Monday Miniatures: New to Theaters, New to Me, and Horror, Horror, Horror

Welcome to Monday Miniatures, where I tell you about some of the stuff I’ve been watching in the past week that I wouldn’t otherwise get to share.

The week of Oct. 6-12, 2025:

The Smashing Machine, directed by Benny Safdie

How I watched it: In theaters (Glendora AMC)

If asked to provide my snarky one-line review of this film, I would say: This is a movie about a man who has been punched in the head thousands of times, apparently written for an audience of people who also have been punched in the head thousands of times. That’s ungenerous, but I’m not feeling particularly generous to a movie that clearly meant so much to so many people and required such time, effort, and money and yet amounts to so little.

If you’ve long been curious whether Dwayne Johnson could act, the answer is yes, and I would suggest you haven’t been paying attention over the years because he proved it long before this. That’s about the movie’s only virtue. I may be in the minority on this, but I’m even a little worn out on the great makeup designer Kazu Hiro’s neat trick of transforming one famous person into another. Here, it just doesn’t add much and I found it a bit distracting.

But, that’s a minor quibble. The film’s two biggest issues are the Emily Blunt character and the final tournament, which takes up the last 40 minutes of the movie. Blunt plays Johnson’s girlfriend, Dawn Staples. It’s a terribly written part, and Blunt’s not very good in it. The actress may have learned an unfortunate lesson from her Oscar-nominated turn as the stereotypically drunk wife in Oppenheimer and decided to double down.

In the leadup to the film’s release, Safdie and Mark Kerr, the real UFC fighter Johnson is portraying here, made a big fuss about how honest the story would be. Warts and all, they said. Kerr wanted it all out there. Turns out that mostly meant portraying how much of an abusive villain Dawn Staples was. The character screams in a fit of rage that Kerr knows nothing about her, which is ironic because the audience knows nothing about her either and the filmmakers don’t seem to care.

Speaking of characters saying the things they’re feeling out loud, we have the final tournament, which features an announcer character who seems to exist solely to tell us what Johnson/Kerr is feeling at any given moment. It’s overbearing, intrusive, and constant, as though Safdie doesn’t trust his audience to understand everything that’s happened in the preceding hour and a half. The movie has all the subtlety of a knee to the face, and by the end, you feel like you’re the one who’s been punished.

Roofman, directed by Derek Cianfrance

How I watched it: In theaters (Glendora AMC)

It can be fun to see a director take on a new mode. As the filmmaker behind Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, and The Light Between Oceans, a breezy crime comedy was not exactly what anyone might have expected from Cianfrance. The movie is not entirely successful, and it probably won’t end up being very satisfying for audiences, but it has enough going for it to recommend it.

Primarily, it has Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, who both give high-wattage star performances as two people with hard-scrabble lives doing the best they can the best way they know how. For the Dunst character, that means putting her nose to the grindstone and pounding out a life for her family. For Tatum’s character, based on real-life armed robber Jeffrey Manchester, that means crime.

Tatum is charming, adorable, and funny in ways we have seen him before, but he also brings a nervous mania to the character that is new to the Tatum persona and keeps the audience perfectly on edge at all times. The thing about Manchester – the person and the character – is that he makes the exact wrong decision every time. Tatum and the screenplay, by Cianfrance and Kirt Gunn, however, work hard to help the audience understand how he arrived at those wrong decisions. We don’t agree, but we get it, and isn’t that one of the joys of watching a movie?

Tron: Ares, directed by

How I watched it: In theaters (Glendora AMC - IMAX)

The consensus on this film largely seems to be: beautiful images, baffling story. I agree with the baffling story part. As for the images, I think they look like trash. The effects may be well rendered, but in service of what? Why is the digital world for the bad guys red and for the good guys blue? By the movie’s own logic, it would require someone to code it that way, suggesting the warring billionaires had a conference call at one point and decided on neat team colors, like paintball or, more appropriately, laser tag.

