My rule of thumb was to vote for whichever film I can and have watched multiple times. So with these 2, Fight Club went down for the count.
Bee from SF - 6 years ago
I voted for Fight Club (I think both Handy Barker & Mike H. are right on about Pulp Fiction) but I also feel like legitimate criticisms of that movie are being somewhat papered over in a lot of this discussion. The movie's message is very much anti-consumerism, which is hardly a revolutionary one. It ultimately blames individuals and bad actors rather than systemic or structural problems, leaving it wide open for a reactionary appropriation that we did see in those college clubs and various other examples of toxic masculinity. Which certainly makes it an especially 90s film, if nothing else.
Chris Moody - 6 years ago
I am Jack's bitter taste of resignation. I love Fight Club. When it was released we had recently bought our first house and were busy poring over the IKEA catalogue for 'storage solutions' and 'flexible seating', whatever that is. And within the first reel Ed Norton's laconic VO tore apart our consumer world, hurling me deep into the netherworld of men reclaiming themselves, which as presented is definitely a case of frying pan and fire...
But, but, but... Pulp Fiction. Y'know? Even with QT's terrible performance. Not long before this release, my (now) wife and I had our first date at The Fisher King. Seeing Amanda Plummer stand on the diner table and bellow at the customers made my jaw hit the floor. And it got better. So quotable. So many iconic images. And if PF goes, future generations will think the irritating Direct Line insurance ads in the UK are where Winston Wolf originated... which is NOT ok.
Jeff Milo in Ferndale, MI - 6 years ago
Part of my homework for this required "re-watching" ...and since I knew Pulp Fiction would make it to the final four--- and likely the championship---I was looking forward to a return. I wasn't ready to say it until now, but it might. just. be. the...THE....certifiably... "best" movie of the 90's. It's as mesmerizing and as volatile as a volcano-- slow burn scenes with compellingly-wandering dialogue, perfectly paced line-deliveries so as to set a tone or build a comfortable, or an uncomfortable silence, long tracking shots, scintillating surf rock throughout the soundtrack, home-runs by both Keitel and Walken in less than 10-minute scenes, I could go on... Yes, the subject matter is often nefarious and aside from Jules "trying real hard to be the Shepard," there's no one to really root for, other than maybe Fabienne hopefully one day getting a more straight laced boyfriend.... And yes it's gritty and ugly, but also beautiful and...after a moment of clarity, eye-opening.
I don't usually call interpretations of a film wrong, but those who think 'past' Fight Club's deconstruction of violence, consumerism and stereotypical masculinity and circle back to saying it celebrates those things . . .
...are just wrong.
JM Bossy - 6 years ago
From Vancouver
These are both films I love, but if we're being honest, only one even attempts at providing commentary to its time and place; Fight Club wears its heart on its sleeve, talking directly to a then growing population of disaffected Americans. It stoked their indignation against empty consumerism, against political malaise, and against the impersonal corporations blissfully benefiting from it all. Maybe we're so far from the 90s that we can write off this justified angst as "talking down to the sheeple" but even still Fight Club continues to offer insight on the dangerous seduction of extreme ideologies that lead to the radical militarization of disaffected young men, relevant to modern conversations on terrorism, and toxic masculinity. Fight Club is the most 90s film imaginable, and yet it continues to remain worthy of inclusion in our discourse, and as such, should stay alive, especially when matched against the empty headed Pulp Fiction... Wait... I can't believe I'm arguing against Pulp Fiction... Damn you filmspotting; this madness must be stopped.
David in Chicago - 6 years ago
EDIT - We don't have Pulp from a couple years ago...oh well. I stand by the rest of my statement. Get rid of Pulp
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of listening to Chuck Palaniukh talk about FIGHT CLUB, the book and the movie, with Jim Uhl, the movie’s screenwriter as part of the panel as well. When they got to discussing the end of the film, Palaniukh went on at length about how the novel ended the way it did because it was important for him to hold the protagonist accountable by the support groups he disrespects during the story. When asked why that was changed in the movie, he said “Well, the execs felt it would be cooler to have a big fight scene”. I’ve never cared for the ridiculous Norton/Pitt battle at the end of FIGHT CLUB - a film I really like overall. And Palaniukh’s comment cemented my feeling that it’s a rather dumb climax to a very smart movie.
