that is the paper 's full of it. that is the paper 's full tonight. don't forget you can see the front pages of the papers online on the bbc news website. and if you miss the programme any evening you can watch it later we do, we go home and watch ourselves. don't deny it. next, the film review. hello, and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's releases is mark kermode. what have you been watching? we have red sparrow, which is the new film starring jennifer lawrence. we have a fantastic woman, which is chile's oscar entry for the foreign language film academy award. and game night.

is it a game or is it real? red sparrow. yes, so red sparrow‘s very interesting. it's based on a book by a former cia operative, jason matthews. jennifer lawrence is a russian ballerina who is violently recruited to become a sparrow — an undercover intelligence agent. she is taught how to seduce her prey. she's sent to budapest on the trail of an american, played by joel edgerton, whom she meets, and we know that she has to win his confidence. but it seems fairly early on that they both understand what the other is. here's a clip. dominika. you know my name? you told me. you stole my id from the pool. that would be illegal. were you just looking for me? i'd know where to find you if i was. i'm curious, did you want me to know that you were following me or are you just real clumsy?

you americans always think the rest of us are so interested in you, don't you? what made you want to become a translator? my mother is ill. if i work for the government, the state helps me to take care of her. my uncle helped me get the job. your uncle is a very powerful man. in my country, if you do not matter to the men in power, you don't matter. hey, i would like to see you again. why, are we going to become friends? is that what you want? i don't have any. there's a russian restaurant right by the opera, have dinner with me there. tomorrow at eight. 0k. so it is an odd movie. on the one hand, it looks like a mainstream glossy thriller. it's directed by francis lawrence, who did some of the hunger games movies, and it has english and american actors speaking in russian accents like that. i wasn't sure about that accent, i've got to say! the other side of it is that it's also a lot nastier than you would expect.

it was precut from an 18 to get a 15 certificate, and in the very first assignment that she has, there's a fairly graphic sexual assault when she is sent to the training camp, in which she is led by charlotte rampling. it is really quite tough and distressing and oddly explicit, and then the violence, the outbreaks of violence during the movie are real sort of wince—inducing fare. i imagine that some people who are jennifer lawrence fans from the hunger games might find that quite hard to take. there's an argument saying actually, it's not glamorising it, it's saying this is really rough and nasty stuff. then you think, well, actually jennifer lawrence's fans have already come through mother!, the darren aronofsky film. she's having a run of peculiar films. absolutely, and she made that sort of strange science fiction movie a year or so ago, which again divided audiences. i like the fact that she makes bold and often strange choices. i like the fact she doesn't play it safe. she is the centre of the movie. the movie is tonally very changeable, so sometimes it is

almost high camp, sometimes it is people chewing the scenery, and doing the stuff that you would expect and sometimes it is really, you know, nasty — and i mean properly nasty, gritty — and i know some people have found that intolerable. i think it is interesting. i think it is nothing like as mainstream as i expected it to be, and that's for the better, but it is not for everyone. no, and i cannot handle violence at all, as you know. you are not going to embrace it. i'm afraid i'm out. it is not going to happen. however... let me suggest you see a fantastic woman, chile's entry for the foreign language film oscar. so the story is daniela vega, who is brilliant as marina. she is a waitress and aspiring singer who finds herself shut out of her own life when her older partner dies and herfamily — the family of her partner — suddenly descend and say "you can't come to the funeral, you can't come to the wake, you cannot stay in the apartment you have been living with orlando in, and you need to give back the car". the reason they find her so threatening is notjust because she is the other woman with whom orlando ran off,

but she is a transgender woman. and they consequently think that she is a threat to what they call their normal lives. throughout the film, she says "my name is marina", but they refuse to call her that. one of the sons calls her maurice. at one point, the wife refers to her as daniel. the whole movie is about her defining her own character, finding her own space. and what's really interesting is that her name is echoed in these visual motifs throughout the film. it opens with a waterfall, there's this seascape on the wall of the bedroom. the film itself goes from being classical romance to a social realist drama to something which is a weird lynchian thriller and at one point, it turns into a musical replete with levitation sequences. i thought it was wonderful. i thought daniela vega was just teriffic, mesmerising in the role. you completely understand and care about her character and the situation she's in, and i thought it was a really good piece of work. and i loved it so much, i saw it and i went straight back and watched it again a second time because i thought there was so much in it. i think you will really like it. there is a recommendation!

fantastic. i look forward to that. game night. yes. i have read quite a lot about this film and i still don't understand what it's about. ok, so it's — basically, here is the best way of describing it. game night — so therefore it lifts its rifts from the game, the david fincher movie, and date night. hence game night. there are two characters who are obsessed with games. they agree to take part in a kind of murder mystery but when it starts out, maybe it is not a game, maybe it is real. maybe this loaded gun is not a prop. maybe it's real. that is the thrill. it is a kind of an idea we have seen done before. if you think about films like after hours or into the night, normal couple gets sucked into strange underworld crime. however, it begins with them just having game night with their friends. here's a clip. come on, max! and go, go, go! oh, it's easy — the famous actor we met at the airport about eight years ago. who? only actor we've ever met at an airport who's famous. bobby flay? not an actor. this fellow was in front of us at the sbarro.

