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 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. 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 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 19116. 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, 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 �*305 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 it's 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. it's been a stormy start to this weekend, particularly across northern areas, and we're ending the weekend off with another storm. this is storm corrie moving in across the north of the country during the overnight period, into the start of monday. you can see it showing up very clearly here on the pressure chart. little squeeze in the isobars as it continues to exit out into the north sea. so we've got a blanket yellow warning across the north of the country, 50—60 mph gusts, an amberwarning for the northern half of scotland, where we could see in excess of 80 mph for a time. a band of rain will spread southwards and eastwards, followed by plenty of blustery showers. these will be heavy and wintry across much of scotland, and with some colder air digging down, we are likely to see a risk of ice across more northern and western parts of scotland. further south, it will be chilly but not quite as cold as what it'll be further north. as we move through the week, it looks like it's going to stay pretty windy. very mild for a time around the middle part of the week. it turns colder for all by the end of the week. welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines... as the diplomatic standoff continues — we report from the frontline in eastern ukraine, where government forces, have been fighting russian backed separatists. this is about more than the future of ukraine. it's about the future shape of nato, about the security of europe. battle lines are being drawn now in a new cold war. north korea is thought to have tested one of its most powerful ballistic missiles in years — the us urges pyongyang to join direct talks without preconditions. manchester united footballer mason greenwood has been arrested on suspicion of rape and assault following