Made in the shade May 16 2001

Hollywood's summer seasonis traditionally a time for "popcorn" movies. Consider this, though: Audiences had no way of knowing it back then, but last year at this time they'd already seen the year's Oscar-winning Best Picture (Gladiator), Best Actor (Russell Crowe) and Best Actress (Julia Roberts). In addition to scoring big bucks at the box office, is Pearl Harbor poised to become next year's Oscar front-runner? Are Mark Wahlberg (Planet of the Apes) and Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge) about to declare themselves the performers to beat in 2002?

For the time being, there are some 50 films slated for release between May and August. Not all of them smack of "popcorn," but they're herewith categorized by genre for your convenience. (Please note that all opening dates are subject to change.)

Sci-FiReportedly a pet project of the late director Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg's highly anticipated (and highly secretive) __A.I. Artificial Intelligence (June 29) stars Haley Joel Osment as an inquisitive android and Jude Law and Frances O'Connor as his adoptive human "parents." Otherwise engaged, Spielberg handed over directing chores to Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) for Jurrassic Park III (July 18), the latest in his series of effects-driven dinosaur thrillers.

Pooh-poohing categorization as either a "remake" or a "sequel," director Tim Burton's __Planet of the Apes (July 27) is described as a "reinvention" of the original novel (by Pierre Boulle) on which the 1968 movie classic was based. Mark Wahlberg heads a cast that includes Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan and Kris Kristofferson. The futuristic action drama Rollerball (Aug. 17) is very much a remake of the 1975 James Caan film, with Chris Klein as a rather dubious substitute.

Angelina Jolie is Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (June 15), a high-tech adventure movie based on the series of wildly popular video games. Under the direction of Simon West, the supporting cast features Jon Voight (Jolie's father). Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube and Pam Grier are among the human colonists engaged in deadly battle with extraterrestrial warriors in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (Aug. 24). The alien invaders take a more humorous shape in the comedy Evolution (July 13), directed by Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) and co-starring David Duchovny and Julianne Moore.__

ActionFrom the producer (Jerry Bruckheimer) and director (Michael Bay) who brought us The Rock and Armageddon — and with some delusions of Saving Private Ryan-like grandeur — comes Pearl Harbor (May 25). Ben Affleck heads a pretty cast, but if those previous collaborations are any indication, the real star will be all the pyrotechnic effects.

Based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake (The Grifters), What's the Worst That Could Happen? (June 1) is an ethnically balanced heist comedy starring Danny DeVito, Martin Lawrence and John Leguizamo. For grittier realism, just imagine the possibilities of The Score (July 13), an intriguingly cast crime caper with Robert De Niro as a retiring thief, Marlon Brando as his old mentor, and Edward Norton as his new apprentice. (Strangely, the director is one-time Muppeteer Frank Oz.)__

John Travolta is a "dangerous" CIA operative who enlists former X-Men Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman in a scheme to steal $9 billion from a DEA slush fund — and they're the good guys in the thriller Swordfish (June 8). In Kiss of the Dragon (July 6), kung-fu master Jet Li plays a Chinese intelligence officer embroiled in a deadly conspiracy while on assignment in Paris. The movie is not to be confused with the high-brow (i.e., subtitled) Brother (June), with Takeshi Kitano as a Japanese Yakuza officer embroiled in a gang dispute while on assignment in Los Angeles.

A young cop goes undercover to investigate a jewelry heist by posing as a racecar driver in the turbo-charged __The Fast and the Furious (June 22). The fast and the farcical is more like it in Rat Race (July), an action comedy in the Cannonball Run vein from director Jerry Zucker (The Naked Gun), about a group of strangers racing cross-country in search of buried treasure.

RomanceJulia Roberts may be America's sweetheart, but Catherine Zeta-Jones and John Cusack are America's Sweethearts (July 4). They play famous Hollywood co-stars (and estranged spouses) in the romantic comedy, with Roberts taking a supporting role as her personal assistant. Billy Crystal (who produced and co-wrote the script) plays a press agent.

