[EXPRESSO] No Other Choice (2025) | Canis Canem Edit

After Decision To Leave, Park Chan-Wook is back with a satirical black comedy, No Other Choice.

Based on the novel The Ax By Donald Westlake, the film sees Man-su, a paper industry expert with a 25 years sterling career, paper being his profession but also providing for his family wealth and being part of his identity…. being laid off without notice.

As his life falls apart and the sudden firing theathens to kill off not only his hobby greenhouse, but his family’s passions, even their future career (with the daughter being a budding violin master to be), as they have to even send away their two dogs to make due, Man-su decides to start killing off his competition in the hope he well get his job in the industry back and maintain his way of life.

Man-su also isn’t particularly cut off to be a killer, but is desperate enough to try and do anything it takes, which often involves being caught in odd or embarassing situations, or worse, being very understanding of other fellows in the paper industry biz it’s trying to kill as he’s got (like many characters say in the film itself) “no other choice”.

As expected of Park Chan-Wook, it’s a very brutal, humane yet relentless film, this time picturing a normal man who is chewed up and then spat out by the corporation that gave him a fairly wealthy lifestyle, and then takes extreme measures as his status quo falls apart, ready to do anything to win the corpo rat race, feeling more than pressured to be what he wants and wants other to think he is, as comformity and optics are king.

Very clever and also pretty damn funny, honestly might be one of Park Chan Wook’ bests, maybe even a masterpiece, it’s excellent.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 59: Area 407/Tape 407 (2012)

In our quest to maybe eventually one day review all the dinosaur films ever made, i had to wonder if we missed something.

We features dinosaur comedies, dinosaur battle royales, virtual dinosaurs of the future, some really decrepit pieces of dinosaur media, and an over excess of soldiers fighting raptors.

Heck, we even did see attempts at mixing the dinosaurs with a found footage film in the very decent and mostly realized The Lost Dinosaurs, and today we found him a play-date of sorts with something i never heard once about, and i had to stumble upon by combing upon lists of dinosaur films.

and i mean “stumble” because you wouldn’t guess a movie called Area 407/Tape 407 would be abotu dinosaurs, which i guess should count as a spoiler. I suppose?

Let’s be real, it’s not that much of a spoiler when you have the poster art for the film sport the recognizable “triple clawed scratchmark” that might as well spell “Velociraptors”, or a Garfield creepypasta abomination, i suppose.

Continua a leggere

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #58: The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

For our entry on what now is the “Nessie subcategory” of Dino Dicember, we’re going away from the Irish lochs and into the b-movie version of Northern California, with The Crater Lake Monster.

Directed and written by Richard D. Stromberg, this is an infamous one, indeed, often hailed as one of worst giant monster films ever made, or at least one of the cheapest ever put into production, and unsurprisingly it has received the Rifftrax treatment.

The plot is an obvious, deliberate throwback to monster films of the 50s, and was originally meant to be about the Bigfoot, but due to a glut of films on the cryptid, Stromberg figured it would be better to go even further back and make it about dinosaurs, why not,

Archeologists find a cave in Crater Lake that has wall drawings depicting humans fighting something that looks like a Plesiosaurus, incredibile evidence that dinosaurs did actually exist in the same time as humans. Pity that a meteorite lands in the lake, causing a cave-in that completely destroy the discovered caves system and its wall drawings.

On the bright (?) side, the meteorite seems to revive or awake a long dormant creature within the lake, a giant plesiosaur akin to the more famous Nessie.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 57: The Jurassic Games: Extinction (2025)

As promised, here we are talking about the Jurassic Games sequel, as in the actual one.

I still can’t quite believe the Dinosaur World situation, despite reviewing it and explaing it’s linkage to The Jurassic Games series, i still kinda struggle to accept this absurd situation.

But this time Ryan Bellgardt is back with a proper follow up to his mash up of dinosaur film with sci-fi virtual battle royale shenanigans, more in the vein of the Running Man than anything else, now that i think about it.

Like in the first film, we are in a dystopian future where authorities force selected deathrow prisoners into a seasonal death show, The Jurassic Games, where they compete in a VR simulation against deadly traps and expecially dinosaurs, this time with the only one left standing being able to avoid death by lethal injection.

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[EXPRESSO] Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man (2025) | Crusader: No Remorse

Sorry for this being later than planned, got sidetracked.

No limited theatherical screening for this one in my area, as with Del Toro’s Frankenstein. Bummer.

