Project Hail Mary & Sirāt

Project Hail Mary" has been a hit movie this spring, and so HCC film professors Marie Westhaver and Mike Giuliano consider the reasons why in this podcast episode. In this sci fi adventure, Ryan Gosling gives a fine performance as a middle school science teacher whose academic background prompts government officials to send him on an outer space mission to study a mysterious alien force that likes to eat stars. Hey, our sun is a star and so we have reason to worry back here on planet earth! It's a tense story that is leavened with a lot of comedy. Marie loved this movie and Mike not so much, because he found it too cutesy for his curmudgeonly taste. Marie and Mike also discuss "Sirāt," a powerful Spanish drama about a father's journey to find a daughter who went missing in Morocco. This film deliberately does not explain every plot point, leaving viewers with much to contemplate during an existential trip through a beautifully bleak landscape.