That's right, folks. Summer is right around the corner. "But, wait, Doc," I hear you saying out there, "summer doesn't start for another month!"

      Wrong! I agree with you that, according to the magnetic calendar from your insurance salesman stuck to the side of your fridge, yes, the start of the season is over 40 days away. But, according to the Megabuck Movie Gods in LaLaLand, Summer 2001 starts this Friday! May 4, 2001 is the official kickoff to Megabuck Summer Movie Season, and, this year, the Land Pirates are stacking the deck heavy. The pending writers' strike, the sinking and rising economy, and the dizzy stock market have the Studio Suits circling your disposable dollars like sharks at a fish market.

      And, folks, when there are pirates about, who can you trust? Well, maybe the kind ol' Doc with his trusty treasure map...? So, if you feel like a cruise through the Movie Hype Swamp in a search for the true pieces of gold amongst the swill, let's go sailing. Shall we?

      First stop, May 4. The blindsiding surprise hit last year, The Mummy, gets things going again this year with The Mummy Returns, a sequel with the whole cast returning for more mind-boggling effects tricks. Ahhh, but this time, they have an even better secret weapon, WWF wrestling superstar The Rock. The erstwhile Dwayne Johnson joins the cast, which will build an even bigger audience. I make no bones about the fact that I love pro wrestling, but, apparently, The Rock made enough of an impression as an actor to spawn his own sequel for next year. His character, The Scorpion King, is a minor one here, but with a winning combination only getting more help, The Mummy Returns promises to be a huge success, with a killer opening weekend.

      Two other widely anticipated flicks hit on the next consecutive weekends. On the 11th, Australia's latest golden boy, Heath Ledger gets his first lead in director Brian Helgeland's A Knight's Tale. This action/love story is, of course, set in the Age of Chivalry, but it has a few cool anachronisms and a contemporary rock soundtrack to boot. The next weekend promises to be big with the Dreamworks guys launching their own computer-animated magnum opus, called Shrek. This is a fun fantasy tale about a huge green ogre named Shrek who teams up with a donkey to save a beautiful princess from an evil villain. Mike Myers provides Shrek's voice, with Eddie Murphy lending talent as the hip donkey with an attitude and Cameron Diaz doing the same as the princess. This one reports to be as full of quick in-jokes as Disney's Toy Story franchise, which ought to make it a lot of fun for kids and adults. And, according to Dreamworks Jeff Katzenberg, the evil villain, Lord Farquaad (same THAT name fast) bears an interesting resemblance to a certain former boss of The Big Katz, namely Disney's Michael Eisner, which might up the ante between the two studios' rivalry. I'm not sure if A Knight's Tale is going to be strong enough to bump The Mummy Returns aside, but these three will be battling it out in force until Memorial Day weekend.

      Memorial Day is when the Big One hits. Pearl Harbor, starring Ben Affleck and Cuba Gooding, Jr. is setting up to be the almost-Titanic of the summer. Captain Napalm Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay have brought such major cash draws as Armageddon and The Rock to the table in summers past, so they're one step ahead already. The formula, such as it is, has Titanic written all over it, namely, a love story entwined in action and disaster. Do I think it's going to break all of Titanic's records? No, not really. Do I think it's going to make a ton of money and last through the summer? You betcha.

      And what does that leave us? Honestly, not too much. Moulin Rouge, the long-awaited and long-postponed film from Baz Luhrmann and starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman is already on extremely thin ice, thanks to the long delay and all the tabloid stories following Kidman. True, it is opening the Cannes festival this year, but being sandwiched in between Shrek and Pearl Harbor is not leaving it any room for error at all. Add to the mix the simple fact that summer audiences don't grab for things like this in the hot months. You want to release a historic post-modern musical against family animation and a Bruckheimer action film? Why not take a carpet knife and hack at the soles of your feet? Same results. For goodness' sake, don't rest your hopes on Jennifer Lopez's new film Angel Eyes either. They are trying to build this into a Sixth Sense/City of Angels thing in that Lopez's character falls for a mysterious man who saves her life, and there's lots of secrecy about just who the man turns out to be. Well, let's see. The title is.... Oh, never mind....

      Then, it's on to June, when the full footrace starts. June 1st gets Rob Schneider into the lead with his latest, The Animal. He bloomed in Deuce Bigelow, and now he's teamed with "Survivor"'s Colleen Haskell in this comedy about a man whose internal organs are replaced with animal organs after an accident. Uhhh, comedy? If I go, it's going to be to see how well Colleen's insect bites have healed. The same weekend, Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito open their comedy What's The Worst That Could Happen? The horrible title aside, this comedy about a bungled burglary might be able to survive just on the power of the stars. I'dn't bank on it, though... If anything, Pearl Harbor will ride into its second weekend high, and make both of these things fade quickly into the videotape market.

