This is a weird list. A whole bunch of movies that I love and they all seem somewhat similar. I could not really point what ties them together, but I think they are all movies about my generation. I am at the very tail end of Gen-X (some people call us Xennials). Most of these movies just resonate with me or where I was during that time in my life. And all of these movies tie together with one of my favorite movies: Fight Club. Yeah, you are probably a little confused about what these movies have in common with Fight Club, but trust me, in a weird way, they are similar or at least they are similar to me. Since this is my blog, my rules.
5. In the Land of Women
The story of a guy who goes to take care of his grandmother after a rough break-up. He finds a family full of women and builds relationships with them. Sometimes we think a break-up is the worst thing imaginable. We believe we were in deep love and then as time goes on, we realize it was not all that deep and powerful. This movie probably has the most tenuous connection to Fight Club, but here we go…Adam Brody finds camaraderie with a group of women to help him cope with his life, similar to the Narrator and Fight Club.
4. Sideways
A fantastic movie about two friends who celebrate a bachelor party with a wine weekend. Aside from having one of the funniest scenes in any movie, it is also a great representation of middle-aged guys, who just cannot accept that they need to grow up. They are still chasing a life that is probably never going to happen (whether it be as an actor or writer). I realize Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamatti are not Gen-Xers, but whatever. My list, my reasoning. Anyways, in Fight Club, Tyler Durden talks about wasted potential and us being the middle generation of history.
3. Into the Wild
The story of Christopher McCandless and how he went missing in the Alaskan wilderness. The catalyst for his decision to get off the grid is because he finds out that he and his sister were had out of wedlock, while his father was married to another woman. Okay, back to Fight Club for a second. What was Tyler’s goal? We would all be living in the wild, wearing clothes we made ourselves and hunting deer. There is something about getting out and going back to a simpler, yet harder time that seems to appeal to our generation.
2. In Good Company
This is the movie that actually had me thinking about the idea of this list. I love this movie and I was trying to figure out why. Tyler Durden has a few lines that connect to this one. He says about how “advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” Think about it though, Topher Grace buys a Porsche, has the fancy watch, buys his girlfriend a fancy necklace…he has no clue what to do. Same with the line from Tyler about how his father would tell him to go to college, get a good job, and then his next piece of advice was get married. All just boxes to check off in the “complete life.” Topher is trying to do this, but it is not making him any happier. I love when he invites himself to Dennis Quaid’s house for dinner and he gives Quaid’s wife a hug.
There is also a subtle, sad moment when he talks about his parents and how his mom is a hippy and his dad left them when he was young. It reminded me of something I read in a Rolling Stone interview with Aaron Lewis. He said his parents were hippies and more interested in being his friend than his parents. That interview and this movie always rang true for me.
1. Garden State
This is probably one of my top ten favorite movies of all-time. And you would think this movie is so far from Fight Club. Yet, think about the Narrator and Andrew, particularly at the beginning of each movie. The Narrator is going through the motions of life, he cannot sleep, he says he feels like a copy of a copy of a copy. Andrew Largeman is in a similar position. The difference is how they deal with this funk (the Narrator creates a new personality, Tyler Durden…sorry, spoiler?) and Andrew stops taking his meds and decides to start actually feeling life.
The movie also has some of those hints of the movies listed before. One of my favorite scenes is when Sam’s mom offers him a hug, to which Sam is embarrassed and says no, but Andrew says that he would like a hug. It is almost the Tyler Durden moment for Andrew Largeman, he is allowing himself to experience feelings (the good and the bad), the same way that Durden gives the Narrator the chemical burn on his hand (yelling at him to focus on the pain, do not do what those dead people do—the Narrator is trying to escape to his cave with his power animal).
So there it is, how did I do connecting them?
