American Beauty.

American Beauty

Nice. I'm surprised so far. Fight Club is generally seen as the greatest film of its generation so I expected everyone to choose that.

But I also slightly prefer American Beauty.

@JustinJackFlash said:

Fight Club is generally seen as the greatest film of its generation.

All due respect, but LOL.

It's slightly above average.

American Beauty is a great movie.

@Heisenberg12 said:

@JustinJackFlash said:

Fight Club is generally seen as the greatest film of its generation.

All due respect, but LOL.

It's slightly above average.

That's not my personal opinion. That's just the way it's spoken about by academics. It's the general critical consensus. It's not my favourite film. I was merely making reference to the pedestal it's been put on. I was not divulging whether I thought it deserved its place on that pedestal.

You're talking about the film's quality. I wasn't.

Fight Club, but they are actually one of my favorite movies, for sure both in TOP5 together with Heat, Jagten and not sure what would be fifth movie.

But they are very similar movies, American Beauty is just more subtle, though I would guess they were partially inspired by Taxi Driver and Falling Down.

@Markoff said:

American Beauty is just more subtle,

I agree there. That's probably why I prefer it. I do like how both films do similar things in such different ways.

Fight Club

@Markoff said:

Fight Club, but they are actually one of my favorite movies, for sure both in TOP5 together with Heat, Jagten and not sure what would be fifth movie.

But they are very similar movies, American Beauty is just more subtle, though I would guess they were partially inspired by Taxi Driver and Falling Down.

Heat is in my top 5 too. AB is in top 10.

The 90s was a great decade for movies. These three, but then you have T2, Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Donnie Brasco, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, and dozens of others. The list really never ends.

Unfortunately, Fight Club might not even make my top 100 of the 90s. For Norton, I like American History X much better. For Pitt, I like Seven much more. And for Fincher, I even like The Game more.

@JustinJackFlash said:

@Heisenberg12 said:

@JustinJackFlash said:

Fight Club is generally seen as the greatest film of its generation.

All due respect, but LOL.

It's slightly above average.

That's not my personal opinion. That's just the way it's spoken about by academics. It's the general critical consensus. It's not my favourite film. I was merely making reference to the pedestal it's been put on. I was not divulging whether I thought it deserved its place on that pedestal.

You're talking about the film's quality. I wasn't.

Its Metacritic score is 66%. That's not good. So it's not "the general critical consensus".

Ebert gave it 2/4 stars...which is what it deserves unless you want to be lenient and give it 2 and a half/4

It's in at least the top 20 of almost every 100 best films list you can find.

Every review I read of it at the time gave it 5 stars.

The amount of people I've met who regard it as their favourite film is insane.

The amount of magazine articles I've read that hail it as the greatest film of its generation is countless.

Its ratings on both this site and IMDB are both higher than American Beauty.

It's gonna have some bad reviews because it's the kind of film that would be polarizing due to its nihilistic nature. Especially the older critics like Ebert. But those are also the films that are more respected by others because they're bold enough to alienate certain people and not try to pander.

If you don't like the film much, that's fine. But it doesn't mean it's not very much loved by others.

That's all bull dung what you just wrote.

It's not that good.

First of all, "every review "you" read gave it 5 stars"....What? Go read Metacritic. It has a total consensus far less than most popular movies. 66%. That's super low for Metacritic.

Top 20 lol, yeah okay. Top 20 what, overrated movies? It's not of all time. Sure, a couple amateurish indie lists or cult movie lists but not general best.

Who cares how "insane" it is, the amount of people "you" know who regard it as their favorite....The masses are known to jump on bandwagons without independent thinking.

"The amount...greatest of generation..countless"....Articles? You believe them? They're articles....It's not. Not even close. It's not even in Fincher's top 3...

IMDB is known to have a younger audience. They wouldn't grasp AB's very adult themes as well as older adults. And yes, FC definitely appeals to teens/teenagers more than AB, which would explain it.

Ebert? He's too old to understand the film? He's a smart guy. I'm sure he got it. There was nothing hard to grasp about it. Also, it doesn't and didn't alienate him; he gave it 2/4 stars, not 0/4 or 1/4. He judged it fair and unbiased without being influenced by the blind masses. He was objective. Same with me- it didn't alienate me. It's just not that good. I give it a 7/10. Pretty good, slightly above average. That's what it is.

No, I don't like it really that much. It's pretty good. The Game is actually better. In fact, The Game's critical consensus is not much lower than FC's. It's slightly lower, but not by much. But I like the Game more. Ebert gave The Game 3.5/4 stars in comparison too vs the 2/4 he gave to Fight Club.

I'm sure people love it. I remember when it came out too. But I remember most people liked it because of the concept, not the execution. Sure, teenagers prone to aggression and competition fueled by testosterone are going to love the idea, even find it funny, even dream of imitating it maybe. And they all want to be the cool, rebellious, in shape Pitt. But they didn't really over analyze the themes; they liked the superficial aspects of it....It was popular, but not because it was a great movie; Pitt's abs alone make it popular.

I'm almost tempted to say (and this might actually fit) that most people liked Fight Club for the reasons why they'd like American Beauty IF they liked American Beauty because of Spacey pursuing Mena Suvari and whacking off to her; they like the cover and thinks she's hot; they think it's funny; they think that's what the movie is all about. But the reality is there's so much more to it...Fight Club, the problem is with it that unlike AB, there's really not that much more to it. It's ridiculously unrealistic too, whereas American Beauty is ridiculously realistic.