The movie begs a million little logic questions like that and answers none of them. It’s coasting on the idea that you might be so dazzled by the pretty pictures that you forget to ask. Well, I wasn’t dazzled, so here are my favorite questions:

Why are the oranges edible but the human beings break down into little bits of a particulate when brought out of the digital realm? The whole point of the movie is to find the “permanence code,” a magical string of computer code that can bring to life anything created in the digital world. Until now, those people and objects have had a shelf life of 29 minutes. When the good guys find the code, they test it on an orange tree. It works and they make juice, suggesting that whatever they bring out of the digital world is real in every sense. But when the supersoldiers disintegrate after 29 minutes, they don’t collapse in a pool of blood. Rather, they look like LEGOs falling apart.

Why does the supersoldier breathe so heavily in the digital world? If the oranges are real in the real world, so are the super soldiers, and therefore, they have lungs. That’s me trying to play by the movie’s own rules. But, why would the little digital avatars have lungs in the digital world? They’re bits of code. They don’t need to breathe. Or, at the very least, no one needs to code them to breathe. That would be pointless.

Why are the supersoldiers different people? I don’t begrudge Jodie Turner-Smith or Cameron Monaghan the work, but if your goal is to build perfect AI supersoldiers, shouldn’t they all be exactly the same? Surely, it must be easier to cut and paste the same code over and over rather than design bespoke code for each of your expendable AI bots.

What fuel do the light cycles run on in the real world? If they run on regular gasoline, wouldn’t that be the bigger breakthrough? The ability to manufacture viable fuel out of nothing would absolutely be the most important thing that ever happened in human history. Anyway, this movie has no answers and no interest in answers and might even resent you for asking questions.

Ballerina, directed by Len Wiseman

How I watched it: Starz

Wiseman went to the same high school I did a decade and a half before I attended, and I’ve always had a minor rooting interest in his career because of that fact. I remember someone did an interview with him for the school paper. He was probably promoting his first movie, Underworld. He talked about sneaking onto the set of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which filmed a key sequence in my hometown. So, I always hope for him to do good work. It mostly hasn’t worked out that way, though I do think Underworld still has its early-2000s charm.

Ballerina is probably his second-best movie, but it’s hard to know how much credit to give Wiseman. There are disputes about how much of the film was reshot and exactly who oversaw those reshoots. Some reports say John Wick mastermind Chad Stahelski reshot most of the movie with Wiseman not on set, while Stahelski and Wiseman say reshoots were limited to a couple weeks and Stahelski simply provided guidance to Wiseman.

In the end, it probably doesn’t matter too much who gets credit on the pass-fail exam that is a John Wick franchise movie. Does it have cool action sequences? Pass. No? Fail. Ballerina has just enough clever action to pass. Keanu Reeves seems a little tired of playing the Wick character, and who could blame him? Meanwhile, Ana de Armas could absolutely be an action star in the correct vehicle. Unfortunately, her 15-minutes sequence in No Time to Die has more wit, charm, and energy than anything in this movie. Ballerina does the bare minimum. It passes, but it’s not looking to overachieve.

Topper, directed by Norman Z. McLeod

How I watched it: DVD rental from Vidiots

Spoilers ahead for a nearly 90-year-old movie, but I had absolutely no idea this movie was about ghosts. It starts off with the Kerbys, a kooky rich couple in the Thin Man vein played by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett, as they good-naturedly frustrate their buttoned-up bank president friend played by Ronald Young as the titular Cosmo Topper. Even that was a little bit of a surprise as I would naturally have assumed Grant was the title character, but his star was maybe not quite as bright in 1937 as it eventually would be.

Regardless, the basic plot became pretty clear pretty quickly: This stuffy businessman was going to learn to appreciate life and fun through his silly friends. Then, 30 minutes into the movie, the Kerbys get into a shockingly violent (for the time) car crash and just die. Grant and Bennett come back as ghosts because they were neither good enough in life to go straight to heaven nor bad enough for, ya know, the other option. They decide their good deed for getting into heaven will be – remarkably – helping their stuffy businessman friend learn to appreciate life and fun. 

This is to say the plot plays out exactly as you’d imagine from the first half-hour, except that our beloved Kerbys are dead and materialize and dematerialize mostly at will and usually for the sake of a gag. Honestly, the gags are good, the effects are impressive, and I had a great time. I just couldn’t believe that what had happened had happened.

