Encore is having a month-long celebration of James Bond films and it behooves me to tell you guys to check some of these movies out if you can. It will be a great lead up to the new Bond film, Skyfall, coming out in November.

There are some fantastic and underrated Bond pictures that people seem to have never heard of. Take On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for example. It might be one of the very best Bond films ever made, but since it was the only movie George Lazenby made as the titular hero, people seem resistant to watch it.

And the Timothy Dalton Bond’s. Those are underrated classics as well, even better than at least half of the Daniel Craig Bond films…

Encore is showing them all, though, and you’ll have a chance to check them all out.

Here’s the schedule and the run-down from Encore and I’ve taken the liberty of bolding the movies that you shouldn’t miss:

ENCORE presents “The Bond Collection,” showcasing 19 classic James Bond feature films, starting Sunday, July 1 at 8pm ET/PT on ENCORE. A James Bond film will air uncut and commercial-free on ENCORE each night throughout the month of July, featuring actors who have starred as the debonair ‘James Bond’ over the last 50 years: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan.

ENCORE kicks off the month-long celebration of the one and only “007” with an all-day marathon on Sunday, July 1 at 7:00am ET/PT starting with feature Dr. No and ending with Never Say Never Again at 4:15am on July 2.

Former “Bond Girls” Olga Kurylenko, star of the hit STARZ Original drama series “Magic City,” and Eva Green (Dark Shadows) will be included in featurettes throughout the month-long Bond event on ENCORE. Kurylenko will discuss her role as former Bond Girl ‘Camille Montes,’ a woman deeply focused on avenging the murder of her family, and Green will share her experience as former bond girl ‘Vesper Lynd.’

“James Bond films are timeless and amongst the most iconic and revered action films in history. We are delighted to bring them back to ENCORE uncut and commercial-free every night in July with the incredible former ‘Bond Girl,’ Olga Kurylenko from the STARZ Original series, ‘Magic City,’ as a featured guest throughout the month,” said Stephan Shelanski, executive vice president of programming at Starz Entertainment. “ENCORE is the most widely subscribed premium channel in the United States with more than 33 million subscribers, and this is a tremendous summer event for them.”

ENCORE kicks off the month-long celebration of the one and only “007” with an all-day Bond Marathon on Sunday, July 1 at 7:00am ET/PT featuring the following films:

7:00am Dr. No
9:00am A View to a Kill
11:20am The Spy Who Loved Me
1:35pm The Living Daylights
3:50pm Thunderball
6:05pm Goldfinger
8:00pm Tomorrow Never Dies
10:00pm Live and Let Die
12:05am For Your Eyes Only
2:15am You Only Live Twice
4:15am Never Say Never Again

“The Bond Collection” month-long nightly lineup includes feature presentations of the following 19 classic films at 8pm ET/PT, each night throughout the month of July:

July 1 Tomorrow Never Dies
July 2 Goldeneye
July 3 License to Kill
July 4 Man with the Golden Gun
July 5 Dr. No
July 6 From Russia with Love
July 7 Goldfinger
July 8 Thunderball
July 9 You Only Live Twice
July 10 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
July 11 Diamonds are Forever
July 12 Live and Let Die
July 13 The Spy Who Loved Me
July 14 Man with the Golden Gun
July 15 For Your Eyes Only
July 16 Moonraker
July 17 Never Say Never Again
July 18 Octopussy
July 19 From Russia with Love
July 20 The Living Daylights
July 21 A View to a Kill
July 22 Goldeneye
July 23 Tomorrow Never Dies
July 24 Dr. No
July 25 Thunderball
July 26 For Your Eyes Only
July 27 You Only Live Twice
July 28 Live and Let Die
July 29 Diamonds are Forever
July 30 A View to a Kill
July 31 Goldfinger

Check local listings for Encore in your area.

Each Friday we will be bringing you weekend-viewing movie picks available for streaming on Netflix! From the popular to the obscure, we will browse Netflix’s Streaming library so you don’t have to, and bring you what we consider to be “Must Watch” selections!

The Warrior’s Way

Directed by Sngmoo Lee

Starring Jang Dong-gun, Kate Bosworth, Geoffery Rush, Danny Huston and Tony Cox

Back in 2010 a trailer caught my eye for a film called The Warrior’s Way. I thought it looked pretty cool, at least visually, but after an onslaught of poor reviews by critics and it just kind of falling off my radar, I never got around to seeing it. About six months ago I was down with a broken leg and had ample time to explore Netflix. I was very pleased to see The Warrior’s Way hit Netflix’s instant queue, immediately hitting play to see if I had missed out on a stinker of a movie, a lost gem, or something in between. I’m happy to say it certainly wasn’t a stinker.

The Warrior’s Way follows Yang, a member of the Sad Flutes Clan, the deadliest clan of assassins in 19th Century Asia. Yang is driven to become the greatest swordsman the world has ever seen, and the movie begins with him accomplishing this goal by killing the now former greatest swordsman – the leader of a rival clan. With the rival clan all but wiped out, one member remains: a small child whom Yang is ordered to kill to complete the genocide of their mortal enemies. Yang is unable to murder the infant, so he takes the child, leaves his life behind and heads West to find refuge from his clan who are now out to kill him for disobeying orders.

