Author: Bill Watters

Bill Watters is a child of the late 70s- he walked into a theater to watch Star Wars, and emerged to become a lifelong fan of cinema and television. Spending nearly a decade as a projectionist, he fell into the Silicon Valley dot-com boom and became a codemonkey for a range of game companies. These days he's a frequent speaker, moderator, and panelist at pop-culture events and conventions, as well as a prolific film and television critic and genre news writer. He is also a member critic of both the San Francisco Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. In addition to his writing, he is also a photojournalist and can be found on Getty Images.

Four-time Grammy Award winner, and Academy Award Nominee, Dame Olivia Newton-John DBE, has passed away today at her home surrounded by family and friends. The announcement, posted by her husband, John Easterling, did not give a cause of death, but did make a reference to her ongoing championing of awareness and treatments for breast cancer. Dame Olivia Newton-John (73) passed away peacefully at her Ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends. We ask that everyone please respect the family’s privacy during this very difficult time.Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30…

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Bback in 2017, “American Gods” premiered on STARZ. While it started off strong, incessant showrunner, writer, and cast changes wound up running it off the rails. 5 years later, Netflix has dropped ten episodes of “The Sandman,” adapted from Neil Gaiman’s 26-Eisner award-winning comic series of the same name. This time around the whole package comes in as a tight and effective series from beginning to end. “Sandman” is another comic which while I have long been aware of it and it’s laurels. But, I’d never gotten around to reading it. This made for more of a pleasant surprise when…

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One of the biggest challenges these days when it comes to finding quality series or movies is the sheer volume of content. A myriad of streamers (not to mention hundreds of channels languishing on cable), wading through haystacks to find that needle is a challenge. On a recommendation from Nerdbot’s Editor-in-Chief, Mary Anne Butler, I went to check out one of FX’s latest series, “The Bear.” Cutting right to the chase, “Bear” is the singularly best new series to come out in the last several years. Comprised of eight roughly half-hour episodes, the series follows Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto (Jeremy Allen…

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With the release of “Jurassic World: Dominion,” there will be six feature films in the franchise. “Jurassic Park,” the original 1993 film, remains a classic in the evolution of blockbusters as well as special effects. Unfortunately the films that followed ranged from truly awful to meh. At least, this is another pretty good entry, though that’s not to say that it doesn’t have it’s dino-sized share of problems. Picking up four years after the events in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” the escaped dinosaurs have spread across most of the planet. That sets up a tug of war between trying to…

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It’s June 8th, and Disney+ has dropped the seventh original series expanding on the Marvel Studios universe with “Ms. Marvel.” As with the earlier “Moon Knight,” it follows a new (to the film and television MCU) character, Kamala Khan. Played by newcomer Iman Vellani, Kamala eventually becomes the titular Ms. Marvel. She also represents the first Muslim-American superhero to come to the big or small screens. The series doesn’t immediately dovetail into the myriad existent Marvel Studios storylines. Instead, it picks up focusing on Kamala and her tribulations striving to balance her geeky fangirl side with the pressures from her…

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“Star Wars” is a franchise which has always had the burden of its own legacy weighing down its installments. “Star Wars” (or “A New Hope” for its retconned name), and “The Empire Strikes Back” set a level of cinematic firsts and their pop-culture impact which still reverberates nearly a half a century later. After those, it’s been a cavalcade of hits and misses (and too often the latter). The long awaited “Obi-Wan Kenobi” has finally premiered on Disney+ and it’s the closest we’ve gotten to a series that, at least at its outset, belongs in among the better entries. Set…

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Just as Star Wars Celebration was wrapping up its first day in Anaheim, CA. Just one day after the anniversary of the release of “Star Wars,” Disney+ has dropped “Obi-Wan Kenobi” several hours earlier than expected. As the dust settles on the first day of news from Disney and Lucasfilm’s biggest event gathering of the year, fans were planning to stay up til midnight pacific time to catch the drop of the new spin-off series. It spotlights the years spent by Obi-Wan (reprised by Ewan McGregor) on Tatooine after the events of “Revenge of the Sith,” and before “A New…

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Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Comics have struggled over the years to generate consistently good cinematic releases. With “The Batman” however, it seems like another entry has been added into the really good, even bordering on great, category. It’s a fresh spin on Gotham’s Dark Knight, and without falling into unearned hyperbole, the film might wind up at the least, as the second-best incarnation of the Capped Crusader. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical of Robert Pattinson’s ability to carry off the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Someone who had become so iconic as a glittery…

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