It's that time of year again! The summer movie season is upon us fast. If it looks like deja vu, that's because you *have* seen it before. But as many remakes and sequels as there are, it looks worse than it is, because those are the movies that get most of the media coverage. By the time the summer is all over, there are bound to be some unexpected originals that wound up striking a chord with audiences. And who knows, one or two of those sequels might work out, too.

May 5 - Mission: Impossible III

If one or two of those sequels work out, this probably won't be one of them. Two strikes out of two and a hack TV director don't leave me with any reason to be optimistic. The early word is that Philip Seymour Hoffman's part isn't nearly as big as the trailers make it out to be -- marketers capitalizing on his Oscar win?

(Lost fans: Ok, ok, I watch the show too. J.J. Abrams is still a hack.)

May 5 - Hoot

A family comedy about some kids that fight to protect cute, endangered owls.

May 12 - Alpha Dog

Nick Cassavetes directs this crime drama about a drug dealer who became one of the youngest men to appear on the FBI's most wanted list. Cassavetes is talented but unreliable (best known for "The Notebook," perhaps). The trailer looks like a lot of angsty posing and not much fun.

May 12 - Poseidon

An awful lot of disaster movies since 1972 have been unofficial remakes of The Poseidon Adventure. At least this one is honest about it. I can't think of any reason to think this will be anything more than a forgettable popcorn flick, but I have to admit, the effects look slick.

May 12 - Just My Luck

Here's another one I'm almost embarrassed to say anything good about. In this romantic comedy, Lindsay Lohan plays a girl with relentlessly great luck...until she crosses paths with a guy cursed with bad luck, and their luck swaps. It's the kind of gooey cutey premise that execs figure will attract teen girls. If the screenplay is so in love with the premise that it figures it can coast by, this won't be anything. But the trailers look like the movie has fun playing with the idea, and in the right vehicle, Lohan is a good comedienne.

May 19 - See No Evil

Here's another brilliantly original premise. Some people go to a secluded hotel, only to discover a psychopathic killer is on the loose. Man, where do they come UP with these?

May 19 - Over the Hedge

When did CG animation become the exclusive province of slapstick comedies about talking animals? I guess this looks...ok...but come on, wasn't Madagascar, Chicken Little, The Wild, and Hoodwinked enough to cover the territory for a while?

May 19 - The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown's heretical book became the most popular adult book of all time when it sold six skillion copies -- nearly a thirtieth of what Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold the first day. ... Don't care.

May 23 - Hollow Man 2 (DVD)

Sequels like this are usually not even worth mentioning -- they're made purely because direct-to-DVD titles sell better with a "2" on the end, even if what precedes is insignificant. But I wanted to mention this one if only as an excuse to repeat how laughably bad "Hollow Man" was. Paul Verhoeven is a master at taking great premises and then doing absolutely nothing with them. This sequel has nothing to do with Verhoeven or any of the original filmmakers, but it does star Christian Slater. I didn't realize he was that hard up.

May 26 - X-Men: The Last Stand

Can the series maintain its track record with a change of director? Brett Ratner is no Bryan Singer, but he *can* be very good, and the trailers look fantastic. This movie's chances feel pretty good, and if it makes it, would the X-Men become the best superhero trilogy of all time? There aren't many big action blockbuster series that maintain quality standards over three films.

May 31 - Blood Car

The IMDb plot outline: "In the near future, gas prices are at an astronomical high. One man is determined to find an alternate fuel source. That alternate fuel source turns out to be blood...HUMAN BLOOD."

June 2 - The Break-Up

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston break up. Ooo, chalk this one up next to See No Evil.

June 6 - The Omen

Every conceivable reason for this movie has a $ somewhere in it. What is it with horror, anyway? The Japanese started a renaissance of psychological horror, and then, immediately, we get a rash of hack jobs too plentiful and relentless to keep up with.