On a related note, this was the last movie on the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 American comedies (100 Years … 100 Laughs) that I had not seen. It’s a fun list and you won’t regret going through it, but it was released 25 years ago, and even for a list created in the year 2000, it skews old. Though the ’80s are the most represented decade, the list also features 24 films from before 1940 and just five from the ’90s. It would be interesting to see what an updated version of this list would like with essentially two entirely new generations of people to poll.

Heart Eyes, directed by Josh Ruben

How I watched it: Netflix

I wrote about Ruben’s debut feature Scare Me last month and did not realize that this was his film until after watching it. However, taken along with his 2021 effort Werewolves Within, it is clear Ruben has a strong sense of the tropes of the horror genre and an instinct for subverting them in largely clever ways. Heart Eyes asks: What if someone spilled horror movie all over your rom-com? It would look a lot like this.

It took me longer than I would have liked to get on the film’s wavelength, which I think is a matter of some tonal issues in the early going. But, overall, the idea of a killer who just hates love stalking a different big city every Valentine’s Day is pretty funny. Takes some well placed shots at the Instagram-ification of love and the corporatization of romance. 

Some of the kills are pretty good, and of course the Valentine’s Day Killer – excuse me, Heart Eyes Killer – would use a (cross)bow and arrow. Do you think the killer makes all those arrows with little hearts on them by himself, or is there a shop that sells deadly ammunition but is also kinda quirky? In the universe of this film, neither would surprise me.

Wolf Creek, directed by

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

Playing incredibly fast and loose with the “based on a true story” concept, this is considered one of the great Australian horror films. I appreciate the ferocious filmmaking style and the way the story never releases the tension of being stalked by an implaccable killer. There are things to like in this movie, but I could not get over perhaps the most egregious example I have ever seen of one of the most annoying horror tropes that exists.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Our protagonists are beset by a villain who intends to do great harm up to and including murder. They suffer to some degree, some more than others – here, the suffering is easily at a 10 by this point. Then, when all hope seems lost, they get the drop on the killer and knock him/her/it out, allowing them to make their escape. All the while, every horror fan in the world is screaming at the screen: Finish him! They never do.

At this point, it’s important to ask certain questions about our heroes and villains. Are our heroes capable of killing another human being? In extraordinary circumstances, could they be pushed far enough to do so? Has the villain demonstrated the extent of his villainy – in other words, what is the threat level? How easy would it be to deliver the coup de grace vs. how imperative is it that you escape right now?

In Wolf Creek, the heroes have absolutely suffered beyond their breaking point, the villain is absolutely a mortal threat, and one of the characters is literally holding a loaded gun 2 feet from the villain’s head as he lies unconscious on the ground. There is no excuse for not finishing the job right then and there. Coming at the halfway point of the movie, it makes the second half quite frustrating, knowing that none of it needed to happen.

V/H/S/HALLOWEEN, directed by various

How I watched it: Shudder

The V/H/S franchise has settled into a nice groove since finding a home on Shudder and becoming an annual tradition. There are, however, pluses and minuses to a franchise settling into a groove. The lows are not nearly as low as they once were, but neither are the highs quite as high. Nothing in the past three editions, all of which I have liked, stands toe to toe with how revolutionary the first two films felt. But, there is nothing that feels as lost as the post-V/H/S/2 doldrums of the franchise.

Assigning a theme beyond a year seems to have helped as I found last year’s Beyond and this year’s Halloween to be the two best in the franchise outside of the original two. Halloween feels like a natural place for the franchise to go, and if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t be upset at a Christmas-themed edition next year, Christmas horror obviously having a deep, rich history.

The wraparound segment, “Diet Phantasma,” directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, has its roots in ’80s consumerism horror like The Stuff and Halloween III: Season of the Witch. We see footage of a team of scientists testing out a new diet soft drink on a group of volunteers. Without going into specifics, things get bloody very quickly.

“Coochie Coochie Coo,” directed by Anna Zlokovic, and “Fun Size,” directed by Casper Kelly, both deal with the consequences of being a little too old to enjoy what is essentially a children’s holiday. Zlokovic’s short concerns two teenage girls who set about ruining the nights of a bunch of trick-or-treaters before they get trapped by a maternal demon who punishes them and others like them for their transgressions. Meanwhile, Kelly shows the worst possible thing that could happen if you get greedy when the sign clearly states, “Take just one.” “Coochie Coochi Coo” is a more traditional haunted house creepfest, while “Fun Size” is slapstick horror comedy with a pair of villains whose look deserves to join the horror lexicon forevermore. Both films are immensely entertaining.