PULP FICTION nails it from beginning to end though. Maybe it’s not about anything deep, but I’m OK with that when the result is so non-stop entertaining.
David in Chicago - 6 years ago
We already have a copy from the bracket a couple years back that can not be destroyed. I for one would much rather have a second movie to watch in the future rather than TWO copies of Pulp.
It's reputation precedes it in the worst way
Can we just get rid of The Yankees of 90's film already? ...Please?
Neil Mitchell - 6 years ago
My love for "Fight Club" has been documented, but my adoration of "Pulp Fiction" has too, and even clearer. Tarantino makes Fincher the gimp.
Pulp Fiction was cool, you know, and there's not many flicks that could touch it, but Fight Club somehow eclipses it. Maybe it is early 20s vs later 20s? College vs out in the world? You are still a bit sheltered at a younger age, where you can more appreciate cool, a bit later on things really matter and you think a bit more deeply about existence. Ill quote both movies incessantly, but I think about fight club way more in terms of life's choices and be entertained, rather than just plain enjoy and have fun with the dialogue and story lines in Pulp.
Elijah Davidson - 6 years ago
This comes down to whether or not you believe that Pulp Fiction is Tarantino's best. For me, it's not. I'm looking forward to voting for Inglourious Basterds. And Fight Club isn't my favorite Fincher, but it's SO 90s so...
Mike H. - 6 years ago
Since we all know Pulp Fiction is about to run away with this one, I feel a strange sense of duty to be one of the few voices in the wilderness defending Fight Club as a high work of art that's much better than it gets credit for. Decry its "toxic masculinity" all you want, but that whole criticism always felt to me like an absurdly comic case of missing the point seeing as how the entire movie (true to the source novel) is one big transgressive satire of HOW toxic masculinity arises in a society where all sense of meaning and conflict and purpose has been replaced by your identity as a consumer.
Which I mean..........look outside your damn window these days if you want to see how sharp and prescient the cultural commentary was in that film. Young white males are dressing up like Captain America and swinging sticks at other disaffected white males dressed in all black, while the most emotion you've probably seen from half your facebook friends in the last 6 months is when Toys R' Us declared bankruptcy.......like all those plastic trinkets they sold at a 7000% markup from sweat shops is really what defined their childhood.
Anytime I see someone deriding the politics of Fight Club as "immature", I just kinda assume they have a lot of personal unresolved issues with how they sold out their own youthful radical ideals and, like, got a marketing job. Which isn't exactly good or fair film criticism.
QT does a helluva good job making a cool pastiche of pop culture minutiae. But is that not exactly the nostalgia trap of capitalism being deconstructed in Fight Club? The Welcome Back Kotter guy does the watusi for the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, and that's supposed to sum up something profound about the American Experience.
I'm guessing Fight Club will disappear forever after this match up, but I really hope its message doesn't. When all that's left to watch in the wasteland is Tarantino's re-re-cannibalizations of camp TV and milkshakes, we'll need a little anarchic spark left somewhere.
David MacKay - 6 years ago
This one didn't take too much consideration. Fight Club wants so earnestly to be a deep film that it stops being entertaining. Pulp fiction knows what it is--an entertaining popcorn flick that stands up to viewing after viewing.
Handy Barker - 6 years ago
This is the easiest choice of all for me. "Fight Club" and "The Matrix" were dystopian visions of the world we've grown closer to daily, where Tarentino is still pasting together old Flintstones' cartoon square references and 60s Hollywood lore with overcooked monologues and the unecessary and interminable appearances of a Mexican Standoff and QT himself demonstrating the obvious: he can't act. It's barely a single story, which is why he hashed it up to make it seem more complete, and is mean-spirited and racist: as a teacher for years after "The Fiction" came out, I fought to stop white rural boys who found justification calling out "Dead Nigger Zones" because QT felt he needed to. He's the most irresponsible artist of our time, and though I temper that with common sense--I am a huge Woody Allen and Polanski fan, after all--there's no call for the misogyny, cruel violence, and racism Tarentino spins out for lack of actual ideas and stories. Do your last twist, babe. The first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Pulp Fiction after it's gone.
