1999 was a very good year for movies, but nothing captured millennial angst quite so vividly as David Fincher’s bruising black comedy about what it means to be a man in modern times.
Edward Norton used to be an upwardly mobile urban professional; now, he’s pallid, neurotic and unhappy. In short order he bumps into Tyler Durden (Pitt), his apartment blows up, and everything changes. Gaudy and amoral, Tyler’s an id kind of guy: living on the edge is the only way he knows to feel alive. Pitt’s raw physical grace embodies everything his alter ego has lost touch with; they trade body blows for fun, and you can sense the gain in the pain. At least they are feeling something. Their ’club’ draws emasculates from across the city; under Tyler’s subtle guidance, the group evolves into an anarchist movement.
Jim Uhls’ cold, clever screenplay, from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, is a millennial mantra of seditious agit prop. Shot in a convulsive, stream-of-unconsciousness style, with disruptive subliminals, freeze frames and fantasy cutaways, the film does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction. A quarter-century down the road, we have a pretty good idea of who Tyler has become…
Staff Pick: Yanan
From the guitar roar on the Dust Brothers’ opening title track through to the thundering drums of Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? it is pure synapse-splitting sensory overload.
Kevin Maher, The Times
Blistering, hallucinatory, often brilliant, the film by David Fincher is a combination punch of social satire and sociopathology.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
The movie is not only anti-capitalism but anti-society, and, indeed, anti-God.
Alexander Walker, London Evening Standard
David Fincher
Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meatloaf, Jared Leto
USA
1999
English
Book Tickets
Monday August 31
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Credits
Screenwriter
Jim Uhls
Cinematography
Jeff Cronenweth
Editor
James Haygood
Original Music
The Dust Brothers
Production Design
Alex McDowell
Art Director
Chris Gorak
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
GoodFellas
The ultimate crash and burn movie, Scorsese's exhilarating gangster film is infused with the excitement of fast cash, girls, guns and drugs. Yet this brazenly amoral movie also captures the brutality, betrayal, and spiritual void of the criminal world.
Madonna: Truth or Dare
A year in the life of Madonna at the height of her fame, touring Blonde Ambition through 1990. There's concert footage, but the movie is also daringly truthful about life behind the scenes — not that Madonna is every really off-stage.
Pulp Fiction + The ReViberators
In the spirit of Quentin Tarantino, we're going to launch our summer series 90s, Baby! smack in the middle, with 1994's Pulp Fiction, the most exciting and influential movie of its era. On 35mm. Preceded by surf guitar sensations The ReViberators live!
Jacob's Ladder
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Reservoir Dogs
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Total Recall
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True Romance
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The Company of Strangers
In this Canadian gem, seven elderly women find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down in the wilderness. With only their wits, memories and some roasted frogs' legs to sustain them, this remarkable group of strangers share their life stories.
Boyz n the Hood
Twenty-three-year-old writer-director John Singleton's groundbreaking portrait of three young men growing up in South Central is a film of integrity and compassion. It's a far richer portrait of Black lives than Hollywood's gangsta exploitation pics.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
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Thelma & Louise
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Julio Avila Cuban Band Live + The Mambo Kings Film Screening
Feel the heat! Shake your booty as we combine a live set of exhilarating Cuban music followed by a rediscovered 90s barnstormer of a movie starring Latin heartthrobs Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas alongside the likes of Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.
The Silence of the Lambs
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Delicatessen
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