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For the first time in his nearly 80-year history, Batman is being brought to life by an Academy Award-winning Screenwriter, Director, and Producer.*

This should be a cause for celebration, right?

Yet Ben Affleck’s selection as the next man to don The Dark Knight’s cape-and-cowl has been met with a magnitude of nerd rage powerful enough to register 5.5 on the richter scale.

But why?

Why are we so quick to dismiss Batfleck before we’ve ever even seen the film?

Here’s a shamelessly click-baity article on Top 5 Reasons For The Batfleck Backlash!

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Films are supposed to be relatable.

Ok, ok, not really. Declaring a piece of art “not relatable” and using that flimsy framework as grounds for its dismissal is a modern conceit driven by self-absorbed narcissists who insist that all the art they consume must be a reflection of themselves, or rather how they see themselves, and as a consequence denies them the nourishing power of great drama that hails from a less solipsistic period (see Exhibit A, Ira Glass, “Shakespeare Sucks”).

But I digress…

For the sake of argument, lets say films are supposed to be relatable.

Fine, but what if it a film is more than relatable? What if it feels like the filmmaker has actually crawled into your psyche, dug out your Id, and is projecting light through your subconscious and onto a screen?

That would suck.

If you’ve ever experienced anything like it, then you can “relate” to my experience with the films of Noah Baumbach.

Let’s start here –

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