”Beau Is Afraid”/”Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant”

Sometimes a movie is just too long, and goodness knows that is the case with "Beau Is Afraid." In this podcast episode, HCC film professors Marie Westhaver and Mike Giuliano agree that they liked director Ari Aster's previous film "Midsommer," and they also like the premise in his new film about Joaquin Phoenix as an anxiety-ridden man who takes a journey from his city apartment to reconnect with his mother out in the countryside. However, "Beau Is Afraid" has a running time of 179 minutes. Although individual scenes work as surreal comedy, it's ultimately all too much. Marie and Mike also discuss "Guy Ritchie's The Covenant," in which a director known for making violent films with a comic edge turns his action-oriented skill set to the more serious purpose of a drama about the connection between a U.S. army veteran (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his Afghan interpreter (Dar Salim). The script has some overly obvious speeches, but the story itself works really well.