“Ut Supra Sic Infra,” directed by Paco Plaza, is a Spanish entry about an investigation into a Halloween party mass murder that seems to defy logic. I like the idea that this film takes place in the aftermath of an event that could be its own horror short and, thus, keeps us on edge for what else could possibly happen. There is an effect in the final moments of this sequence that is absolutely stunning and will leave you wondering how the heck it was accomplished given the constraints of the format.

The best two shorts in this compilation are the last two, Alex Ross Perry’s “Kidprint” and Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman’s “Home Haunt.” Perry, who is almost certainly the most acclaimed filmmaker to participate in this franchise, brings his prestige bona fides to the only non-supernatural tale on offer here. In being grounded in reality, “Kidprint” is that much more disturbing and terrifying. “Home Haunt” is a more traditional V/H/S entry, as the attractions at a homemade haunted house come to gruesome life. Both are excellent entries in the franchise canon.

Updated franchise rankings:

1. V/H/S (2012)

2. V/H/S/2 (2013)

3. V/H/S/Beyond (2024)

4. V/H/S/HALLOWEEN (2025)

5. V/H/S/85 (2023)

6. V/H/S/94 (2021) … Hail, Raatma

7. V/H/S/99 (2022)

8. V/H/S/Viral (2014

Witchfinder General, directed by Michael Reeves

How I watched it: DVD rental from Vidiots

If you grew up watching Turner Classic Movies in the ’90s or early 2000s, you’re probably at least passingly familiar with the Roger Corman-produced, Vincent Price-starring Edgar Allen Poe adaptations of the 1960s. Adaptation is probably a generous word, since many of them bear only a passing resemblance to the Poe stories that lend them their titles. Anyway, I was a fan. I found Price’s archness riveting, and the whole gothic horror tone was quite appealing to a young me.

When Corman bought the U.S. distribution rights to Witchfinder General, he tried to coast off the success of those Poe adaptations by changing the name of the film to The Conqueror Worm, a lesser known Poe poem. He even added Poe’s name to the title in some places, calling it Edgar Allen Poe’s The Conqueror Worm. Of course, the film has absolutely nothing to do with Poe and is, in fact, based on the then-quite recent novel Witchfinder General by Ronald Bassett.

Taking this film on its own terms, I quite enjoyed it, and I don’t begrudge Corman trying to make a buck by slotting it into his Poe canon, since the film fits nicely into that oeuvre in theme, tone, and style. As an American, it’s easy to think of witch hunts as a distinctly New World phenomenon (1600s, sure, but New World no less). This makes the English countryside setting particularly interesting as we watch Price travel around, stoking fear and torturing, burning, drowning, and hanging “witches.”

I appreciate that the film never once suggests that witches or witchcraft are real. The only evil is Price’s witchfinder, who will hang anyone for a price. The film is honest about his cruelty, and this juxtaposes well with the self-righteousness with which Price plays the character. He senses no irony as he rides away with his sacks of coins, leaving death and fear in his wake, and that is the scariest thing of all.

Blood Fest, directed by Owen Egerton

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

Starts from what I think is actually a cool premise and proceeds to make the worst decisions at every turn. What if a horror movie festival turned deadly? Fun! What if none of the characters are smart, likable, or interesting? Less fun. What if the absurd reveals keep piling on top of each other until the film collapses under the weight of its own nonsense? Blood Fest. I had wanted to see this when it was in theaters, though I heard it wasn’t good, because I like to give new horror films a shot. It took me seven years to catch up with it, and I could have gone another seven without it.

Love and Death, directed by Woody Allen

How I watched it: DVD I own

I watched this the day I found out Diane Keaton had died. One of my favorite underrated comedy gems, and Keaton is absolute magic in it, as she was in so much. Check out my full appreciation of Keaton here.

Goodnight, Annie: Remembering Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton’s first feature film was 1970’s Love and Other Strangers. I haven’t seen it. I don’t know anything about it. But, I can guarantee she lights up the screen whenever she appears. Two years later, with just some stage work in between, she was starring in The Godfather as Michael Corleone’s decidedly non-Italian girlfriend and eventually wife, Kay. 

