Extra Evil - Alternate Titles

Today’s Fortune: Never hire a poison tester you like.

Newsreel

Finland joined our atomic dodgeball team.

A narcissist was punished with attention.

Johnson & Johnson wants headlines without “baby cancer.”

Chicago has better taste than New York.

Conservatives punished Bud Light with attention.

The T-Rex may have had Rolling Stones logo lips.

Today's Mood

War Journal

My clown show continues. Three new variants of the posters:

Furies defies my one-sentence review gimmick. It’s a not-really prequel to Furie, directed by Veronica Ngo (the original’s breakout star). It’s been anticipated for some time, which always makes the result weirder. Furies may have the most tonal whiplash I’ve experienced this decade.

I’m convinced I imagined it.

Imagine blending Irreversible, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Three Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. I thought I’d taken an edible. But Ong-Bak: SVU is real. It gets dumb.

Let me be clear. By Irreversible, I mean a drawn out sex crime opening (full on, unironic trigger warning there). By Vice City, I mean eighties-flavored crime pulp. And by 3 Ninjas, I mean broad teen comedy, cartoon archetypes, and punching. Like many a Netflix original, it is a tribute to cocaine.

Amusingly, Furies is at its best when it’s a neon-pink karate-fueled power fantasy. The human side’s where it wobbles. The best edit of this film wouldn’t even pretend to have a brain. Gory Charlie’s Angels is money, and illiterate Infernal Affairs is not.

In this case, “2/5” isn’t sub-mediocre. It’s the average of great and terrible parts. The punching’s fast and brutal. The chase scene’s in budget CGI hell. Ngo cares about the topic. The plot gives up on making sense. There are fun stretches of grindhouse camp. The Irreversible opening is jarring and gratuitous. The last fight rocks hard. The setup’s beyond dumb. It’s kickstarting a national industry from nothing. It’s too long.

Just don’t expect anything as sane as Furie. Or sane at all.

I’m telling on myself as an advanced malcontent, but the internet’s made me like people more. That’s not a typo.

It offers something I only got out of memoirs and sentencing hearings: a first-person explanation for everyone’s words and actions. And while I rarely agree with anything I find, at all, even a little, they’re far better than the scarecrows I built in my head.

The Present

Hey kids! Need a job?

I introduced Expensive Evil, a new essay series. The first hit’s free.

I shared an interview with a generous graduate student.

Suffer not a wytch to live.

Read Everything Abridged to fix the timeline.

The Past

This is really about flamewars everywhere.

The Future

It’s dangerous to go alone. Bring Everything Abridged in paperback.

I’m torn between parodies of two abrasive ad campaigns.

Expensive Evil’s outlined.

One Sentence Reviews

Big Trouble in Little China: The best. (5/5)

Dr. Jason Leong - Ride With Caution: Strong on charm, light on wit. (2.5/5)

Fateful Findings: The best bad movie I’ve seen in a year. (6/5)

Good Soldier Svejk: Genius and wholly unedited. (4/5)

Furies: What? (2/5)

Open Question

Signing off

Thanks for reading Extra Evil, the newsletter beyond reproach. Share it to find dirt.

-DD