretty good.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

Fight Club is #6 on my list too. How interesting. Although, I am guilty of being a 17 year old guy...

I don't see how being liked by teenagers retracts from the movie's quality, because it's definitely a great movie.

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Recently Watched: AKIRA, Little Miss Sunshine, Take Shelter

Not detracts from the "quality" per se (let's not confuse our terms), but rather, provides grounds for not liking it on a thematic level.

If "quality" was the only thing being judged here, then why was Birth of a Nation dropped for Intolerance from the AFI list?

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Fight Club was my favorite movie when i was 19.

and there isn't anything wrong with that. at the time, it probably was one of the only decent films i had seen.

The key part is "if considered in relation to is audience." I'm saying, don't consider that when considering a work of art. It's not a fair thing to consider.

Now, if you're just saying that you like Fight Club less because you can't help but think of wannabe anarchists worshipping it, and that this is purely an S&R bond that you can't shake but acknowledge has nothing to do with the quality of the film itself, then that's understandable. Just sayin'....Fight Club is a damn good movie, and that doesn't change because goofy upper middle-class suburban kids like that it makes them feel like rebels.

I think this might be backwards. You're talking about how a work of art is influenced (and informed by) the time in which it was created, and that's true enough. But that's something which informs the work itself -- not something that comes after and reacts to it. Shakepeare would be different in another time because it would've been written differently to begin with.

I guess you could get all meta and circular and say that it would've been different because it's anticipating its own reaction, but that would imply that Fincher was trying to create a film that would be idolized by goofy teenagers, and would turn this discussion into a crazy mobius strip.

Yoda, you just made a great post that says everything I said and was about to say in response. I've got nothing to add.

Basically... medium is the message type stuff is what I'm going for. You can never fully separate the two. All films are embedded into their time, place, and audience.

I think Fight Club can become a great work one day when it is redefined by another audience, but currently I'm quite underwhelmed by the "type" of reaction.

As for circular... it's not. It's absolutely possible for Fight Club to be something created by social conditions without Fincher doing it knowingly. To be certain, this is essentially the ONLY way a film can be created by social conditions; i.e. unconsciously, where ideology exists. As soon as you try to rationalize something---or bring the unconscious into the conscious---like catching a soap bubble, you loose it. You loose contact with the form of the ideology. It can only be expressed by someone not knowing what they are doing or doing something completely contrary to what they know (hence religion)!

I dig what you're on about. I guess my response (if one is even necessary at this point) would be that, if and when you decide to think criticially about a certain type of art -- as I think you'd agree we both try to do -- you try to ignore the reactions of other people insofar as is possible and judge the work as objectively as you can. The fact that Fight Club may be "redefined" when different people like it 50 years from now is all the more reason to do this, because a good reviewer will be able to see past the associations it has now to the value it may have later.

Put another way: good criticism should withstand the test of time just as well as the art it comments on. So when I say that Fight Club is a great film and ignore the types of fans it often attracts, I do this because those fans will grow up, stop liking it, and 50 years from now other types of people may like it. Yet the same film will remain. That's what I want to review when I review a film: the thing that will remain when its transient fans have moved on to other things.

Dude Palahniuk's novels are most definitely geared toward teenage high schoolers. I read Choke, Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Survivor as a high school sophomore, and I bragged about how edgy and non conforming chuck's books are with my elitist friends who also agreed that Palahniuk is definitely not for high schoolers. Then we all listened to Panic! at the Disco and brushed our bangs to the side before tying our Chuck Taylors and aknowledged how cool each others metal/hardcore band tee shirts were.



FWIW, I love the film, and Choke too for that matter.

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well, i find it no more frustrating than anyone else... i think. i'm not disappointed with the whole list or anything, but the Top 10 has been a little anticlimactic.

Woah. This is a good sentence here.

I suppose the easiest thing to do now is ask ourselves what Fight Club and Palahniuk tell us about our time, but---you're right---it's much more difficult and impressive to ask ourselves what they might represent in a different context altogether.

But I think the idea is that it MUST exist within some context. I love how you're suggesting that it doesn't always have to be the here and now. That's bold... and very postmodernist if I dare say so. For example... what does Fight Club mean to Japanese tweens? Something akin to what Battle Royale means to us?

this kinda reminds me of, not to be redundant, but - The Wizard of Oz. it's not the same thing exactly, but wasn't the reception less than flattering 70 years ago? it was meant to be for an adult audience, but wasn't taken seriously... which i guess could be social conditions.

Fight Club is a great, great movie. It's immensely entertaining and I'm quite happy with its placement on the list.

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5. Taxi Driver (1976, Scorsese)





Total Points Earned: 187
Compared to Previous List: 92 spots

Up 92 spots? Holy crap!

Haven't seen this one yet, but may need to bump it up higher in my queue.

Now I am happy..

I saw this when I was a teenager & I still love it..
I used to rave about it then & I still do.

Only hope it didn't change peoples opinion on this film... I would hate to do so..
I mean people really judge films based on other people's opinions right?? & also make their favourite lists based on this??

Who cares, I will always love this film!!

F8ck yeah. Scorsese redeemed. Massively. I'll take this or Raging Bull as his top, but Bull got the cut way back.

Also, you should know by now that it's a physical impossibility to change anyone's opinion, g_p.

that's what i'm talking about.

get on top of that shiz, miss vicky.