Joel Karpowitz in Raleigh, NC - 6 years ago
Two films whose advancement this far was inevitable because they both seemed like revelations and boldly shocking when they came out. I'll be honest, though, I have no excitement for either of them. Tarantino would outdo himself in Jackie Brown (sadly no longer in the tournament,) and then again fifteen years later in Inglorious Basterds (PS, if that doesn't make next year's Filmspotting Madness then, like Shoshanna, we may just have to burn it all down).
On the other hand, in the post-Trump, me-too world we live in today, where female empowerment and toxic masculinity are in the limelight like never before, Fight Club just doesn't age all that well. It's clever and admittedly sickly fun, but for the most part a film about men proving their masculinity--even in jest and even in satire--just feels a little icky these days. It's hard not to remember how the film's satiric message really missed its target audience (do you remember how fight clubs sprang up in college towns across the country?) and feels frankly out of date today.
Pulp Fiction gets the credit and the vote for changing indie film--maybe for the worse, as I'm not sure how many overwritten, self-satisfied, bloated indie crime films I had to sit through over the next decade--but it's got a lot more style than substance. Let's hope next round a better film will finally strike down upon it with great vengeance and furious anger.
Beat - 6 years ago
i didn't really wanna vote for "pulp fiction", it's such a cliché choice. but i'll have to, because "fight club" is horrible and i have no idea how it got so far.
Joseph Orlando - 6 years ago
Two excellent films, though both held on higher pedestals than they deserve.
Pulp Fiction has style in spades, and is a technical marvel with razor-sharp dialogue. But Pulp Fiction ultimately doesn't seem to have much to say. I've never been able to find a broader IDEA in the film, or been forced to think much about the human condition after watching it. This isn't a fault, per se. But it DOES lower a film's overall prestige. There are great films that don't have great ideas. But the best films always will.
Fight Club definitely has ideas, though their merit is the subject of some debate. I saw a recent tweet, I believe on Josh's feed, explaining one's thoughts on Fight Club as a function of repeat viewings. I clearly have landed in the "Toxic Masculinity and way less smart than its fans give it credit for" camp. But, man, is it stylishly presented.
In the end its a battle of style. It's also, I would argue, a battle of influence. Fight Club is well-loved, but hasn't affected film-making as fundamentally as Pulp Fiction. In the end, its fitting that Fight Club will just be a figment of Filmspotting Nation's collective imagination.
James McKinley in Indianapolis - 6 years ago
Pulp Fiction may be the best movie ever made. What happened to Quentin Tarantino??
Tom Morris - 6 years ago
The first rule of Fight Club is you do not vote against Pulp Fiction.
My rule of thumb was to vote for whichever film I can and have watched multiple times. So with these 2, Fight Club went down for the count.
I voted for Fight Club (I think both Handy Barker & Mike H. are right on about Pulp Fiction) but I also feel like legitimate criticisms of that movie are being somewhat papered over in a lot of this discussion. The movie's message is very much anti-consumerism, which is hardly a revolutionary one. It ultimately blames individuals and bad actors rather than systemic or structural problems, leaving it wide open for a reactionary appropriation that we did see in those college clubs and various other examples of toxic masculinity. Which certainly makes it an especially 90s film, if nothing else.
I am Jack's bitter taste of resignation. I love Fight Club. When it was released we had recently bought our first house and were busy poring over the IKEA catalogue for 'storage solutions' and 'flexible seating', whatever that is. And within the first reel Ed Norton's laconic VO tore apart our consumer world, hurling me deep into the netherworld of men reclaiming themselves, which as presented is definitely a case of frying pan and fire...
But, but, but... Pulp Fiction. Y'know? Even with QT's terrible performance. Not long before this release, my (now) wife and I had our first date at The Fisher King. Seeing Amanda Plummer stand on the diner table and bellow at the customers made my jaw hit the floor. And it got better. So quotable. So many iconic images. And if PF goes, future generations will think the irritating Direct Line insurance ads in the UK are where Winston Wolf originated... which is NOT ok.
Part of my homework for this required "re-watching" ...and since I knew Pulp Fiction would make it to the final four--- and likely the championship---I was looking forward to a return. I wasn't ready to say it until now, but it might. just. be. the...THE....certifiably... "best" movie of the 90's. It's as mesmerizing and as volatile as a volcano-- slow burn scenes with compellingly-wandering dialogue, perfectly paced line-deliveries so as to set a tone or build a comfortable, or an uncomfortable silence, long tracking shots, scintillating surf rock throughout the soundtrack, home-runs by both Keitel and Walken in less than 10-minute scenes, I could go on... Yes, the subject matter is often nefarious and aside from Jules "trying real hard to be the Shepard," there's no one to really root for, other than maybe Fabienne hopefully one day getting a more straight laced boyfriend.... And yes it's gritty and ugly, but also beautiful and...after a moment of clarity, eye-opening.