She doesn’t have much to do in that first film, but as the outsider and audience surrogate, it is through her eyes that we watch Michael’s ultimate descent into evil. Let us not forget that the final shot of one of the most important American films ever made is of Keaton, skeptically observing a world she could never be a part of until she is shut out entirely. It doesn’t work without Keaton’s blend of weariness, longing, and naivete. Anyway, she gets her short-lived vengeance in Part II.

Keaton died yesterday at 79 years old. The world is a little dimmer without her in it. The movies are a little less delightful and magical. She exuded charm, both on screen and off. Her contemporaries like Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway were all toughness, angles, and sharp edges. They seemed to be hiding something. With Keaton, everything was on the surface. She was honest, vulnerable, and soulful. Don’t get me wrong. She could play characters with sharpness and danger – she could do anything – but the essence of what made her such a one-of-a-kind performer was always right there under the surface.

It is hard enough in Hollywood to build one career. Over six decades in the industry, Keaton had many. Her final two films came out last year, and both exemplified the kind of female-driven ensemble dramedies she was drawn to once she had the luxury of being choosy. The recent Book Club films, Mad Money, and as far back as The First Wives Club typified this mode of Keaton. And, no matter if she was playing first, second, or third fiddle, she made beautiful music.

In 2003, she found late-career box office success with Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give, the movie that taught young people that older people could be sexy – never mind that Keaton was just 56 when the movie was filmed and as beautiful as ever. This kicked off a cottage industry for about a decade worth of “late in life” romances in which she would team up with the greatest actors of her generation: Jack Nicholson, Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, etc.

Around this same time, she found herself taking on mentoring roles to young ingénues playing the kind of roles she would have in the ’70s. This would be the Morning Glory, Family Stone, Because I Said So era. If you’re around my age, some of these movies probably mean quite a good deal to you. These were a natural outcropping of her work in the hit Father of the Bride remake with Steve Martin (as well as its lesser sequel).

 A relatively quiet ’80s still began and ended with a bang – 1981’s Reds with writer-director-star-romantic partner Warren Beatty and 1990’s The Godfather Part III, once again reuniting with Al Pacino, whom she called the love of her life in her memoirs. In between, she found time to plant the seeds that would become Something’s Gotta Give by doing Charles Shyer’s Baby Boom, written by Shyer and wife Meyers.

If those roughly 45 years of films had been all she ever gave us, it would count among the most successful careers for a woman in Hollywood history, particularly in the way she navigated the transition from an ingénue into a more mature performer. This remains a frustratingly difficult task for most women in the industry, but Keaton handled it with aplomb, though I’m sure there was great difficulty behind the scenes.

Anyway, if all we ever knew about Diane Keaton, née Diane Hall, were the films from 1981 to 2024, we still would be celebrating her. However, from 1972 to 1979, she cemented herself as one of the most important performers of her generation and crafted a legacy that shines brighter today than perhaps it did even then.

Yes, the two Godfather films are key and she is vital to them. Looking for Mr. Goodbar in 1977 was a fascinating exploration of Keaton’s depth and range as a performer. It remains underseen and underappreciated to this day. But, of course, the key to Keaton’s stardom, the rosetta stone to her screen persona lies in her six collaborations in the decade with former romantic partner and lifelong friend Woody Allen.

We can litigate Allen, the Man, some other time, if you like. I look forward to that discussion. It should be noted that Keaton never wavered in her public support of Allen, even presenting the Golden Globes’ Lifetime Achievement Award to him in 2014 and accepting it on his behalf when he predictably refused to appear. However, he did make an appearance in 2017 to present Keaton with the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. You may feel any way you like about their friendship or about Keaton for supporting her friend. Today, I am solely interested in their artistic collaboration.

That collaboration began on screen in 1972 with the Herbert Ross-directed Play It Again, Sam, based on Allen’s own play, which apart from being the origin of one of film history’s most oft-repeated misquotes, was where Keaton and Allen met and began dating when they starred together in the stage production in 1969. They had separated as lovers but grown as friends and artists by the time of the film adaptation, which is a delightful little screwball farce that is ultimately just a showcase for Keaton and Allen’s remarkable comedic chemistry. There are worse things to showcase.

