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 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. 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 is 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, its 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 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, taron 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 — 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 1940s 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'd do shorter to list the people who aren't in it, but what's great about it is it's a modern film, its 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 �*40s, 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 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. yeah, 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. 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 1980s 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 its about the way in which horror cinema and horror fiction 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 there. the winds from storm malik eased down quite quickly during the latter part of saturday, and we saw a ridge of high pressure build in to give us a fine start for sunday morning — cold, frosty and sunny for many. but conditions will deteriorate across the north and the west of the country later, as the next deepening area of low pressure hurtles in all the atlantic. this has been named by the uk met office as storm corrie, and that'll arrive later on sunday across scotland, northern ireland, northern england. but we start the day off largely fine and settled with lots of sunshine around. the sunshine will hold on across central, southern and eastern parts of england through the day. cloud will build up further north and west and it'll start turning wetter and windierfor northern ireland. northern and western scotland, some snow developing on the hills,

gales developing across the western isles. it's going to be a chilly day across the board for sunday, highs of 5 to 9 degrees. and then through sunday evening and overnight, as storm corrie moves across the north of the uk, a real squeeze in the isobars behind the system as it pushes out into the north sea, so i think some of the greatest impacts will be felt once again across scotland. but we have a blanket yellow warning of wind gusts for the northern half of the uk, 50—60 mph gusts here, and an amberwarning for the northern half of scotland, where he could see gusts 70—80 mph, maybe even stronger than that for a time across the northwest of the country. along with that, there will be some heavy rain and mountain snow, which will clear away, and then in the early hours of monday, we will see a rash of blustery showers pushing down from the northwest, with clear spells in between, some wintriness over the higher ground. a chilly night to come, but not as cold as the previous night. so we start monday, then, off on a chilly note. there will be some sunshine around across eastern areas. the strong winds will have cleared away by this point,

but it will be a breezy day with further showers packing to northern and western areas. again, some of these will be wintry on the hills. anotherfairly cool day to come, 6—9 degrees. we could just make 10 degrees across south wales, southwest england. beyond then, as we move through the week, we'll see further wet and windy weather affecting northern and eastern parts of the country, around this area of high pressure. not as windy as what we've had over the weekend, but with higher pressure always towards the south, many southern areas will tend to stay a lot calmer. and there will be some milder air moving in from the southwest for a time, most of the rain in the north. signs of it turning chillier for all by the end of the week.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. downing street is considering sending more uk troops and military hardware to eastern europe, as nato weighs up options to increase pressure on russia. here in the uk, the prime minister and the chancellor commit to going ahead with the planned rise in national insurance contributions. storm malik batters northern britain, leaving two people dead. thousands are without power as forecasters warn of further high winds tomorrow. historic blizzards in the united states as a fierce winter storm bringing heavy snowfall hits the east coast. the medical trial which is throwing new light on why

some people experience breathlessness after covid.