Now putting that all aside. Can you honestly say that you think 2020 (read: 2019) was a better year than 1999? I gave you seven geniunely great movies (excluded The Mummy even though I love it). I'm seeing five great 2019 movies in your list and I wouldn't put most of them at the level of the likes of Matrix, Green Mile or Fight Club.
I wasn't arguing for better or worse. Your proposition involved better and worse, but my reply has always been "they are not really that different", which is the bit you're probably struggling with. Me saying "nah, mate, it was shite back then too" doesn't mean I'm saying "today is much better".
When I said "if XYZ superhero movie was released in 2000 it would be hailed as a masterpiece" is precisely because there were virtually zero decent super hero movies back then (Superman & the first Batman were long memories past), as we know them today. In fact, the film X-Men, which came out in 2000, was pretty much the first ever 'decent' Marvel super hero movie, and the 'quality' of a modern Marvel movie would seriously outshine the first X-Man movie. X-Men stood out for being alone. The point being about
confusing repetition with objective quality.
2000 doesn't have a matrix or a Fight Club either. Neither does 2001, nor did 1998. The Green Mile was a good movie, but I think you escalate it beyond it's true comparative value, you could say harsh things about Green Mile quite easily, but Hanks was at his Hanksiest in 1999, he could make anything watchable back then, and kinda still does, just to a lesser extent.
Fight Club is one where I've been arguing the toss with people for years. It's a meme movie that's objectively bad, but just happened to catch'a'fire with audiences, which has escalated with the meme-plenty offerings it supplies the modern generation. And it's objectively bad because almost the entire film is narration. The protagonist never stops narrating. And as soon as you notice that, there's no avoiding it, it'll grate on you from every scene to the next.
What's wrong with narration? It's like one of the first rules of bad film-making:
For the most part, the problem many see with voice over narration in films is it defeats the purpose of storytelling through imagery, and even the characters’ own dialogue. Some will even say narration is only used to move along an otherwise stagnant story, or one that’s poorly directed.
But it worked for Fight Club, because all people were taking from that movie was the "oh how cool bro" catchphrase of "The first rule of fight club is" and repeating it ad nauseum as if it were a new joke every time, when really it got boring after the first three times.
The film is overly long, 2 hours and 20 minutes, with a middle section that everyone collectively completely forgets in favour of the joy of watching the odd punch-up and saying "the first rule of fight club is". That middle section is like a film version of a coma - and yet he's still narrating. 2 hours and 20 minutes and they still can't show not tell? Is the film just a subtle attempt at an audio book with something moving to look at in the hope you don't nod off?
And the twist at the ending? Yes, very cool, very cool. Lots of movies have twists at the ending though, and do so without all the narration and keeping you imprisoned for 2 hours 20 minutes.
And as for any suggestion of it being a 'too deep for you' film full of subtext about this, that, and the other, no, no it's not, it's a standard 'movie with a twist' that is just more 'pretentious' than other movies with a twist that uses the smoke and mirrors or narration and run-time to fool you into thinking there's more to the film than a basic 'movie with a twist + memey catchphrase of the first rule about fight club is'.
It's essentially a student film writ large. What's the first rule of film making - don't fucking narrate all through your overly long movie.