hello, and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases is jason solomons. so, jason, what do we have this week? brad pitt dons a spacesuit and shoots for the stars in ad astra. ‘80s action hero sylvester stallone sharpens up his act to release rambo: last blood. and a family gathers in china to say goodbye to grandma in the farewell. let's start with brad pitt in space. that's right, brad in space. he's so hot right now in this post—tarantino glow from once upon a time in hollywood. this is a very different performance from him, a much more buttoned—down performance. in this film, it's officially proven that brad pitt is the coolest man in the world. he has a psych evalfrom nasa, who decide his heartbeat does not go over 80 revs per minute, beats per minute? beats per minute. beats per minute, bpms, a record. he is officially and scientifically proven to be as cool as anything, so that means he doesn't get very excited in this. he breathes the narration of the story of a man sent on a mission to find his dad, who disappeared 15 years ago. he's played by tommy leejones. brad has to send him a message to say, "dad, i'm coming to find you." this is a map of an underground lake beneath the launch pad. you'll be able to access the ship from there. we're approaching. they're going to come for you, you know? i know. i don't care any more. i need to get back now, do what i can. good luck. so, yes, a man on a mission. a man on a mission, he goes to the moon, which has been colonised by this time. it's set somewhere in the near future, and it's been colonised. it looks like the wild west in a shopping mall — a bit like westfield stratford. then he goes to mars and neptune, he goes to jupiter. it's a long search, then? it's quite long. i have to say in the hands of this american directorjames gray — i think he's a rather pretentious film—maker — this is a bit of a space drag. there are people who are saying it's very philosophical and an existential search for meaning, and there are parables of father and son and maybe god the creator, i didn't read that in there. i had plenty of time to think this is rather silly, to be honest. and i love brad pitt, and i quite like space movies when they're philosophical — 2001, solaris, for example. this one had some decent sequences, but not for me at all. i thought it was ponderous, pretentious, i thought it was a real pain to watch. very difficult. i know brad is great. the other thing about ad astra, it's not an ad for an astra at all, they won't sell any cars on the back of this. i did read that it looks beautiful, do you give it that or not? i do give it that, but i much prefer gravity, which has a similarfeel to it. everyone seemed to be speaking in a very stilted fashion. the way it's made, to me, it turned me off almost immediately. it had a breathy terrence malick element to it. you thought of brad in tree of life, where he breathes the same narration, that film got away with it, apart from the silly bit with the dinosaurs. this was a mission too far for brad. right. given you're not over keen on that, i'm rather interested about what you're going to say about the next one. rambo: last blood. you remember rambo, surely? i do remember rambo, yes. from the 1980s. many people might not know what we're talking about. it takes me back a fair way. yeah, he had two massive action heroes in the ‘70s and ‘80s, sylvester stallone, rocky and rambo. rocky's still going, rebooted by the creed franchise with michael b jordan. rocky's his tutor in this. rambo hasn't. he's been stuck very much in the ‘80s. i quite like the first rambo film, first blood, this is last blood. sylvester stallone‘s niece has been taken by mexican drug cartels and sold into sex slavery, which is of course what mexicans always do to americans. sly goes over the border as rambo and gets them back, and then he invites them to come back over the border. this is the first film, i think, to show trump's wall border. is there a wall? there's a sort of a high fence. it's very easily bleached — breached and bleached — by these mexican cartels who come to rambo's ranch, where he's booby—trapped it, fashioning spears and arrows and all sorts of pits for them to fall in and die very bloodily. i don't want to spoil it, but that's a rambo movie for you, you know where it's going. i found this very nasty. rather short and nasty and brutish, but very violent and very confused about what it's saying about our american hero. rambo was always a tool of empire, a tool of american gung ho—ness, sent out to bring back the american troops in rambo three and four. this one, he hates everyone. he hates foreigners, it's about revenge and hatred. he literally rips the heart out of someone, it left a terribly nasty taste in the mouth. plus it's not very good or funny or very fun, and he's looking a little worse for wear is sly in this one. so, we're not keen on that, that's for sure. what about the farewell, which i think you are much keener on? in terms of cultural exchange between two cultures, this is much more up my street. the farewell stars a rising star, awkwafina, a rapper. we've seen her in 0cean's 8 and crazy rich asians. here, she is a young writer called billi who lives in new york, and herfamily are going back to china for the first time because nai nai, her grandmother is unwell, she has cancer and is going to die. they say to billi don't come because you've got such a miserable face that grandma's going to know immediately what's happening to her, because they're trying to lie to grandmother. it says at the start of the film "based on an actual lie". in chinese culture, says the film, they don't tell someone who's ill they're ill, the family shoulders the emotional burden of it. here is awkwafina getting it explained to her in hospital in china. how bad is she? you can tell me the truth. the cancer is quite advanced. shouldn't we tell her? in her situation, most families in china would choose not to tell her. when my grandmother had cancer, my family didn't tell her. isn't that wrong to lie? i mean, if it's for good, it's not really a lie. i mean, it's still a lie. it's a good lie. there's quite a lot of humour in this, i was reading as well. yeah, it's billed as a comedy, i was expecting a warm family comedy, the sort ang lee made before he went to america, eat drink man woman and the wedding banquet. it hasn't quite got that