and nine—year—old—boy and a women have been killed — and thousands have been left without power as storm malik batters northern parts of the uk, and as forecasters warn storm corrie will bring further high winds tomorrow. in the united states, warnings of historic blizzards as a fierce winter storm bringing heavy snowfall hits the east coast. as the ukraine border crisis continues, borisjohnson is to travel to eastern europe, and will telephone the russian president in the coming days. senior conservative mps join the opposition in calling for the report on downing street parties, during lockdowns, to be published in full. a more detailed study is under way after initial research finds some people with long covid may have hidden damage to their lungs. and ash barty wins the australian open tennis to become first home winner in 44 years.

i'll be back at the top of the hour. now on bbc news...mark kermode joins reeta chakrabarti for the film review. hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases is mark kermode, as usual. so, mark, what do we have this week? packed week. we have parallel mothers which is a new film by pedro almodovar. we have a new british horror movie, amulet. and sing 2 — more singing animals. that's quite the mixture. so, parallel mothers, lots of sort of excitement about almodovar�*s latest film. yes, and a nine—minute ovation when it premiered, i think, at venice. so, penelope cruz and milena smit are single mothers to be. they are sharing a room together in a hospital,

they give birth together, their babies go into observation together and when they leave hospital, they swap phone numbers. and perhaps a bit more. here is a clip. so, that's one strand of the story.

in another strand, penelope cruz�*s character is trying to excavate a mass grave in her hometown from the civil war, so there are two stories. parallel mothers, parallel stories, personal and political, which sounds like a really fascinating combination. and if you think of the films of guillermo del toro, like the devil's backbone or pan's labyrinth, he's managed to do exactly that with the spanish civil war. here's the thing with this, it's beautifully designed, beautifully played — a very well—written script with great performances, wonderful score. and it sounds like a perfect match. the problem for me is that it's not so much parallel stories, it's tangential stories. you have the spanish civil war story, which kind of appears and then gets sidelined. you have the personal story, which is full of melodramatic contrivance which you're kind of meant to buy into because, hey, it serves the story. and then we move back to the spanish civil war

so now — i have to say, i'm in the minority here. most people i've spoken to think this is great. and i'm a big pedro almodovarfan, i love the short film that he made, i loved the short film that he made, the human voice, just recently. itjust felt to me like this is not one of his best works. it has some great elements in it, and it has some things in it that i will cherish, but it did feel like two films and, like i said, not so much parallel as kind of tangential. how fascinating. he doesn't usually do politics, does he? he has done political comedy before, but it's never really landed for me. but this is, you know, this is a serious work. it's serious, and it's clearly very personal and heartfelt. it's serious, and it's clearly very personal and heartfelt. i wish i liked it more than i did. which brings me rather nicely onto amulet, which is a british horror movie, written and directed by romola garai. this is her directorial debut. and the story is an ex—soldier from an unnamed european conflict finds himself destitute in london, he taken in by a nun played by imelda staunton, in a horror movie which is never a good sign. reeta laughs. and she says, look, i can give you a house to stay in but you have to do the house

up, and incidentally, in the house is magda, who is looking after her mother who is ill and is in the attic and whose presence is mainly heard through screaming and banging and so there's something deeply, deeply disturbing going on. the film starts with this real kind of slow—burn atmosphere and then there are a couple of really creepy moments — what's going on upstairs? then there's a couple of pretty good jump scares, and then in the third act it goes absolutely, you know, full on altered states weird. and i loved it. i thought the performances were great, i thought it was very wry and very funny. it's very grounded. i mean, it's about gender politics and it's very, very grounded in the kind of gender war playing out within the house. you never know what a character's motives really are. brilliant soundtrack by sarah angliss, this is the first film that she's scored. fantastic soundtrack using human voices, and really creepy,