June 9 - A Prairie Home Companion

If you saw the Oscars this year, you may remember the highlight of the evening, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin introducing Honorary Oscar recipient Robert Altman. They spoke in Altman's trademark overlapping dialogue style, which feels very improvised (and, in many cases, is). But Altman is about a lot more than style: his films are some of the most comprehensive studies of human behavior that the world of film has to offer, and if that sounds like a drag, most of them are undercut with some outrageously biting satirical humor. Though outrageous, it's subtle, and subtlety doesn't sell in America, but if you're interested in an alternative for simplistic blockbusters this summer, seek this one out. It's getting great reviews on the festival circuit, and Altman's track record speaks for itself.

June 9 - Cars

Admittedly, the trailers don't make this look like Pixar's finest work. And it may not be. Their winning streak has to end sometime. But they've literally never made a bad movie, even if you include their short films. Personally, I'm just grateful it's not about animals escaping a zoo.

June 16 - Garfield's A Tale of Two Kitties

Bill Murray returns as the voice of Garfield. I didn't see the original, because I thought it looked horrible.

June 16 - Sssslither

Speaking of hack horror, here's a movie about college kids discovering genetically-modified eels in the Everglades. An IMDb reviewer writes, "Sweet eels. Hot everglades action. This is where it's at." Lots of movie reviews are more about the reviewer than the movie. A movie reviewer using the words "Sweet eels" tells you all you need to know about both.

Once in a while, though, these things are fun. I haven't seen a good one of these creature-attacks in a while, but I admit to liking "Anaconda" and "Mimic."

June 16 - The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

It's like "The Fast and the Furious"...but in JAPAN! Thrill at the exciting modestly speeding Mitsubishi action!

June 16 - The Lake House

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunite, this time in a metaphysical romance of sorts, something like the chick-flick version of "Frequency." On a scale of -10 to 10, the casting averages out to a 1 for me.

June 16 - Bordertown

Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas star in this murder mystery thriller set on the Mexican border.

June 16 - Nacho Libre

Jack Black puts on a funny costume and dances around! HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!

June 30 - Click

Adam Sandler discovers a remote control that controls the world. It's kind of like his turn at something like Bruce Almighty. For me, Sandler's only ever been in two good movies, neither of which were this director's two prior Sandler films. And I have an increasing distaste for these kinds of broad goofball comedies. Remember when comedies had actual writing? The sad thing is Preston Sturges probably couldn't even get work today.

June 30 - Superman Returns

It'll be the most expensive movie ever made, though you may not see that money on the screen. Over $100 million was spent on work done over the last 10+ years that was all scrapped by the time Bryan Singer jumped the X-Men ship and got things moving. The saga of this film is documented in detail elsewhere on the web. It's long and painful, and reading it makes it clear just how much disregard the producers had for not just the Superman mythos but for plain ordinary good taste.

The roll call of writers and directors that worked on this thing since the mid-90s is huge. At one point, Tim Burton was going to direct Nicolas Cage in the title role. Charlie's Angels director McG was attached for a while, but he refused to shoot in certain locations due to his fear of flying. (All hail McG's fear of flying.) J.J. Abrams and Brett Ratner also took turns in the director's seat. Kevin Smith wrote a draft or two of the script and either bailed or got fired over tensions with the producers about how to handle the main character. ("Put in a polar bear fight!" he was told at one point.)

Somehow, amidst the smoldering ashes of false start after false start, Bryan Singer came in and got things moving. He's the best choice of director out of anybody who was ever attached to the project, and he's also probably the most likely to respect the character, if the producers let him. One thing he insisted on was casting an unknown. All right by me. Brandon Routh, if nothing else, looks the part more than Nicolas Cage ever would.