we wondered why he wasn't in the first class lounge. oh, yes, yes... who was that? god damn it! max, there's a whole room of people to help you out. use us. good point. he was the incredible hulk! eric bana. other one. um, mark ruffalo? other one. lou ferrigno! holy (bleep). primal fear! richard gere never played the incredible hulk! time! ed norton. 0h! primal fear! that is why those games are so annoying. but you laughed all the way through that. i have this rule about a comedy can only count itself as a comedy if it makes you laugh more than six times. you laughed more than six times in that clip. here's the thing with game night. i looked at the trailer and i thought oh, it is going to be that movie we have seen umpteen versions of but they got away with it because the cast gave it their best, the gags are funny. i do think that gag about richard gere, that is good, and that standard of gag is kept up all the way through. even through the set pieces and the very sort of contrived set—ups.

they bump into people they think are playing being criminals but they are real criminals, or are they? that goes on all the way through the film, but i kept laughing. it kept me laughing, and believe me, nobody was more surprised than i was that that was the case. 0k. i'm still not 100% sure. but anyway, ok. 0k. however. a fantastic woman is one you will love. i look forward to that and i am sure about the shape of water. i love it. i think it's wonderful. yes, i like it. do you feel as strongly as i do? i loved it in a curious way, but i enjoyed every moment. it is great that it has been multiply nominated. it looks wonderful, brilliant score, fantastic performances, and i have seen it three times and i will watch it again, because it is a lovely fairytale that you can keep revisiting. it is splash meets the creature from the black lagoon, and that's an ideal film for me. yes, it is best out. and i think, should i say see it on a big screen? because visually, it's so impressive. yes. but then when it comes out on dvd, i will tell you the opposite. i will lie.

you will have it in the best dvd category. yeah. so best dvd for this week is florida project. which, it's a shame it wasn't more represented at the awards. i mean, everything is coming up. willem dafoe is the only one who has been represented. i think it's great. it's a humanist, wonderful, modern version of our gang brilliantly directed, from the director of tangerine. vibrant performances. such a shame it has fallen into one supporting actor nod. but that tells you what you need to know about awards — they are nonsense. well, thanks! thanks for that thought! but it is beautifully made and it's starring some people — some of the people in it have not had formal acting training, alongside people like willem dafoe. yeah, absolutely. and that's what — the real genius of it is you get someone who is a seasoned professional against a first—timer and suddenly, it works. there's no sense of having an imbalance between the performances because actually, it is because the director does a brilliantjob of putting everybody right in the space, and, you know, the whole film takes place just beyond the boundaries of disney world, so it's almost like you have been cast out

of the magic kingdom into this netherworld. it has a sort of fairytale feel. into people in real american poverty, alongside disney world. absolutely. living in a hotel that was designed as a resort hotel, but has now become a hotel for people who are in poverty, who are essentially homeless, yet there is such vibrancy, such life, the characters are wonderful. i thought it was a terrific film. i did think it was going to be an awards contender, it will sweep the board, get everything, and thatjust shows... to be fair, you did say that. i wasn't going to remind you of that. i am the first to admit i can't predict awards. but there we go, it should have been nominated for more. should have been a contender. thank you very much, mark. more next week. before we go, there are all the film news and reviews from across the bbc online — you know the address, i am sure. all our previous programmes are on the iplayer as well. that is it for this week. enjoy your cinema going. see you next time. goodbye. speak to the forced to do so across

the british isles are the next couple of days also. it is rather what you have endured over the past week that i think will cause you some problems as we launch ourselves into monday, but the week ahead, the snow will be around for a while but conditions will gradually improve, thanks oddly to this system of low pressure. it is going to be around for the greater part of the week but is keeping cold airfrom the continent at eight, thankfully there is no rerun of last week. we already seen is no rerun of last week. we already seen an is no rerun of last week. we already seen an incursion of slightly milder air into the south. further north, we are going to drag some moisture and some cold air across the high ground of scotland and there will be some snow there, as indeed there

will be as we take you on into tuesday. same area of pressure, frontal system, clearing away over england and wales, taking its moisture into scotland because it is still cold there, there will be some snow, mostly just still cold there, there will be some snow, mostlyjust on the high ground. northern ireland, not about day, nor indeed in england and wales. into the middle part of the week, i think it is going to be marked by not too much on the way of wind, thankfully, but will also be just a fraction cooler, not that monday and tuesday were any heat wave by any means at all. a sprinkling of showers in the south, what's know there is will be found to the north of the great lakes. any showers coming in across northern ireland on the higher ground may have wintry nurse about them given that single temperatures abound. wednesday quite chilly one, some ground frost, just watch out for

that one. any showers over the higher ground could be a wee bit wintry, could be a frontal system in the channel and a spot of rain from that perhaps. the temperatures again really not warranting. we has got as far as thursday into friday, another cold night and as far as the south—west, we have a new area of low pressure likely to drag up into the south—west, so an unsettled end to the week. becoming milder, a little bit unsettled due to that area of pressure and we have the prospect again of some snow, but mostly but not exclusively on higher in scotland. —— higherground. i'm karin giannone in rome. the headlines: a hung parliament in italy, with a combination of right wing parties set to get most votes. but it's five star movement, italy's newest party —

led by luigi di maio — who maybe the single biggest in parliament. i'm mariko oi in singapore. also in the programme: all eyes are on china's annual parliamentary session as delegates are expected to rubber stamp a proposal allowing president xijinping to rule for life. and as stars get red carpet ready ahead of the oscars, will the harvey weinstein allegations overshadow film's biggest event of the year?