The next year came Sleeper, which some will say is the funniest film Allen ever made. I love Sleeper, but even among his famed “early funny ones,” it’s not my favorite. It is, however, wonderful proof of just how game a performer Keaton was and just how committed she could be to a gag. Allen ultimately stopped making this kind of film, but I wonder if that is partially due to the fact there would never be another actress who could communicate Allen’s particular zaniness so effortlessly.

In 1975, we got Love and Death, for my money the peak of Allen’s early period and possibly the most goofily self-aware movie ever made, by Allen or anyone else. A parody of Russian literature and Western philosophy, the script breathlessly quotes Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Socrates, all set to a booming Prokofiev symphony, and at the same time, it deflates the balloon on the self-importance of all this philosophising and pedantry.

Once again, Allen and Keaton proved there would be few comedic duos to match them. Just look at this exchange of dialogue from early in the film:

Keaton: Boris, let me show you how absurd your position is. All right, let’s say that there is no god and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses. Well, what prevents you from murdering somebody?

Allen: Well, murder’s immoral.

Keaton: Immorality is subjective.

Allen: Yes, but subjectivity is objective.

Keaton: Not in any rational scheme of perception.

Allen: Perception is irrational and implies imminence.

Keaton: But judgment of any system or a priori phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstracted empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.

Allen: Yeah, I’ve said that many times.

If you’d like an insight into how my sense of humor and view of the world developed when I was younger, that 30-second exchange is about as comprehensive an understanding as I can offer outside of the next film we’re going to discuss. It’s perfectly aware of the absurdity of its own high-falutin airs while being smart enough to prick its own pomposity by the end.

That said, if it only works on the page, you don’t have a film. The only reason this works on film is because Keaton is the only actress in the world who could wrap her teeth and tongue around probably the only monologue in film history to reference both a priori phenomena and epistemological contradiction. Again, in her hands, effortless and hilarious.

And then, there was Annie Hall. Or, should I say, and then, she was Annie Hall. The Best Picture winner of 1977, famously beating out Star Wars, among others. Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, neither of which did Allen show up to collect. And, most importantly for our purposes, Best Actress winner Diane Keaton.

Alongside the Godfather films, Annie Hall is another of the most important American movies ever made. It is the template for any serious romantic comedy that would come after it. It is the quintessential relationship movie. It’s goddamn funny to its very core. And, it is, if pressed to name just one, my favorite film of all time. I could write 10,000 words on this film alone, but I will spare you that to focus solely on Keaton.

In brief, Keaton’s performance in Annie Hall is the reason words like singular needed to be invented. Keaton embodies the character in mind, body, soul, and iconically in wardrobe. Though Allen based the character in part on Keaton, it is distinctly a character, and in being so, it is one of the most richly layered and honestly observed characters ever committed to film.

She’s a flibbertigibbet, yes, but she knows it, and to the extent that she thinks it’s an issue, she’s working on it. But, she is also wholly herself, seeking to discover more of who she is through experiences and inquiries. She’s not afraid to try things. She chastises herself for claiming to “dabble” in photography, but she commits to taking photographs and those pictures become part of the film’s texture. She wants to sing, so she sings. She believes it goes horribly, but she does it again anyway.

Annie is an aspirational figure in so much as we should all aspire to be so open and honest, so willing to try and so willing to fail and try again.  But, Annie doesn’t exist without Keaton, that most open, honest, and vulnerable of performers, willing to try anything on screen, to fail, and try again. You don’t get to “La di da, la di da, la la” without being truthful about yourself as a performer and locating that same truth in your character. It is a performance that is unmatched, irreplaceable, and irreplicable.

They made Interiors together the next year, an Ingmar Bergman-inspired family drama that was Allen’s first capital-S Serious film. For my money, it’s another masterpiece that has fallen a bit by the wayside in the director’s filmography. Keaton does not have the showiest of roles in the film – those would belong to the Oscar-nominated Geraldine Page and the also-nominated Maureen Stapleton – but it is invigorating to watch the longtime comedic collaborators try something wholly different and succeed so well.