One interesting thing this movie is doing is getting Marlon Brando a post-mortem role out of outtakes from Superman II. As the story goes, Brando shot footage for Superman, which was filmed quasi-simultaneously as Superman II. He was paid the then astronomical sum of $1 million for his cameo role (more than Christopher Reeve got), but when it came time to put Superman II together out of some of the previously shot footage, Brando sued for a percentage of the film's profits, saying that he had only been paid for one film. Rather than use the footage of Brando, they reshot his scenes with another character. Now that old Brando footage is being unearthed for inclusion in this film. If you've seen the teaser trailer, you've already heard his voice narrating.

I've heard conflicting reports about whether "Superman Returns" is intended as a direct sequel to the original "Superman" or to "Superman II." Either way, ignoring the existence of III and IV is surely a good thing.

July 4 - Honeymoon With Harry

The IMDb plot synopsis: "A man's fiancé dies 2 days before their wedding leaving the lover devastated. Oddly, he then goes on the honeymoon with his fiancé's father who despises him to scatter the ashes." The premise doesn't sound exciting, but it also sounds like the premise of a good movie whose premise doesn't sound exciting. Could go either way -- the only reason I mention it is because it's written and directed by Paul Haggis, who is coming off the superb one-two punch of Million Dollar Baby and Crash.

July 7 - A Scanner Darkly

Funny thing about this -- I like NONE of the cast (Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson) but the movie looks, if nothing else, intriguing. It's a rotoscope-animated adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel, by director Richard Linklater, whose filmography is almost as hilariously diverse (Dazed and Confused, The Newton Boys, School of Rock, Before Sunset, Waking Life, Bad News Bears) as Ang Lee's. Philip K. Dick has been poorly served by film, but this one has a good shot of reversing the trend.

July 7 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

I want to love this. I loved the original film, which was good against all odds. But I'm concerned. The original was good in large part by accident. A confluence of great elements happened to come together to make a film that was great in part because it wasn't very self-aware. As it turned out, the impact of Johnny Depp's character, Geoffrey Rush's underrecognized scenery chewing, and the film's joyful spirit of adventure made such an impact that it'll be nearly impossible to make a sequel that isn't purposely trying to recreate and cash in on the original's successes. And that'll ruin the effect.

It could go either way. Keeping the original director, Gore Verbinski, was a step in the right direction. Hiring Keith Richards to play Depp's father was brilliant. But like I say, if the film is too self-aware, it'll shatter the illusion.

July 14 - Pulse

Speaking of the Japanese horror renaissance, here's another remake of one of them, specifically "Kairo," in which a series of suicides is traced to an internet webcam that claims to have some kind of connection with the dead.

I liked the American version of "The Ring." Some didn't, but it was the only remake of a Japanese new-wave horror film worth talking about.

July 21 - Lady In the Water

M. Night Shyamalan is one of my favorite current directors. I even liked "The Village," which I think would have gone over better if it hadn't been preceded by three much better thrillers. This one stars Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard in what looks like one of those mysteries where you're not sure where the layers of reality are. I love movies that play with this idea, movies as diverse as "Dark City," "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," and "Adaptation."

Shyamalan's movies may feel like rehashes of each other, but that's only because nobody else's movies are quite like them, even when they try to be. They share a common style, a greatly effective one at building an atmospheric undercurrent, to the point where his films all feel like members of a family. But they all took me to different places emotionally (two of them with incredible power), and there's no telling quite where the next one will go.

July 21 - My Super Ex-Girlfriend

You've probably already forgotten I mentioned "The Break-Up" several paragraphs back, that's how forgettable it's liable to be. But what if one of the people involved in a bitter break-up is A SUPER HERO? Ok, now you've got something.

Something that's easy to step wrong with, mind you, but something with potential. The director is Ivan Reitman, a guy who was unstoppable (if somewhat overrated) back in the 80s but hasn't made a good movie since 1993's Dave. Is this another wreck in the road, or a turn of the tide? Something tells me things look better on this side of the release date.

July 21 - The Genius Club

The IMDb summary: "Seven geniuses, with IQs over 200, are plucked from their lives on Christmas Eve to try to solve the world's problems in one night."