I think it's a decent film, but it wouldn't even make my top 50 of the 90s.

Just because Ebert gave it 2/4 doesn't mean he was not biased, giving it 0/4 would be too obvious for clearly good movie, so giving this movie average score sounds biased.

When Fight Club came out, it was very underrated and unpopular and it gained popularity and cult status in box office.

And you gave it out when you said people like it because of fighting, which is pretty much irrelevant topic in movie, young people will like it for lack of political correctness and rebellious nature, for sure not for Pitt's abs. Despite final scene and while alter egoi find fight club more realistic dealing with issues of our consumer society criticizing it more than AB. Because to sum it up AB is about guy unhappy with his life who start smoking weed and quit his job, while FC is about fight against societal norms, you have there criticism of being raised by women, criticism of consumerism, appreciation of life with empty gun, etc so i find Fight Club outreach far bigger.

Good response...But, I have friends who love FC and trust me when I tell you it has everything to do with the fighting AND Pitt and his abs, physique...I have heard them talk about it, and it's not about anything deeper...And yes, they're all college grads now..

Omg, you think that's what AB is about? Lol. That's exactly what it's NOT about...I don't feel like explaining it forever, but in a nutshell it's a critique of American Society, how the external is all that matters while internally things are totally different; people project an outward superficial appearance of happiness and the perfect upper middle class life, but deep down it's all a facade and they're hiding all these deeper, darker truths. And BTW, he's going thru a "mid life crisis". There's a difference between being unhappy w your life and going through a mid-life crisis.

Well, if you see FC as a fight against societal norms, then it fails at that. It doesn't succeed at it. The protagonist fails, everything was a psychotic break/mpd or schiz, whatever. It was all a failed fantasy. Pitt wasn't even real. And you think this was more "realistic"?

AB is a pinpointed perfect critique of middle/upper middle class America. Nothing about it was unrealistic, really. Nothing was too far out. FC was all fake. The scenes never could have happened in real life.

If you like it, go ahead, but it's overrated to me and people who know movies like Ebert. AND the CONSENSUS on Metacritic, which has it at a really abysmal 66%. I think 66% is the perfect score for it actually. 6.5/10 ish. I'll round it to a 7 with so many other movies that were good-pretty good, but far from great.

Entertainment Weekly gave it a 25%, and LA Times gave it a 30%, both very professional film reviewers. I don't think it's that bad, but if you read their reviews they bring up some good points.

66% on Metacritic is actually a big bash and says a lot bc Metacritic generally scores high if a film is technically good or good in other ways or for films that are above average. 66% on Metacritic is actually bad. Anything below 70 on Metacritic is relatively unfavorable, especially for a movie people like you seem to think is regarded so highly. Even without Ebert, Metacritic giving it only a 66% says a heck of a lot about the movie that the fan boys will drown out.

@Heisenberg12 said:

Omg, you think that's what AB is about? Lol. That's exactly what it's NOT about...I don't feel like explaining it forever, but in a nutshell it's a critique of American Society, how the external is all that matters while internally things are totally different; people project an outward superficial appearance of happiness and the perfect upper middle class life, but deep down it's all a facade and they're hiding all these deeper, darker truths. And BTW, he's going thru a "mid life crisis". There's a difference between being unhappy w your life and going through a mid-life crisis.

Fair play, that is a very good interpretation of AB. And I didn't really want to say that because, well, you seem like a pretty insulting guy. But I am honest and credit where credit is due. You do seem to have a good grasp of the film.

But... there is a 'but' here... I don't think you understand FC very well. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's because it's not a film that particularly interests you. There are certain films that I don't really get.

Much of what you've said is discussing the quality of Fight Club. That's not what I've been talking about. I still haven't even stated my own position on its quality. But this quote of yours is an example of what I mean:

"The amount...greatest of generation..countless"....Articles? You believe them? They're articles....It's not. Not even close. It's not even in Fincher's top 3...

It doesn't matter if I believe them. I'm talking about its reputation. Not my own personal opinion. If you're suggesting it's overrated, fine, maybe it is. But it does have a high reputation and those articles are examples that such a reputation exists. Here's a couple of lines from its wikipedia page:

In 2006 and 2008, Fight Club was voted by Empire readers as the eighth and tenth greatest film of all time, respectively. Total Film ranked Fight Club as "The Greatest Film of our Lifetime" in 2007 during the magazine's tenth anniversary.

If Metacritic had existed in the 40's then Citizen Kane would probably have got around 66. History is strewn with films that received polarizing reviews that are seen as classics. They're usually the best types of films because they push boundaries or suggest political messages that are unpopular with certain crowds.

I'll finish by saying that Fight Club has millions of things to it. It manages to explore more things than 99.9% of other mainstream films. The whole consumerism thing is just the tip of the iceberg. There's existentialism, lack of male role in society since the absence of war, how liberators often become dictators. If I mentioned it all I'd be here all day. Even 17 years later I'm still discovering new depths to it.

Just because there are a lot of people who just watch it for the numbskull fighting side of it doesn't mean that that's all that's there.