Mike H. for the win.
I don't usually call interpretations of a film wrong, but those who think 'past' Fight Club's deconstruction of violence, consumerism and stereotypical masculinity and circle back to saying it celebrates those things . . .
...are just wrong.
From Vancouver
These are both films I love, but if we're being honest, only one even attempts at providing commentary to its time and place; Fight Club wears its heart on its sleeve, talking directly to a then growing population of disaffected Americans. It stoked their indignation against empty consumerism, against political malaise, and against the impersonal corporations blissfully benefiting from it all. Maybe we're so far from the 90s that we can write off this justified angst as "talking down to the sheeple" but even still Fight Club continues to offer insight on the dangerous seduction of extreme ideologies that lead to the radical militarization of disaffected young men, relevant to modern conversations on terrorism, and toxic masculinity. Fight Club is the most 90s film imaginable, and yet it continues to remain worthy of inclusion in our discourse, and as such, should stay alive, especially when matched against the empty headed Pulp Fiction... Wait... I can't believe I'm arguing against Pulp Fiction... Damn you filmspotting; this madness must be stopped.
EDIT - We don't have Pulp from a couple years ago...oh well. I stand by the rest of my statement. Get rid of Pulp
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of listening to Chuck Palaniukh talk about FIGHT CLUB, the book and the movie, with Jim Uhl, the movie’s screenwriter as part of the panel as well. When they got to discussing the end of the film, Palaniukh went on at length about how the novel ended the way it did because it was important for him to hold the protagonist accountable by the support groups he disrespects during the story. When asked why that was changed in the movie, he said “Well, the execs felt it would be cooler to have a big fight scene”. I’ve never cared for the ridiculous Norton/Pitt battle at the end of FIGHT CLUB - a film I really like overall. And Palaniukh’s comment cemented my feeling that it’s a rather dumb climax to a very smart movie.
PULP FICTION nails it from beginning to end though. Maybe it’s not about anything deep, but I’m OK with that when the result is so non-stop entertaining.
We already have a copy from the bracket a couple years back that can not be destroyed. I for one would much rather have a second movie to watch in the future rather than TWO copies of Pulp.
It's reputation precedes it in the worst way
Can we just get rid of The Yankees of 90's film already? ...Please?
My love for "Fight Club" has been documented, but my adoration of "Pulp Fiction" has too, and even clearer. Tarantino makes Fincher the gimp.
Pulp Fiction was cool, you know, and there's not many flicks that could touch it, but Fight Club somehow eclipses it. Maybe it is early 20s vs later 20s? College vs out in the world? You are still a bit sheltered at a younger age, where you can more appreciate cool, a bit later on things really matter and you think a bit more deeply about existence. Ill quote both movies incessantly, but I think about fight club way more in terms of life's choices and be entertained, rather than just plain enjoy and have fun with the dialogue and story lines in Pulp.
This comes down to whether or not you believe that Pulp Fiction is Tarantino's best. For me, it's not. I'm looking forward to voting for Inglourious Basterds. And Fight Club isn't my favorite Fincher, but it's SO 90s so...
Since we all know Pulp Fiction is about to run away with this one, I feel a strange sense of duty to be one of the few voices in the wilderness defending Fight Club as a high work of art that's much better than it gets credit for. Decry its "toxic masculinity" all you want, but that whole criticism always felt to me like an absurdly comic case of missing the point seeing as how the entire movie (true to the source novel) is one big transgressive satire of HOW toxic masculinity arises in a society where all sense of meaning and conflict and purpose has been replaced by your identity as a consumer.
Which I mean..........look outside your damn window these days if you want to see how sharp and prescient the cultural commentary was in that film. Young white males are dressing up like Captain America and swinging sticks at other disaffected white males dressed in all black, while the most emotion you've probably seen from half your facebook friends in the last 6 months is when Toys R' Us declared bankruptcy.......like all those plastic trinkets they sold at a 7000% markup from sweat shops is really what defined their childhood.
