Special Notice I have retired from film and theatre criticism and will no longer be submitting new reviews for ‘Valley Screen & Stage.’ Please note that published reviews and essays dating back to 2012 will continue to remain online for reference. It has been a genuine pleasure to write for the valley. My sincere thanks […]

In the new comedy from England, Yesterday, something freaky worthy of a Twilight Zone episode occurs, and it’s global. A total electrical blackout of an unknown origin hits every country around the world. Nowhere is spared. The blackout, which switches off every power source, affecting every building, radio, TV, and computer, lasts about 12 seconds. […]

For the record, in case you’re wondering exactly where the new horror thriller Annabelle Comes Home fits into the whole Conjuring/Nun Universe, think of it this way: It doesn’t really matter. The stories that fictionalized the real-life cases of famed paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, were The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2. From those […]

When a trilogy is as near perfect as the three Toy Story animated features from Disney Pixar is, the news a while ago that a fourth might be in production was understandably greeted with a huge amount of apprehension. After all, even though the series consisted of three very individual adventures, in its way it […]

When his best friend dies of a drug overdose, John Shaft is suspicious. No, not the John Shaft, the bad mutha-f-bomb-dropper of seventies fame who was a sex machine to all the chicks. And, no, not Junior, the nephew who turned up in a 2000 thriller that most of us can’t really remember. It’s John […]

Let’s keep this brief. In director Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, they really don’t, but you’ll wish they did. In the small town of Centerville (a nod to Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels perhaps?) where the population totals 738 and the sign reads ‘A Real Nice Place,’ strange things are happening. It’s late in the […]