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.

“Pig” is captivating to watch, and a rare joy of a film. A tense character drama that unfolds with an intimacy and tension that is THIS satisfying is more than worth the 90-minute run time. Nicolas Cage plays Rob, a reclusive mountain man whose sole companion is a truffle hunting pig. In recent years Cage has been jumping from one vastly over the top genre film after another. Such batshit crazy films such as “Mandy,” “Prisoners of the Ghostland,” and “Willy’s Wonderland,” have given the notion of seeing a Cage film will result in it being at best, a B-film…

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“Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” is the film we’ve needed ever since the titular Anthony Bourdain took his own life back in June of 2018. This will be by no means the last film that will be made about the deeply mediocre chef turned near mythic memoirist and world traveller, but it is the one we needed to have first. It is an examination of the man and his life’s arc. A series of interviews by many of those who were closest to Bourdain, including his second wife, Ottavia Busia, and everyone from his literary agent, producers, crew members,…

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“Space Jam: A New Legacy” is one of those films that makes you wonder “am I doing the right thing?” by seeing it. During, you may ponder- “what… the… hell…” Afterwards, it leaves one with the numb feeling of still having encountered something unexpectedly less terrible than it might have been. A few laughs and unexpected moments, but distinctly tacky at the same time. Kind of like a cousin’s wedding who has a hot-mess relationship, but at least you got to see some people take a header into the cake along the way. I am a solid fan of many…

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It’s taken far too long for “Black Widow” to finally come to the big screen, but now that it’s finally here it’s a solid and entertaining entry into the MCU pantheon of films, and easily among the top of the solo outings. Beyond it being a combination origin story and solo adventure, it also beings a new flavor of film to the Marvel franchise. Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff finally gets her change to be showcased in the type of adventure her character was created for. It’s her Black Widow along with Hawkeye who are most often framed as the lesser…

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Amazon Prime Video’s “The Tomorrow War” has all the elements one could hope for in a Summer science fiction action film. An alien invasion, time travel, an improbable everyman tapped to save the world, an even more improbable family throughline, and lots of action set pieces. The one thing it somehow manages to have forgotten in the mix, however, is heart. Chris Pratt plays Dan Forester, a former special forces soldier turned school teacher who is trying to get a research grant to become a full-time scientist. In the midst of his career turmoil and inter-family strife, his family is…

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Amazon Prime Video’s new Science Fiction thriller, “The Tomorrow War,” is slated to land on Earth on Friday, July 2nd. However thanks to our friends over at Amazon, you can watch it today, July 1st, at 7:30pm (pacific time, so that would be 10:30pm for folks on the East Coast). Better yet, you can see it even if you don’t have Amazon Prime. If you want to RSVP (strongly encouraged), just follow this link, and you can find the rest of the particulars there. If you hadn’t heard about this latest alien-invasion thriller, here’s the full synopsis from IMDB: The…

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One of our favorite actresses EVER Jamie Lee Curtis, is getting a very special honor at this year’s Venice International Film Festival. One of the premiere events in the world of cinema, this year’s event will honor the actress with a lifetime achievement award. Also, “Halloween Kills” will have it’s world wide premiere there, too! Here’s what Jamie Lee Curtis had to say about the news: “I am incredibly humbled to be honored in this way by the Venice International Film Festival. It seems impossible to me that I’ve been in this industry long enough to be receiving ‘Lifetime Achievement’…

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If you see anyone badmouthing “Cruella” who hasn’t actually seen the film, please do everyone a favor, roll up a newspaper and bap that individual over the head with it. I will be the first one to admit that when I first heard that there was a film based on the antagonist from Disney’s classic animated “101 Dalmatians”, my first thought was “and who thought that was something we really needed?” But then I recalled that I thought the same thing when I had heard about “I, Tonya,” and boy howdy did that turn out to be amazing (and win…

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“A Quiet Place Part II” is one of those rare occasions where a sequel to a surprise hit actually does justice to the original. Writer, Director, and actor John Krasinski (of “The Office” fame), returns once again, but only in an opening flashback sequence (after his untimely demise at the end of the first film), before he settles back behind the camera. When the first film came out in 2018, it was an immediate hit, with an excellently crafted story about an alien invasion by a species with superhuman-levels of hearing (although blind otherwise). Sitting in a theater with everyone…

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