Whargarbl 4: Live Free or Garbl Whar, or, My Long-Belated Thoughts on "Man of Steel"

As a follow-up to my incredibly virulent defense of Ben Affleck, I thought I'd also do a post about Man of Steel, the recent reprequeboot of the Superman franchise. I know it's been a while since it came out, but there was plenty of butthurt and there still is regarding some of the plot, and I've been on a running butthurt theme lately. Not to mention several blogs and websites this week have featured Zack Snyder's defense of the calamitous destruction of Metropolis in the climax of the movie.

I liked Man of Steel. At times, I loved it. At times, I think Henry Cavill perfectly captured the spirit of classic Superman if he was met with real-world situations. The scene that comes to mind is when he gives himself up to the military. Now, let me explain something about Superman, which will be referenced several times: Superman is crazy powerful. How crazy? Throughout all of the continuity resets DC did, he's been shown to shrug off nuclear strikes. Before the 80's continuity reboot Crisis on Infinite Earths (the grand-daddy of all “event” miniseries) he was even shown moving planets around.

The Most Enlightening Show You're Not Watching

I've spoken before about my love for TV Tropes on this blog. It is The Abyss in every sense of the word...you gaze into it, and are lost for all of time. Seriously...hit "Random" once on that site and you're hooked.

But one of the more maddening tropes, that infects modern day Hollywood and media in general, is that Viewers Are Morons. It's a commonly held perception in Hollywood that one can never underestimate the intelligence of viewers, and certainly there's support for it if you look at the grosses of Michael Bay movies.

The top-grossing being, "Who Wants To Set Back Civil Rights 20 Years?"

Unfortunately, the idea that Viewers Are Morons is particularly prevalent in American media. And don't bloody pretend it isn't...I've read far to much IMDB trivia about the making of the movie, where executives went, "its a good movie, but what about TITS?" There are exceptions, but unfortunately, the higher-ups in entertainment tend to play the odds.

This Movie's Underrated: "Macgruber"

Because when I start a column of underrated movies, I don't fuck around.

MacGruber could easily be confused for a war crime. It's a Saturday Night Live movie, for example, and its humor is about as crass and offensive as you can get.

But it just might be the fucking funniest thing I have ever seen.

It's not for everyone, to be sure. It's a movie where the lead character comes up with "a little distraction" for some henchmen by shoving celery up his ass and strutting out naked in front of them making bird noises. Its humor is more 4chan than Blazing Saddles. But by God, I laughed harder at MacGruber than at any movie since Superbad. And (dare I say it?) I think it's actually smarter than most people give it credit for.

Just...go with me on that one.