Master detective Benoit Blanc is back again for the third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, called upon to investigate another impossible murder mystery, this time teaming up with a zealous young priest to solve the mysterious murder in the church of a sleepy small town, itself harboring a sordid past that’s about to be uncovered.

If Glass Onion was a huge piss take on not-Elon Musk and his ilk, Wake Up Dead Man goes to a more classic murder mystery scenario type, the religion themed ones, foregoing taking the piss of techbros for taking on the modern realities for the Church and its struggles with new realities, that often are rejected and taken in stride to be more regressive, to harbor hateful, homophobic, fascist-spirited circlejerks of zealots ready to fight the “holy war on the heathens”.

As in, we don’t eat the rich, we eat the bigots as well, makes sense.

This time around we aren’t dropped into the aftermath but we spent a good amount of time characterizing the young priest struggle against the local monsignor and depicting the various, utterly despicable-pitiable soon-to-be-suspects, as Daniel Craig’s character doesn’t show up until 40 minutes in. He’s slightly less fancy this time around, but still a great genre savvy quirky genius detective as ever.

It helps this sequel (though like Glass Onion this can be enjoyed on its own) stand out for itself, which is kinda needed since it’s the third Knives Out film, and in short it’s indeed more of the same, it is what we’ve come to expect from the series, but damn, it’s still quite good, funny and fairly witty stuff.

[EXPRESSO] Alice In Borderland (Season Three) (2025) | Mistaah Jay

So, it’s one of those cases, as season 2 teased a “joker” card at the end, implying a continuation, despite the events seemingly having been wrapped up for good.

Fine, i guess, i assumed there were more volumes of the manga to draw from… there were not, Season 2 adapted that fully, and apparently this third season it’s not a direct adaptation of the sequel series, Retry, nor the prequel Border Road, though it (allegedly) takes some elements from those.

Years have passed, the survivors of “Borderland” have come back and forgot about the death games, moving on with their lives, but someone is bringing new people into that world, like a professor obsessed with the afterlife, while also stringing survivors from previous games back into the fray, including Arisu and Usagi….

It’s not even bad, but even just going blind into this third season there’s this air of contrived cop-out, it just feels like this wasn’t planned but imposed upon from the higher up that demanded another season of the show regardless, and so the writers had to wing it because “the content must flow”.

And to their credits, the new games (aside from the bullshit one with the fire arrows) are fun enough and do feel in line with the show, some of the new characters are somewhat interesting, but that and the crumbs of worldbuilding about “Borderland” aren’t enough to sustain or incite much curiosity, not helped by the timeskip that allows for some convenient off-screen characterization.

It just feels mostly unnecessary, existing because the series (allegedly) keeps breaking its own viewership records, and while it being shorter than the previous seasons is most likely for the best, i’m not gonna praise them for it since the ending teases a fourth one taking place abroad.

[EXPRESSO] Lupin The IIIrd The Movie: The Immortal Bloodline (2025) | Mystery Of Monkey

So, i did decide to just go see this new Lupin The 3^rd film for funsies, i mean, i sure do love me some Lupin (and it’s a freakin institution here in Italy, so it’s already screening here), and is directed by Takeshi Koike, of Redline fame, i am in.

Problem is, i haven’t really kept up with Lupin many anime iterations, i’m more of a casual enjoyer, and this is meant as the conclusion of Koike’s “Lupin the IIIrd” subseries, maybe a send off for the character of Lupin itself, as it also takes story elements from the very first Lupin The 3^rd movie, The Mistery Of Mamo.

Not that you needed this digest as the movie does a handy recap, which also makes it obvious this isn’t a random Lupin movie at all, but for what concerns this film, is about Lupin & the gang being lured into an uncharted island by someone that knows them very well, and forced to face not only the island venomous mists, but an apparently immortal being known as “Muom”….

I don’t know if this will actually be the last Lupin III film ever, doubt it, but it’s the first one in 30 frigging years made in traditional animation, and it sure as hell looks great, even with the occasional 3D CG bits for the monsters, it’s very stilish, the action is great, but it’s also lacking on plot and character development, despite the very strong start the pacing also suffers as soon as the story does, so it ends up being “almost good” but nothing feels properly developed, more focused on being stylish old school pulp action (more serious in tone than “classic Lupin”), which it is still fun, but the film does ultimately suffer from it.

Decent, but kinda disappointing.

