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Friday Fun Thread for February 16, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Before the valentine's day post massacre (never forget) I was having a conversation about Fight Club which made me want to watch it again, so two nights ago I watched it with my brother and his teenage son. My brother and I discussed if it was appropriate for my nephew to watch, given its mature content and themes, some of which would go straight over the head of teens, but I convinced him by pointing out that I watched fight club as a teen.

But I must have been arguing about it with myself in my sleep last night, because I woke up this morning with a burning conviction that I had convinced my brother to fuck up his son - does he want him to turn out to be a ridiculous nihilist misanthrope like me?!

So here's my question - can anyone think of movies with the opposite philosophy and message to fight club? I think I'll need a few of them - I imagine if there was a movie like that that did as good a job presenting its philosophy as fight club did I'd have heard of it already, but maybe we could brute force him back into sanity by inundating him with them.

You're looking for the classics

It's a Wonderful Life

The Liz Taylor Richard Burton Faust

White Christmas

On the Waterfront

Casablanca

ROCKY

Really like, 90% of John Wayne's movies

Btaveheart

ETA: I thought of Pride of the Yankees and then realized the perfect answer: spring training is starting up, watch all of Ken Burns Baseball. Fight Club is the classic pessimistic End of History, Baseball is the optimistic. We've solved the big problems, it's only up from here! Everything is beautiful. The human spirit! Achievement!

Baseball is a great idea, but the kid was born and raised here in Australia, I don't know if he'll sit through anything about baseball. It's worth a shot though (plus it would be nice to have one more person in my Dunbar group who doesn't roll their eyes when I mention the sport). Also I didn't know Taylor and Burton had done a Faust movie! The reviews aren't kind, but critics used to have a real hate-on for anything supernatural that wasn't a goofy rubber mask farce, you reckon it's worth a watch?

It's straight Marlowe's play. I enjoyed it but I was also on a very strong edible. Obviously open to interpretation.