Yang lands in the small town of Lode where he and the baby are able to find at least temporary reprieve from the Sad Flutes. Here, he befriends the local town folk, including the town drunk, Ron (Geoffery Rush) and the beautiful Lynn (Kate Bosworth). As Yang spends more time in Lode, he becomes closer to the residents of the small, dusty town, finding joy and learning about their dark history. A Colonel (Danny Huston) who has terrorized the town for years returns, and while Yang fends him and his men off, he swears to return with reinforcements. The film culminates in both the Colonel’s men and the Sad Flutes bearing down on Lode looking for vengeance for their own reasons against the residents and Yang.

The Warrior’s Way is a solid film that, in my opinion, is underrated. There is a solid story to be told here, and it is told quite well – perhaps some were expecting more of a “kung-fu action flick” than what it actually is, but the build up of the story and the characters make the action sequences that much more thrilling. And I assure you, there is plenty of thrilling action. The sequences are stylized and dramatic and a lot of fun to watch. This film is not without its faults; while Geoffery Rush and Jang Dong-gun are compelling, but Kate Bosworth seems to be more or less just reciting lines. Because of this, the light love story subplot falls a bit short, but since the main point of the film has nothing to do with these characters finding love it doesn’t take much away from the film.

If you are looking for a solid movie about a lonesome warrior looking for redemption with a compelling story and some pretty slick action, The Warrior’s Way will satisfy. Despite the poor reviews this film received I really enjoyed it and think more people will too if they give it a go. Lucky for us Netflix Instant subscribers, it’s still available and ready for your viewing pleasure!

Late last night, Variety broke the news that one of Marvel’s secret film projects they’re developing is, indeed, The Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are…well…guardians of the galaxy, dealing with the cosmic and fighting many foes, Thanos in particular. In fact, one character, Drax, was built with the specific purpose of combatting Thanos, who is the bad guy we were all treated to seeing at the end of The Avengers film.

With the cosmic scale of The Avengers film, and its high performance at the box office, this seems like a natural place to go for the studio. I don’t think anyone expects it to make the sort of money The Avengers continues to rake in, but my guess is they’ll show up DC again and show them how cool a balls out cosmic film should be in stark contrast to their Green Lantern film.

Perhaps my favorite member of the team is Rocket Raccoon. If they can pull off a gun-toting, talking raccoon, I’ll die of delight. And if Marvel has proven anything in recent years with their films is that they’re willing to try to make just about anything work.

It’s not known at this point if this film will launch the entire team right out of the bag or if they’ll be introduced slowly in their own smaller films and lead up to a Guardians film. We’ll know more after an expected announcement (or at least whispers) at Comic-Con in a couple of weeks.

Will it tie into Avengers as they work to take down Thanos? Will The Avengers even bother with Thanos and leave it to the Guardians? What is Marvel’s game?

There are still two more mystery movies on their docket as well. The Variety article mentions Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man, which has reportedly just finished with some top secret test shooting. Rumours are abound that we’ll get a Dr. Strange film as well, which I think could turn into something as big as Iron Man. I absolutely love the character and, if done right, he could straddle the universes of The Avengers and The Guardians with ease.

We’ll bring you more as this develops.

The trailer for the Avengers Blu-ray is out!

Avengers comes out September 25th in a Blu-ray combo pack. You can pre-order it on Amazon now.

(Note: Spoilers do not begin until the SPOILERS line in this article below the photograph.)

We’ll have an official Big Shiny Robot review of The Amazing Spiderman for you July 2nd, but in the meantime we wanted to bring you some comments trickling in from Japan about the film. Kotaku East reporter Richard Eisenbeis was on hand for the Japanese premier, and has provided some valuable context in his article about why Spiderman does so incredibly well in Japan:

“Japan loves Spider-Man. I mean they LOVE him. It’s not the same with other American superheroes—Batman, Superman, and most of the recent Marvel movies tend to do poorly in at the Japanese box office…Perhaps it’s due to his similarity to Japan’s own masked superhero—heck, he even had a live-action, power ranger style show in the late 70s. Because Spider-Man is a sure hit in Japan, his movies often get released in Japan before the rest of the world.”

He goes on to review the film, saying fairly good things about the handling of the origin story, the strength of the supporting cast, the fantastic performance that Martin Sheen has given as Uncle Ben, and some thoughts regarding directorial choices in relation to the film’s use of 3D. Though his review seems to be a bit on the first-watch-is-super-awesome side, I’d say that his review is balanced enough to suggest that the film is pretty good. To me, this is great news, because I’ve honestly been a bit nervous about this project from the start. I really did like Sam Raimi’s first two Spiderman films in the early 2000’s and was cautiously optimistic that this movie would still rock even though it hasn’t been that long since we saw Spidey swing onto the big screen.

WARNING: SPOILERS START HERE!