Nicole Kidman portrays a seductive chanteusse to Ewan McGregor's impassioned poet in Moulin Rouge (June 1), a musical love story set in turn-of-the-century Paris, directed by Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom). Although it bears no relation to the similarly named 1952 John Huston biopic of Toulouse-Lautrec, the movie features John Leguizamo as the famous painter. Another romantic period piece set in Paris is The Man Who Cried (June 8), the latest from enigmatic art-house director Sally Potter (Orlando). Johnny Depp, Cate Blanchett, Christina Ricci and John Turturro play strangers whose lives intersect on the eve of World War II.__

Meanwhile, over in Greece, a more traditional triangle forms between Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz and Christian Bale in another WWII drama, Captain Corelli's Mandolin (August), directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). And in Pavilion of Women (July), based on a novel by Pearl S. Buck and set in imperial China, Willem Dafoe is a "free-thinking" English priest who finds forbidden love with a married woman (Luo Yan).__

Among more mainstream romantic offerings: Jennifer Lopez plays a police officer who falls for a mysterious drifter (James Caviezel) in Angel Eyes (May 18); and Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie co-star as obsessive lovers in the oft-postponed erotic thriller Original Sin (Aug. 27).__

Art-house/ForeignThe latest literary adaptation by the Merchant/Ivory team (A Room With a View, Howards End, et al.) is __The Golden Bowl (May 18), based on the Henry James novel about love, betrayal and retribution among the well-to-dos of Victorian-era England. Nick Nolte, Uma Thurman, Anjelica Huston and Jeremy Northam head the cast. Janet McTeer plays a woman with an extraordinary gift for music in the Appalachian period piece Songcatcher (July), co-starring Aidan Quinn.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming co-wrote, co-directed and co-star in the romantic comedy The Anniversary Party (June), also starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Kline, Lisa Kudrow and Parker Posey. Writer/director/star John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch (August) is based on his long-running off-Broadway play about a transsexual punk rocker. And Ben Kingsley is cast against type (twice) in the title role of the offbeat British crime drama Sexy Beast (June).__

John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood) returns to south-central L.A. to direct an inner-city drama about a misguided African-American kid named Baby Boy (June 29), while British director Ken Loach (My Name Is Joe) chronicles L.A.'s Hispanic community in Bread and Roses (June 1), about the labor disputes between a group of Mexican janitors and their corporate (and white) employers. In the quirky U.K. comedy Strictly Sinatra (August), a London lounge lizard runs afoul of the mob when he unwittingly woes the wrong girl.

ComedyA quartet of questionable star vehicles: Robin Williams is a lonely photo-lab technician who invents familial connections with some of his unsuspecting customers in One Hour Photo (August); Eddie Murphy returns to talk to more animals in Doctor Dolittle 2 (June 22); Chris Rock expands a skit from his HBO series into a full-length feature about a would-be superhero called Pootie Tang (July); and Rob Schneider plays a wimp transformed by an animal organ transplant (don't ask) in The Animal (June 1).

Teen farePresumably less demanding teen audiences have more to choose from in the way of innocuous coming-of-age comedies — as in more of Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari and Chris Klein (among other original cast members) still coming-of-age in the inevitable __American Pie 2 (June). And it would hardly be summer without more of Freddie Prinze Jr. He's an aspiring baseball pitcher in Summer Catch (Aug. 24), the latest in a never-ending series of totally interchangeable star vehicles.

Newcomer Anne Hathaway plays a shy teenager who becomes unlikely royalty in Disney's The Princess Diaries (Aug. 3), while Jake Gyllenhaal is Disney's Bubble Boy (August) in a comedy about an upbeat high-school kid with an immunities disorder that confines him to a "bubble room" (but not for long). Legally Blonde (July 13) casts Reese Witherspoon as a clueless California coed who sets her sights on marrying a rich Harvard law student.__

As a more serious alternative, the star-crossed love story Crazy/Beautiful (July 20) features Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez as teens from opposite sides of the proverbial track. More serious still, director Larry Clark (Kids) offers another disturbing drama about teens — if not necessarily for teens — with Bully (August), about a group of students who gang up to kill a schoolyard thug.__

AnimationDisney's annual animated entry, __Atlantis: The Lost Empire (June 15), directed by the team responsible for the Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast, features the voice of Michael J. Fox as an inexperienced young cartographer who happens upon the legendary underwater world. The more irreverent DreamWorks effort, Shrek (May 18), is made by the computer animators behind Antz. The vocal talent includes Mike Myers as an ornery ogre, Cameron Diaz as a pretty princess and Eddie Murphy as a jovial jackass.

Alec Baldwin fans might be pleased — or possibly dismayed — to discover the actor lends his voice to two different animated projects this summer. He joins Susan Sarandon, Tobey Maguire and others for __Cats and Dogs (July 4), a family-friendly comedy about an all-out battle between the species for domestic superiority. He also can be heard with Steve Buscemi, Donald Sutherland and James Woods in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (July 13), a sci-fi adventure yarn pitting human against alien.

Part animation and part live-action, the comedy Osmosis Jones (Aug. 10) casts Chris Rock as a virtuous white blood cell and Laurence Fishburne as a nefarious virus who are engaged a different sort of biological warfare — within the body of none other than Bill Murray. ??

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