The Life Lesson:

For those who didn't watch the clip: It's a short, vicious verbal bitch-slap Affleck's Chuckie Sullivan administers to Will Hunting because of the latter's unwillingness to use his genius intellect to escape their poor, blue-collar life. I'm no genius, and there's a chance that some of you reading this aren't either, but the same principle applies to us, too: If you're good at something, Ben Affleck double dares you to embrace it. Because if you don't, he's going to ring your doorbell two decades down the line and fuckin' kill you.

See? Already, the man is an inspiration to us all.

The Daredevil movie is a bit of a turd. No one's contesting this. A rewatch certainly doesn't help matters, especially as I'm foolishly sticking with the original instead of the vastly superior director's cut. But, when you get right down to it, is it really Ben Affleck's fault? No. He rocks the red gimp suit and Murdock persona in equal measures and does his best to hold his own against the dual cheese invasion of Colin Farrell's Bullseye and the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan's Kingpin.

You can practically taste the ham.

Yet, with little fault of his own, Affleck still bears the brunt of the dullness and disappointment associated with the movie. What's more, superhero movies offer precious few second chances, unless you're called Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans. No matter how good Ben'll be as Batman, the world's default expectation after Daredevil is for him to fail. If Zack Snyder or, shit, anyone else fucks up even the slightest bit of Batman V Superman, we'll all be making smug little "Ha, Affleck fails at superheroing again" jokes all year long. I'll bet you the entire left testicle of the guy sitting next to me on the subway right now. Yes, I'm talking about you, Matt. That's what you get for reading other people's laptop screens, Matt.

Purestock/Purestock/Getty Images
Fuck you, Matt.

The Life Lesson:

Sometimes people will blame you for others' mistakes, especially if you happen to be prancing all over the disaster area in a skin-tight leather bodysuit. You'll just have to learn to roll with the punches and rise again.

Right. Armageddon. In many ways, this movie is the quintessential Michael Bay movie: lots of explosions, ridiculous plot, cartoonish characters. Luckily for him, the year was 1998, so instead of making all his wacky characters shitty CGI robots, he was forced to get actual actors to flesh them out. Not that it helps much:

It is amid this profitable yet messy soup of disaster-movie cliches that Ben Affleck found himself, tasked with playing as big of a strong-jawed all-American hero as is possible in a movie that already features Bruce Willis. He did all right. Sometimes, you just have to do your best with the cards you've been dealt. And, really, isn't the willingness to do that admirable in itself?

The Life Lesson:

In a Bay movie? Hahaha, nope!

But isn't that how it always is? We're all but one step away from being seen as total dickwads by our peers, if we don't keep track of where we're going and how we're doing it. Sure, Bartleby's example may be a tad heavy-handed, but the same applies even without rampant mass murder. Basic, everyday failures like blocking the escalator or making your presentation more long-winded than you intended can easily make you the villain in someone's eyes.

The Life Lesson:

Know what you're doing and what your actions can cause. Even the most well-meaning person on Earth can become a monster in others' eyes if he doesn't pay attention to the path he's on. Seriously, Matt, back off from my screen. So help me, I will spin-kick you right out of the window.

It never ceases to impress me that Ben Affleck can seem like a glorified hunk of wood in some films, yet absolutely knocks it out of the park in movies such as The Talented Mr. Ripley. This celebrated 1999 psychological thriller revolves around the deceit and impersonation antics of the eponymous, chameleon-like Tom Ripley, and boy, does Affleck deliver; in some scenes, you'd barely believe it's him at all.

Paramount Pictures/Miramax
I think he's on the left, Matt, but how can we know for sure?

Once or twice, I needed to check that he's the same person who was playing an angel in Dogma; that's how good he is.

Seems to check out!

The Life Lesson:

Sometimes, it's all right to kill and impersonate your best friend in order to gain his fame and fortune.

Hey, wait. That's a fuck-awful lesson. Don't do that. I can come up with a better one, Matt, don't post that ye-

But I can fix this shit. Bob Abflex still has plenty of good movies I've yet to ... Argo! That's right, Matt, we still have Argo!

Despite its many inaccuracies, the film is a solid piece of work not unlike the ones Clint Eastwood used to make before his talking-to-the-chair phase: a big old whoppin' actor-director monster made of 'Murica and tension sharp enough to cut the award party cake with. And it did win, like, half the awards available in 2012, which is excellent news, because the guy has a beard and I have a beard, so there must be a correlation. Fucking Aff Benfleck keeps stealin' my awards.

Warner Bros. Pictures
Beard.

Right, and my beard. Thanks, Matt.

Fuckin' Matt.

The Life Lesson:

[When men in uniforms gently escort you away from the subway because you've been riding up and down the Red Line all day, blasting movies on your laptop while screaming threats at an imaginary guy named Matt with a terrible Boston accent, please refrain from trying to punch them in the dick in the hopes that they'll tase your liquor for "that extra kick."

This message was brought to you by Officer Vaughan, BPD.

Also, can someone please come and pick this guy up ASAP? He bites and kicks so bad that we couldn't even take his laptop and flasks away, and the other people in the holding cell are complaining that the movie he keeps watching over and over is violating the Geneva Conventions.]