What’s the not-so-good from this review? Eisenbeis mentions his mixed feelings about how much disbelief we are expected to suspend given Peter’s secret identity and currently available technology (and there are choices made in the film that imply “that both the company and the police are incompetent—not the way you want your potential antagonists to be portrayed.”). He also expresses serious frustration with the fact that Spidey has his mask removed more than once, and subsequently reveals his identity to more than five people throughout the movie. On the surface, that does sound like a rather poor creative choice to me, but I’ll be watching to see how it’s handled (along with Eisenbeis’ other points) when I get to see the movie for myself next week.

What do you think? Will you be seeing The Amazing Spiderman when it hits theaters? Check out Eisenbeis’ review (WARNING = FULL OF SPOILERS) and then sound off in our comments section!

So this hit yesterday…. I loved Taken, almost in the way that I love Die Hard. Taken made me forgive Liam Neeson for being in the Star Wars prequels. But can they recreate the intensity of the first movie?

Each Friday we will be bringing you weekend-viewing movie picks available for streaming on Netflix! From the popular to the obscure, we will browse Netflix’s Streaming library so you don’t have to, and bring you what we consider to be “Must Watch” selections!

Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope

Directed by Morgan Spurlock

Starring a bunch of nerds

Comic-Con Episode IV is a survey of both nerd-culture icons and the fanatics who worship them as they both take part in this annual celebration of all things geek. But it also flirts with the deeper truth of Comic-Con’s origin and what it has now become. There would seem to be a reason most nerds avoid the spotlight of mainstream culture and Comic-Con’s rise in prominence give many of them doubts about its future.

Morgan Spurlock follows seven different people with vastly different motivations as they prepare for Comic-con. There are illustrators looking for work, a couple looking to further their relationship, a collector looking for his next limited-edition toy, a cosplayer looking to have fun, and the last is the owner of one of the largest comic book stores in the United States. All these stories are intercut with interviews with Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, Paul Dini, Matt Fraction, Seth Rogan, Eli Roth, and dozens more. Oddly, Spurlock himself is the only one absent from the film in either appearance or narration.

If you have been to Comic-Con recently or even several times, the information presented in this movie will be nothing new. They take a necessary spin around the convention center to showcase this near-unbelievable collection of authors, artists, merchandise, and cosplayers. If you have never been to Comic-Con, then this is an intriguing window onto a lifestyle you may only be peripherally aware of.

If I had to sum this film up in one adjective it would be ‘honest’. If you are expecting Spurlock’s typical exposé-style film making then you might be disappointed. This movie plays more like a tribute to the event from the perspective of the industry moguls who grew up as the same sweaty, mouth-breathing fanboys that now plague them.

This week’s Friday ‘Flix Pick was submitted by Nick Burke. Be sure to check him out over at Paper Wasp!

I am a bona fide Spider-Fan, and I’ll give anything with the ol’ webhead a chance. While I still have a few lingering doubts about this summer’s upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, as long as it stays true to the roots of the character it’ll be fine in my book. On that note, current spider-scribe Dan Slott turned me on to what appears to be Spidey’s first ever live-action appearance, albeit in an unofficial form. From 1969, we get the famed Don Glut’s last Marvel fan-film, and thanks to the magic of YouTube, we can all share in the fun! From uploader Fudgebudger:

The first ever documented Spider-Man fan film, and the first (unofficial) live action appearance of Spider-Man from 1969! This was produced by Donald F. Glut and was his last amateur film (he had produced many other Marvel fan films before this) before moving on to write for classic cartoons like Transformers and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

I love the costume (Don Glut is wearing the red and blues himself), it looks heavily inspired by Steve Ditko’s work. And notice the use of the Captain Action Spider-Man figure for web swinging and wall crawling; that goes for huge bucks now. The villain in this fan film, Dr. Lightning, is not a real Marvel character and was just created by the guy’s making the film.

So without further ado, Don Glut’s seminal Spider-Man!

“>httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4HQn6rsJ38

Sure, the effects are of definite fan quality, and the acting is just “OK”, but underneath that is evidence that Glut “gets” Spider-Man, especially the late 60’s version of the guy. He’s quippy, acrobatic (webslinging in a mountainous area must have been murder!), and is surrounded by tragedy. The music is also truly epic as only proto-70’s funk can get. He gets the essence of the webhead down, and it definitely gave me a geeky smile. What do you guys think?

Here it is, the moment you’ve been waiting for: A trailer for a Judge Dredd movie that might not suck.

If nothing else, it can’t possibly suck worse than the Sylvester Stallone version of the movie.

Karl Urban is good, there’s no specific reason for this to be bad and the trailer doesn’t look awful either. It looks appropriately cheesy.

But I’m not going to see it in 3D. That’s just too far.

As the July 20th date gets closer, I get more and more excited for “The Dark Knight Rises.” So much more now that this “Nokia exclusive trailer” has popped up on youtube. One of the things that stands out to me in this trailer is how weathered Bruce Wayne looks. Who knew crimefighting would turn your hair gray?