Finally, there is Manhattan, which is perhaps the most tainted and controversial of all of Allen’s films. Tellingly, it was not controversial then. In fact, it was his biggest box office hit. However, despite being undeniably brilliant and one of the most gorgeous films ever made, it becomes harder and harder to love with each passing year. While this is a necessary cultural corrective, it is also no fault of Keaton’s, who plays the adult love interest in the movie. 

Her caustic self-assurance is miles removed from Annie Hall (same great fashion sense, though), and it is remarkable to watch the nuance Keaton finds in a kind of proto-Clementine for Eternal Sunshine fans (“just a fucked up girl who’s looking for her own peace of mind”).

Keaton would make a brief appearance in Allen’s 1987 film Radio Days as a singer, and she would take over the Mia Farrow role in 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery once working with Farrow became … not an option. Those are both fun, and in light of the success of Only Murders in the Building and similar concepts, I do believe Manhattan Murder Mystery is ready for a reappraisal, but this is all later at different points in both of their careers.

Ultimately, Keaton’s work left an indelible mark on the history of the medium. The Godfather, Annie Hall, Reds – that would be enough, and yet, there was so much more. It is a cliche to say that there will never be another performer like her, but there will not be. There could not be. So just know that if you’re walking through Central Park, like so many of her characters did, and the changing fall leaves seem a little duller than usual, it’s because Diane Keaton isn’t around anymore, and the world’s a little less magical.

Monday Miniatures: Spooky Season Begins

Welcome to Monday Miniatures, where I tell you about some of the stuff I’ve been watching in the past week that I wouldn’t otherwise get to share.

The week of Sept. 29-Oct. 5, 2025:

Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman

One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

How I watched them: Short Cuts - Rented DVD from Vidiots; One Battle After Another - In theaters (AMC Glendora - IMAX)

It feels natural that during a time of discussion around Anderson, Altman would be very much on the mind. As One Battle After Another continues to find its audience – slowly but surely making money at the box office, as if that’s a thing that should matter when discussing art – I find myself wanting to dig into the Altman canon in a way I never had. Short Cuts was probably the last masterwork I had yet to see, and this was an auspicious time to see it.

I am not saying anything new by observing that Short Cuts, based on a series of Raymond Carver short stories, contains much of the DNA for what would become PTA’s Magnolia a scant six years later. A sprawling cast? Check. Interlocking narratives? Check. The emotional turmoil of simply being alive? Check. Deus ex machina in the form of a rare but nominally possible freak occurrence of nature? Remarkably, check. That’s a lot, but do both movies have Julianne Moore, you ask? They sure do.

Having watched the two movies so closely together, however, also has highlighted the key difference between the two. Anderson’s film is bathed in emotional catharsis, spilling over with characters desperate for release who largely experience that release. Altman, who was 68 when Short Cuts premiered, has no such sentimentality. Magnolia is the work of a 28-year-old filmmaker who thinks he has everything figured out. Altman knows he doesn’t have it figured out and neither do any of the people in his film.

There is not enough space here to dissect everything going on in Short Cuts, but it is a profound work about the emptiness of a life without connection. Broadly speaking, the movie is about couples – those falling apart, those coming together, and those already disconnected. It’s about the pain of not being seen and existing in a world where everyone else wants to be seen, too, but can only look at themselves. It’s a dark, bitter, sad movie, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese

How I watched it: Rented DVD from Vidiots

Until this week, this was the only Scorsese-directed narrative feature I had never seen. I recall renting it in freshman year, but a two-hour-plus movie about the Dalai Lama was a tough sell in the dorms. No excuses for why it still took so long to catch up with it, but I am, of course, glad I finally did. The film slots nicely into the Scorsese mode of exploring the pluses and minuses of religious belief and dogma, right alongside The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence.

Given my impression of this film as lacking much cultural impact – we can get into the reasons why in a second – I was surprised by how many of the beats I recognized largely through cultural diffusion. The film’s episodic structure means that often, things happen that seem to have no relation to what came before, but in the end, they add up to a satisfying and impressive whole.

Beyond the film itself, Kundun is an interesting artifact to revisit at this time of great political censorship and self-censorship out of fear. As possibly the most prominent piece of Free Tibet art ever made, the film of course upset the Chinese government. Disney, the film’s distributor, not for the last time capitulated to the totalitarian regime out of self-interest and self-preservation, agreeing to bury the film’s release and not promote it.