[EXPRESSO] Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 (2025) | Hind N Seek

Predictably so, we’re back for more FNAF movie escapades, and i’m back to still not knowing (or caring) much about the series, but curious enough to check these films out.

The events of the first film that went down that night at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria became a local legend, leading to a “Fazfest” being held in town.

The protagonist’ little sister, Abby, misses her animatronic friends (more correctly, the children’ souls bound inside them), but things go south as she’s approached by a new menace, the Marionette, and we explore the original Freddy Fazbear establishment, and learn of its sordid secrets.

I didn’t expect much, the first one i thought it was okay, middling but about what you would expect… but in retrospect, that might have been a fluke of sorts.

This sequel is just drivel, lazy slop, just a random mish mash of stuff cobbled together, with no structure, no cinematic structure, more interested in mimicking verbatim stuff that i suppose happens in the games, as this time series’ creator, Scott Cawthon, is the only one credited for the screenplay, and clearly doesn’t care that this is a film and not a videogame, more interested with dated, inane preoccupations of “not being enough like the games” and confusing “lore” for “plot”.

It’s just so lazy, cliched and downright stupid it’s actually insulting, even for a children’s horror film, one clearly aware that it can squeeze any clump of shit and it won’t matter to the box office (or its establishe fanbase)…. so does exactly that.

Even worse than the actors trying but unable to save the movie from itself, it’s how it ultimately amounts to little more than a big set-up and lore dumpage for the third one, more than its own thing.

Can’t wait to be swindled again!

[EXPRESSO] Zootopia 2 (2025) | We Will Survive

I’ve been skipping most of Disney output of lately, Wish did reinforce this habit, but since i did like the first Zootopia and thought it was one of the best modern Disney films, i was planning on watching the sequel. So i did.

After a brief recap of the final twist and ending of the first movie (which is roughly “one child old” by now), Zootopia 2 follows up Nick and Judy’s unit, which is jeopardized due to them fumbling an operation and causing destruction in the wake of the city centennial, for which a book pivotal for the very foundation of Zootopia itself will be shown to the public.

But despite this, Judy finds proof of a reptile entire the city, which hasn’t happened in a centhury, and she investigates, her and Nick find themselves involved in another conspiracy, get framed and have to escape and get to the bottom of this mistery.

While it’s yet another conspiracy plot, we do get some solid worldbuilding, new characters and a solid villain, and we get to see more of this animal world and how it works beyond the big metropolis, as the sequel builds on the themes of racism, prejudice and discrimination with gentrification and (more) classism now, here done with the “reptile problem” and a political scheme about expanding biomes made for specific types of animals at the expense of others.

It does some of the typical Disney quirks plotwise, but it’s more the benign ones, these are not as bad as they could be, the new characters are fun, there is some sensibile development of the unusual cop buddy duo of Judy and Nick, there are some fun, quick references/nods for the older crowds, and overall it’s honestly a great sequel and a pretty good animated children film,

[EXPRESSO] Shelby Oaks (2025) | Paranormal Tapes

In the early 2000s, the early days of internet, a group of teens making content for a paranormal Youtube channel all go missing after investigating the abandoned small town of Shelby Oaks.

Fear that it might a ploy to boost viewership turns to tragedy as most of the crew is finally found, dead and brutally mutilated, aside from one of the channel’s creators, Mia, still missing.

For the following 12 years, her sister Riley has kept searching for Mia, and is now collaborating in a documentary about the case, with Riley’s husband hoping this will – at least – give them closure so they can start a family as they planned before the incident.

Things soon go even more south as a man shows up to Riley’s house and immediatly shoots himself in the head, while holding onto a bloodied cassette tape with the label reading “Shelby Oaks”…

Interestingly, this is not a found footage movie either, it starts off as one, has sequences shot in that fashion, but it has a traditionally styled narrative at the heart of it, one that veers into the supernatural possession subgenre, with a bit of folk horror too.

Yet this is not the jumpscare laden fest some might think, at all, being proper spooky and atmospheric but also NOT one of those to conflate that into an excuse to show bugger all.

It’s quite competently put together too, with some decent acting, solid production values, and it clearly made with respect for the genre as a whole, even though it’s hold back by its various inspirations and reverent references that do come off as pastiche (and a kinda shaky third act).

It has that roughness of debut films (because it is), but still, it’s a decent first feature lenght by critic-turned-director Chris Stuckmann.