MOVIE STARS
New releases
★ ½ Beau Is Afraid Joaquin Phoenix stars in this very dark fantasmagoria written and directed by Ari Aster (“Hereditary,” “Midsommar”). Over the course of an exhausting three hours, Beau gets put through an emotional, physical, and familial wringer. Playing a “helpful” couple, Nathan Lane and especially Amy Ryan find their considerable talents squandered. Not Patti LuPone: As Beau’s mom, she tears the roof off the sucker. (179 min., R) (Mark Feeney)
★★ Ghosted Guy meets girl. Guy falls for girl. Guy learns girl is CIA killing machine. Romcom turns into bomb-com. Romance, comedy, and action never mesh, in part because of how violent much of the action is. Chris Evans and Ana de Armas star. Adrien Brody plays a baddie. Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, and Ryan Reynolds have amusing cameos. Streaming on Apple TV+ (117 min., PG-13) (Mark Feeney)
★★½ Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant An Afghan interpreter (Dar Salim) rescues an Army sergeant (Jake Gyllenhaal). Can the sergeant then rescue the interpreter? The action sequences are tense and effective. Ritchie’s a pro; and by his self-indulgent standards the filmmaking is practically chaste. Halfway in, the story becomes a male potboiler. To the movie’s credit, it confronts head on our abandonment of Afghans who worked for the United States. (123 min., R) (Mark Feeney)
★★★½ Little Richard: I Am Everything Director Lisa Cortés enlists a slew of scholars, musicians, and Black and queer icons to enrich her documentary on the self-proclaimed architect of rock ‘n’ roll, Little Richard. Her smartest move is to let her subject tell his own story whenever possible. At times infuriating and hilarious, this is an exceptionally well-made documentary. (98 min., unrated) (Odie Henderson)