Anytime I see someone deriding the politics of Fight Club as "immature", I just kinda assume they have a lot of personal unresolved issues with how they sold out their own youthful radical ideals and, like, got a marketing job. Which isn't exactly good or fair film criticism.
QT does a helluva good job making a cool pastiche of pop culture minutiae. But is that not exactly the nostalgia trap of capitalism being deconstructed in Fight Club? The Welcome Back Kotter guy does the watusi for the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, and that's supposed to sum up something profound about the American Experience.
I'm guessing Fight Club will disappear forever after this match up, but I really hope its message doesn't. When all that's left to watch in the wasteland is Tarantino's re-re-cannibalizations of camp TV and milkshakes, we'll need a little anarchic spark left somewhere.
This one didn't take too much consideration. Fight Club wants so earnestly to be a deep film that it stops being entertaining. Pulp fiction knows what it is--an entertaining popcorn flick that stands up to viewing after viewing.
This is the easiest choice of all for me. "Fight Club" and "The Matrix" were dystopian visions of the world we've grown closer to daily, where Tarentino is still pasting together old Flintstones' cartoon square references and 60s Hollywood lore with overcooked monologues and the unecessary and interminable appearances of a Mexican Standoff and QT himself demonstrating the obvious: he can't act. It's barely a single story, which is why he hashed it up to make it seem more complete, and is mean-spirited and racist: as a teacher for years after "The Fiction" came out, I fought to stop white rural boys who found justification calling out "Dead Nigger Zones" because QT felt he needed to. He's the most irresponsible artist of our time, and though I temper that with common sense--I am a huge Woody Allen and Polanski fan, after all--there's no call for the misogyny, cruel violence, and racism Tarentino spins out for lack of actual ideas and stories. Do your last twist, babe. The first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Pulp Fiction after it's gone.
Two films whose advancement this far was inevitable because they both seemed like revelations and boldly shocking when they came out. I'll be honest, though, I have no excitement for either of them. Tarantino would outdo himself in Jackie Brown (sadly no longer in the tournament,) and then again fifteen years later in Inglorious Basterds (PS, if that doesn't make next year's Filmspotting Madness then, like Shoshanna, we may just have to burn it all down).
On the other hand, in the post-Trump, me-too world we live in today, where female empowerment and toxic masculinity are in the limelight like never before, Fight Club just doesn't age all that well. It's clever and admittedly sickly fun, but for the most part a film about men proving their masculinity--even in jest and even in satire--just feels a little icky these days. It's hard not to remember how the film's satiric message really missed its target audience (do you remember how fight clubs sprang up in college towns across the country?) and feels frankly out of date today.
Pulp Fiction gets the credit and the vote for changing indie film--maybe for the worse, as I'm not sure how many overwritten, self-satisfied, bloated indie crime films I had to sit through over the next decade--but it's got a lot more style than substance. Let's hope next round a better film will finally strike down upon it with great vengeance and furious anger.
i didn't really wanna vote for "pulp fiction", it's such a cliché choice. but i'll have to, because "fight club" is horrible and i have no idea how it got so far.
Two excellent films, though both held on higher pedestals than they deserve.
Pulp Fiction has style in spades, and is a technical marvel with razor-sharp dialogue. But Pulp Fiction ultimately doesn't seem to have much to say. I've never been able to find a broader IDEA in the film, or been forced to think much about the human condition after watching it. This isn't a fault, per se. But it DOES lower a film's overall prestige. There are great films that don't have great ideas. But the best films always will.
Fight Club definitely has ideas, though their merit is the subject of some debate. I saw a recent tweet, I believe on Josh's feed, explaining one's thoughts on Fight Club as a function of repeat viewings. I clearly have landed in the "Toxic Masculinity and way less smart than its fans give it credit for" camp. But, man, is it stylishly presented.
In the end its a battle of style. It's also, I would argue, a battle of influence. Fight Club is well-loved, but hasn't affected film-making as fundamentally as Pulp Fiction. In the end, its fitting that Fight Club will just be a figment of Filmspotting Nation's collective imagination.
Pulp Fiction may be the best movie ever made. What happened to Quentin Tarantino??
The first rule of Fight Club is you do not vote against Pulp Fiction.