warmth, but it has a fantastic exchange of what a young american might be getting from china and what china might be getting from a young american. it shows you the skyscrapers of china, the progress, but because it's about this family, this brilliant old woman played by zhao shuzhen, a fantastic performance, it could lead to an 0scars supporting nomination, it shows you so much going on, weddings and karaoke and singing dogs and strange rituals, professional criers, for example. i would recommend eating beforehand because there's so much food going around and around those tables, your stomach will be rumbling throughout and that's the best kind of movie. that's what families are about, that food element, so bite into it, it's a very warm film and a very smart film. very good performance from awkwafina. i didn't laugh as much as i thought i would, all the stars on the poster said it was heart—warming and ifound it sadder, but it has that warmth and that sense of a young woman trying to find her roots, getting on — well, this isn't what i was looking for all along. it doesn't have the normal arc you might expect. we'll put that one on the list, what do you think is the best one out there at the moment? do catch pain and glory directed by pedro almodovar. his new film pain & glory, he's one of the greatest film—makers, it's one of his best films, starring antonio banderas, who's better in this than i have ever seen him, playing an ageing film—maker looking back on his career and a retrospective that the madrid cinematheque are giving him. it delves into his past and growing up with his mum, played by penelope cruz, and flashbacks with his relationships with actors in the past. it's very funny, colourful, tender and moving. i think it's one of the great movies of the year and one of the movies of a great film—maker's career, and i think antonio banderas will get an oscar nomination. we'll make a note of that. on dvd, you're going for apocalypse now: the final cut. a lot of people are saying ad astra is apocalypse now in space. this is the quintessential one, it's coppola's examination of the vietnam war. it's out on blu—ray now and is called the final cut, we have had a director's cut. all of them are good. if you've never seen apocalypse now, it's one of the great movies of the last century, one of the best movies made since the 1970s and it stars martin sheen, dennis hopper, marlon brando, a young laurence fishburne and harrison ford. it's one of my favourite films, it's a mad film, a hallucinogenic film. it has one of the most famous lines of all time. "i love the smell of napalm in the morning." "charlie don't surf!" he's a wise man and anyone would want to see this on blu—ray. thank you very much indeed, that's it for this week. thank you very much indeed. hello, good evening. the message is really to make the most of the sunshine tomorrow before the weather changes. today, we had lots of sunshine around, the highest temperatures were in highland with a high of 25 celsius. you can see from the earlier satellite picture how most of the cloud has been kept well away, but it's this area of cloud here that will bring a change in from the atlantic during the second half of the weekend. ahead of that, though, we've seen some thin cloud across an eastern parts of england earlier on. that could reform actually for a while and drift its way into eastern scotland. it's been quite blowy today as well, and that breeze is still there overnight so less fog around, could be some bits and pieces through the vale of york for example, but it won't be as cold as it has been over the past few nights either. now, let's set up the weekend and high pressure has brought the sunshine over the past few days. that is drifting its way further east across europe, which is why the winds are picking up, but it's a southerly wind and hence those high temperatures. waiting in the wings, we saw the cloud earlier on, this weather front here will start to push in from the atlantic. and we may start to see a bit of cloud developing across the far southwest of england and wales and then later into northern ireland and maybe one or two showers as well. but elsewhere, a lot of sunshine around and could see some cloud pushing its way into the northern isles for a while, but it is going to be quite breezy once again, a noticeable breeze, with some gusty winds across many western parts of england and wales together with northern ireland. but a warmer day for most of england and wales. east wales through the midlands and across towards the home counties, temperatures may get up to 25 degrees here. but the weather starts to change really overnight as though showers develop, and they could turn heavy and thundery. everything you can slowly pushing up from the southwest, and behind the showers we've got this band of more organised rain which could be quite heavy as well. that's moving northwards and eastward, so it should be clearing away from wales and the south west on sunday afternoon. turns a bit cooler and fresher here, northeastern parts of scotland may will have a dry day but ahead of this rain, temperatures could get as high as 22 or 23 in the north and east of england. that weather system is going to be pushing the rain northwards and generally out into the north sea by monday. we've got a window of drier weather before the next weather system comes in. and this area of low pressure is going to be dominant as we head into next week. never too far away, the weather looks much, much more unsettled. showers or some longer spells of rain, quite a bit cooler and at times rather windy. this is bbc world news today. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: protesters around the world take to the streets to march for action against climate change. we are young and we are the ones who are going to have to live with this in the future, and we are not the ones who have caused this crisis. also in the programme, president trump dismisses a whistleblower‘s claims that he had improper dealings with a foreign leader. always appropriate. at the highest level, always appropriate. and anything i do, i fight for this country. i fight so strongly for this country. it's just another political hackjob. the woman who claims she was abused by prince andrew speaks out. buckingham palace emphatically denies he had any sexual

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