Sounds like the premise for a comedy, right? But the listed genres are "Drama" and "Thriller." Egad. Somebody wants me to take that idea seriously?

Moreover, someone cast Stephen Baldwin as one of the geniuses and STILL wants me to take it seriously??

July 28 - Barnyard

FINALLY, a movie I'm excited about! It's a slapstick CG-animated comedy with talking animals!

July 28 - Scoop

Woody Allen casts Scarlett Johansson for the second time in a row. She plays a journalist who falls for an aristocrat played by Hugh Jackman. But the plot premise never really describes an Allen movie very well. He's an unusual filmmaker, where his movies all have a signature style and continually return to the same key broad-based themes but rarely cover the same territory in quite the same way. You can't, for example, pick a single Woody Allen movie and call that representative of his work. I recently tried, and I wound up with about five titles instead of one, and that still left a lot out. So who knows what this is, and small wonder studio execs are nervous around him.

July 28 - Miami Vice

This would be the biggest joke of the summer, except that Michael Mann is at the helm, the guy behind "Heat" and "Collateral." He knows the cops-n-robbers territory, and his style couldn't be more diametrically opposed to the cheesy flambuoyance of the 80s television show upon which it is based. I think this is this year's "Batman Begins" -- a movie nobody will take seriously until it comes out and they see it and it turns out to be a lot of fun.

July 28 - Little Miss Sunshine

My distaste for the current crop of witless slapstick comedies hasn't changed since I wrote about "Click." This Steve Carell vehicle could scarcely interest me less.

August 4 - The Ant Bully

Here's the IMDb summary of this CG-animated film: "Slapstick hilarity with a fun cast of funny talking animals!" No, I'm just kidding. Here's the real one: "After Lucas Nickle floods an ant colony with his watergun, he's magically shrunken down to insect size and sentenced to hard labor in the ruins."

Sometimes with animated films, you get a better sense of them just by knowing the production company than anything else. The production company is Warner Bros. Ok, maybe that didn't really tell you anything after all.

August 4 - Flags of Our Fathers

Director Clint Eastwood and writer Paul Haggis, both on career highs, tell the stories of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. I'm excited about it. But the interesting thing is that Eastwood will have a companion film called "Red Sun, Black Sand" ready as early as this December, which tells the same story from the perspective of the Japanese. The two films together stand a great chance of being a unique and wonderful cinematic experience.

August 4 - The Night Listener

Robin Williams stars in this thriller. The IMDb plot outline: "In the midst of his crumbling relationship, a radio show host begins speaking to his biggest fan, a young boy, via the telephone. But when questions about the boy's identity come up, the host's life is thrown into chaos."

August 9 - World Trade Center

Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie is sure to be everything "United 93" apparently is not: manipulative, preachy, one-sided, melodramatic, and self-important. Stone is a gifted filmmaker, but you just can't trust what he applies those gifts to.

August 11 - Zoom

A.k.a, "Sky High and The Incredibles made a lot of money, so here's more!" Tim Allen stars.

August 18 - Clerks II

After declaring "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" his last movie with those characters, here we are again. I guess the studios passed on "Jersey Girl Down Under."

August 18 - Snakes On a Plane

The title says it all, really, doesn't it? This movie was an online phenomenon when all anybody knew about it was the title and the star (Samuel L. Jackson). It'll make a pretty penny on opening weekend, but, folks, a great title don't make it a cult classic.

August 25 - Invincible

Mark Wahlberg. Sports movie. All you need to know.

August 25 - Idlewild

A Prohibition-era musical, set in the nightclub scene of the South. The teaser trailer looked slick but not necessarily promising. It reminds me of last year's "Romance and Cigarettes," which vanished in an extremely limited release despite sounding delightfully bizarre. "Idlewild" doesn't sound as delightful or as bizarre, which probably means it won't be as extremely limited, either.