and i don't know whether you're a horror film fan? not so much. 0k. so in that case, it's not a horror film, it's a ghostly thriller with a solid political underpinning and you'll absolutely love it. that's, you've sold it to me! you should see it, it's really good. and romola garai, we know her from our screens. is this herfirst... it's her directorial feature debut, she's done some shorts before. i interviewed herjust recently because the film played at fright fest, which is a horror film festival, cos she's a total horror fan. she knows horror inside out and you can tell when you see this, i mean, this has references to andrzej zulawski's possession and films that, really, only horror fans know, but i think anyone could watch this, and if you're not a horrorfan, it's not a horrorfilm... laughter. it is, but, you know, it's a ghostly chiller. i've heard you! what else have we got? sing 2. sing made 600 million worldwide, so now we have sing 2. so in sing... i wonder why. yeah, i know, it's — and the film feels very much like, yeah, and that is exactly why. so, in sing, you had matthew mcconaughey as this koala, buster moon, who wanted to save a theatre. now he's put on a production

that he wants to be picked up for the big time, they haven't impressed the talent for the big time, they haven't impressed the talent scouts but that hasn't taken the wind out of his sails. here's a clip. i mean, that scout, she didn't think we were good enough. she sounds like a jerk! yeah, totaljerk! yeah, but she's wrong, dead wrong! there's a reason our show is sold out every night and i'm tellin�* ya, her boss is gonna love it! ooh, or maybe, we could just like do a different show, you know? - gunter, please, i got this. seriously i have this idea for, like, a space musical! - bus horn blares. all right, we're rollin' out here. you don't want to hear. about the space musical? guys, come on! wait! bus brakes screech. music plays. listen, you guys! i have dreamt of performing in redshore city since i was a little kid. and, besides, ijust convinced my husband to babysit for the next 24 hours and i am not gonna waste an opportunity like that. so, come on!

we've got nothing to lose! reeta laughs. so the voice cast, i mean, everyone — reese witherspoon, scarlettjohansson, ta ron egerton, pharrell williams, jennifer saunders, and bono — as in u2�*s bono — as a retired rock star who moon promises that he knows and says he will get him out of retirement in order to put on this show which he's pitched which he hasn't written, it doesn't exist, which is a sci—fi extravaganza, out of this world, featuring this retired rock star. so you go, ok, this is a lot of stuff, lots of star names, lots of spectacular stuff on screen, i mean it's a digimation, it's from illumination — the people that gave us the minions movies. the thing is, the first film had a weirdly, kind of, old—fashioned you know, judy garland—mickey rooney "let's do the show in a barn," kind of feel, and that's what i liked about it. this feels like, we've had a huge success, we need to do it bigger,

and we need to do it louder, and we need to do it more spectacular, we need to have more stars, and as a result, it's kind of lost some of the oddball charm of the original. and, you know, ifound myself watching it thinking... i was surprised by how much i liked the original because the idea didn't sound great at all, because it's garthjennings, who's a very interesting film—maker and has made good stuff like son of rambow. but in the case of this, it's like, when you said "yeah, no wonder we have another one", it did feel like a numbers game — "no wonder we have another one", it did feel like a numbers game — and it's not to say that i don't think kids seeing it won't enjoy it because there's lots to distract you, but what there isn't is any of that sense of timelessness, any of that sense of old—fashioned charm, solid storytelling. i mean, this sounds like a weird thing to say about a film which features flying elephants in space, but it doesn't make much sense — emotional sense. you know, it'sjust stuff, and a lot of stuff. so bigger is not necessarily better. no, biggerand louder is not necessarily better. so you mentioned guillermo del toro when you were talking about the almodovar film, about parallel mothers, and very happily — his next film. my best out is nightmare alley. reviewed this last week

