Fight Club's Impeccable Timing

This is as good as any movie to end my 1990s movie pieces on.  The late 90s really had a great run of cool movies, that weren't popcorn eaters, grand epics, there were no silly super heroes dressed in spandex or robot costumes, there weren't over-dramatic pieces about how women shouldn't box or make bold statements such as the ever controversial "racism is bad" statement which was so daringly made in the Oscar winning, "Crash."  Nope, we had some classics.  In fact, here's the short list of great films from 1996-1999:

Fargo

Swingers

Boogie Nights

L.A. Confidential

Jackie Brown

Saving Private Ryan

Rounders

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

The Big Lebowski
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Magnolia

American Beauty

Fight Club

Very few of these movies adhere to the typical Hollywood genre specific formula.  Sure, Private Ryan is a war movie, and a couple of these are "crime" movies, but these crime movies aren't your standard cops and robbers chasers.  They're quality. 

Fight Club is an American terrorist movie.  If this came out in the summer of 2001, it may have been blamed for 9/11 by smiling politicians and bible beaters.  If it was scheduled to come out in 2002, it wouldn't have, simple as that.  These American punks bring buildings down and worse yet, they try to create a counter-culture against the typical American commercialized bullshit.  Sure the movie may be filmed with a little too much green in the lens (no idea what I'm talking about here, but the movie is so freaking green), but once you get over the discomfort of Dying of Cancer support groups et al, it's as fun as just about any movie out there.  Like everyone else, I especially enjoy re-watching it to see how many times I can find Brad Pitt flash on the screen before he's introduced in the movie. 

Remember that immediate post 9/11 world, where every violent act on the silver screen was being scrutinized?  I believe it was the movie Collateral Damage that had to delay its release because it had violence in it.  Remember that?  It didn't have to be delayed because it sucked, but because it was too violent for society.  This was also the same time Jesus made a comeback.  In the 90s, religion was at an all-time low, and because the internet wasn't too big yet, you didn't get to hear the thoughts of some Gay hating church in Kansas.  Sure it happened, but there was no exposure so it wasn't that big of a deal.  Now people all around the country can make it seem like they really have a cause going and that God indeed does hate America because we let hate-filled people spit on the funerals of the people who fight for our country.  It's in the Constitution, but with Amendments you can make changes to the Constitution and then you can make all sorts of crazy laws! 

The post 9/11 world had that American Flag fad, in which people were all of a sudden "patriotic" and this simply meant putting American flag decals on your car and you were all of a sudden Pro-America, where the people that didn't succumb to the fad were obviously just as bad as the terrorists themselves.  It was similar to that of a local sports team making a playoff run to which everyone all of a sudden has their sports team's flag waving from their car, but they're gone as soon as the team sucks again.  People even put those American flag decals on their doors … and now they're gone, nearly all of them.  When's the last time you saw someone with an American flag decal on their door?  Oh America, I love how your patriotism can be a fad. 

Fight Club called out all of this bullshit.  Thank god it came out in 1999 so we got to see it because I promise you, there's no way Ed Norton and his Brad Pitt alter-ego were going to be devising schemes to bring buildings down a couple years later.  They really don't make movies like this anymore.