Disney supervillain and ex-CEO Michael Eisner once told the Chinese government, regarding Kundun: "The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it. Here I want to apologize, and in the future, we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening.” I’ll translate: “Unfortunately, a brilliant artist had the gall to make provocative art, but don’t worry because we made sure no one would get to see. We are sorry you had to be confronted with the truth of your own ugliness. We won’t let it happen again, lest it harm our bottom line.”

Censor, directed by Prano Bailey-Bond

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

From a film that was censored to a film about censorship, Bailey-Bond’s Censor tells the story of a screener working for the British Board of Film Classification during the height of the Video Nasties scare in the ’80s. There are a lot of fun nods and references in here for anyone familiar with that particular hysteria, but the main thrust of the story is Enid’s (the wonderful Niamh Algar) growing psychosis over a little horror thriller that bares a striking similarity to the real unsolved disappearance of her sister.

The performances are excellent, the atmosphere, mood, and tension are all top notch, and I really enjoy the twist ending as a logical extension of the story being told. But here’s the thing: What are we to take thematically from a film that on its surface seems to be anti-censorship but that tells the story of a woman being driven mad as a result of watching the very violence she’s censoring? Does that not, on some level at least, suggest that some images are too horrific to see?

Now, the film absolutely raises good points about mass hysteria and who gets to decide what has artistic value. But I think Bailey-Bond can’t quite hang onto the reins of the story she’s telling and the intention gets away from her just a bit in the final act.

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, directed by Jung Bum-shik

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

This film may have been a bit of a time-of-day victim. I had heard a lot of good things about Gonjiam, particularly about how scary it is, but I found myself underwhelmed. That said, because I often have to squeeze movies in when I can, I can’t always choose the circumstances under which I watch them. All of which is to say: I watched this movie during the day, and I bet it’s 20 times scarier at night.

There are absolutely scares and thrills here, but they felt somewhat muted. There’s also an order-of-operations problem at play in that I watched this 2018 film a couple weeks after watching 2022’s Deadstream, which has roughly the same premise. Obviously, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum got there first (and is, in fact, based on a real location), but the territory felt a little previously trodden for me. Had the order been flipped, this film likely would have benefited.

All that said, there’s plenty of juice in the squeeze here, following a YouTube streamer and his fans/volunteers as they explore a notoriously haunted abandoned mental hospital. The filmmakers have about as much fun with the premise as one can imagine, and for sheer scale, this knocks Deadstream out of the park. I had a good time, but for maximum effect, I may revisit this again one dark and dreary night.

Zombeavers, directed by Jordan Rubin

How I watched it: Amazon Prime

Part of the long lineage of horror comedies that start from a funny title and work backward to create a film, Zombeavers at least delivers on the promise of its title. We get zombies that are beavers, and they lay siege to a cabin inhabited by six of the least likable movie characters you will ever meet. They are intentionally the most vapid, useless people on the planet and are meant to be a source of ridicule for the audience, but as a result, there’s really nothing to root for in the movie.

Rubin lets us know he’s in on the joke from the very beginning, casting Bill Burr and John Mayer – yeah, that one – as truckers hauling toxic waste. They engage in some of the worst movie banter ever, hit a deer with the truck, which causes some of the toxic cargo to spill into the river, and we get zombeavers. The beaver puppets are pretty dang funny, but there are better horror comedies to spend your time on.

The Blackening, directed by Tim Story

How I watched it: Netflix

Speaking of which, check out Story’s film, written by Dewayne Perkins and Tracy Oliver and based on their sketch, for an example of horror comedy done right. Three-dimensional characters we like and care about, genuine scares, a script with a ton to say about colorism, black spaces, and the place of black art in mainstream culture – and it’s consistently laugh-out-loud hilarious.

This is my second time seeing the film, and it only gets richer upon repeat viewing. Character moments mean more, the story is deeper than it first appears, and you catch way more jokes you missed the first time because you were too busy laughing at the jokes that came before. The Blackening will absolutely join the pantheon of horror comedies I revisit every October, along with Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Cabin in the Woods, and others.