and i think this is great, this is a remake of a 19405 film which is based on a novel from 1946. has a great performance by bradley cooper. again, star—studded cast — cate blanchett, rooney mara, you can be shorted a list of people who aren't in it, but, what's great about it is it's a modern film, it's a neo—noir, it's very dark. it's very, very stylish. it has.... the first half of the film takes place at a carnival, the second half takes place in the city and it's no surprise to discover that the carnival is the more kind and caring part of that story. it's...on the one hand, i mean, it's kind of paying tribute to the classic film noirs of the �*30s and �*aos but it's also, as with all of del toro's stuff, it feels very modern. and it feels, i mean... there's a piece written about it by martin scorsese about how much he loves it,

and i can see why because it's a real cineaste�*s film. but i think it's, i thought it was terrific, and i'm a really big fan of guillermo del toro. have you seen this? i haven't seen it, it looks beautiful. yes, it looks beautiful, but don't let that convince you that it's all surface, it isn't. it's got a lot of substance and it has one of the darkest endings of a film in ages. i really was left at the end thinking, wow. "wow, they really went for it." much as with amulet — you come out the last act and go whoa, well done — you didn't bottle that! chuckles. i'm going. and dvd streaming. yeah, censor is out on dvd. this is prano bailey—bond's feature debut. brilliantly put together. it's a story set during the 19805 video nasties scare. so this is very much — you know, i watched this thinking this is a film made for me! and it's about a censor played by niamh algar who starts watching video nasties and seeing in them something more than she expected. and the film is, on the one hand, a kind of nostalgic evocation of that particular time when video had just begun, and the video stores

were filled with, you know, cannibal holocaust and driller killer and all these films that were illegal but suddenly they were, kind of, available. but also it's about the way in which horror cinema and horrorfiction is really a place in which you can find yourself and which is, kind of, weirdly redeeming — and i say this as somebody — i've been a horrorfan all my life — it's lovely to see a film about horror made by somebody who loves horror, rather than a film made about horror by somebody who thinks, "oh, it's all disgusting and nasty." it's a really, really smart movie. prano bailey—bond is a terrific filmmaker. niamh algar�*s central performance in this is great. there's a really brilliant performance by michael smiley, and i think that anybody could find something in this, but if you are of a certain age and if you grew up with a great nostalgia for the time when the witch who came from the sea was available in your local disreputable video store, this will absolutely hit the nail on the head. laughs. thank you very much for all of that. thank you. mark kermode as always. that's it for this week,

thank you very much for watching. bye— bye. hello and welcome to sportsday. world number one ash barty conquers her home slam — becoming the first australian player to win the title in melbourne in 44 years. the afcon hosts are into the semi finals. cameroon knock out the gambia to secure their place in the last four. and we have a title race — rangers mistakes cost them at ross county, as celtic close the gap in the scottish premiership.

hello and welcome to to the programme. what a moment it was for ash barty, as she claimed her third grand slam title in front of a home crowd in melbourne — ending australia's long wait for a home singles champion. she beat the usa's danielle collins in the final, to cement ehr place as a national hero. mike bushell was watching. carrying the hopes of a nation that has been longing for this for a generation. and ash barty gave them exactly what they wanted in the first set, impressing those who know what it's like to perform in an arena overflowing with tension. and danielle collins certainly found it hostile, asking the umpire

get the crowd to quieten down while she was having a serve, but she raced into a 5—1 lead but barty wasn't going to get this opportunity slip away, incredible fightback to a tie—break on the wall of noise and expectation in much for collins and if you're going to write owing to history that is the way to do it. so australia has a home champion again for the first time since christine o'neill, who looked on as barty�*s role model, yvonne, showed her delight in handing over the trophy and all that comes with it. mike bushell, bbc news. ash barty is rarely one to be overcome by emotion but when she clinched victory, there was an uncharacteristic scream after her cross court winner. afterweards, she admitted it all felt very surreal. it is absolutely incredible, i think. as aussies we are incredibly lucky to be a grand slam nation and to get to experience vista play at home is really special and to be to experience to play at home is really special and to be here as a champion of the tournament is very exciting. the tournament is really exciting.

it is a little bit surreal, i think.