      The next weekend is when things should start getting very interesting. Disney plays their animation card with Atlantis, from the makers of Beauty and the Beast, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Atlantis stars voice talent like Michael J. Fox, Leonard Nimoy, and James Garner, and it tells the adventurous story of a ragtag group searching for the mythical ruins, only to find it still thriving underwater. There's no debating that Trousdale and Wise know the summer animation market better, and with no earthly boundaries to hold them back, the pure fantasy and sci-fi atmosphere will go far in the family market. At the same time, John Travolta is going to try another comeback, and thankfully, he's trying it the way the last one worked, by becoming a bad guy. His Swordfish character is a government agent gone bad who's forcing a computer hacker (Hugh Jackman from last year's X-Men) to help him in a high-tech burglary. Look for plenty of guns, car chases, and explosions. Dominic Sena, the director of last year's adrenaline pump Gone in 60 Seconds, is in charge of this one, too, and word is Travolta is back to his Broken Arrow-Face/Off persona, which I personally like infinitely more than his good guy image. The third slated to hit is the one movie I think has a chance to be a sneak-in success over time -- Evolution. Ivan Reitman directing a film starring David Duchovny in a role that almost comes off as a spoof of his "X-Files" role. He heads a team that has to chase down an organism that crashed to Earth and becomes a species threatening to take over the world. Now, if this puppy is done right, it could be one of those like There's Something About Mary and Ace Ventura that doesn't start off leading the box office, but, given some good word of mouth, could slowly take off.

      June 15, don't even try to fight the urge. Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in the film version of Tomb Raider. Talk about a built-in audience. The popularity of Lara Croft as a computer-animated character is almost unnerving. Combine that with the non-stop action that this film promises. And, now, add in the following: Angelina Jolie's lips. Angelina Jolie's eyes. Angelina Jolie's, uh, other succulent parts. Do you think any male between the ages of 13 and 35 is NOT going to see this movie? But wait! Now you have Jolie as an Oscar-winning actress, for a role that attracted a lot of attention from the female audience as a strong female role. If there was ever a guaranteed box office topper for opening weekend, this is it. It's not facing anything else new worth worrying about, and the newness should push it past Swordfish and Evolution. Disney's Atlantis will stay in the hunt as the family alternative to guns and violence, but it will not win two weeks in a row.

      The other two players in June are Rat Race and AI. Rat Race, directed by Airplane!'s Jerry Zucker, is a wild comedy about a anything-goes competition between six contestants in a mad search for a hidden $2 million. Zucker has stocked John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Austin Powers' Seth Green, and Rowan Atkinson as leads, so he's pulling in comedy styles from all over. Ordinarily, I'd not think much more of this than a pseudo-remake of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, especially given the competition it's facing for the last weekend in June. My rationale for thinking this might just make it? Jerry Zucker. The Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams have made themselves legends by making some of the most insanely funny movies ever, like Airplane", and The Naked Gun movies. He also pulled a major switch and directed Ghost, so he knows how to construct a real movie, too.

      His competition, you ask? AI, the fabled last project of Stanley Kubrick that Steven Spielberg inherited after Kubrick's death. Haley Joel Osment (Sixth Sense) and Jude Law star (The Talented Mr. Ripley) in this robot story about independence and mounting a search for "real life." It amounts to a retelling of "Pinocchio," but Kubrick and Spielberg planned this for years, waiting for effects technology to catch up. And, in true Spielberg/Kubrick fashion, nobody's being allowed to discuss plot details or possible endings. If, and I say if, the meeting of these two minds proves to be what it could be, AI might set this summer on fire. Both Rat Race and AI have the long weekend for the Fourth of July to build impressive numbers and huge word of mouth for the coming month.

      All this major stuff in June means one thing: the two "big" films that open on June 22 are in severe danger of drowning quickly. Dr. Dolittle 2 ( a film that did not need to be made at all...) and The Fast and The Furious, about a drag-racing street gang, are going to have to hit and hit big, and they just don't have what it takes to survive this. Eddie Murphy will get a boost from Shrek, true, but the talking animal thing just wasn't all that great the first time. And Fast and Furious only has one real "name" actor in it -- Vin Diesel. If you can immediately put a face to that name, congrats, because you're in a higher bracket than those who score perfect on the SAT's. The only thing that might make it through this weekend is John Singleton's Baby Boy. This is a follow-up to Boyz 'N The Hood that returns Singleton to "small" movies, but the target audience here might not be ready for a return to this kind of Singleton film.

      July 4th itself gets an opening day, with Scary Movie 2. Last year's surprise spoof hit gets the Wayans brothers into sequel heaven, but honestly, they're going to have to do something incredible to top the over-the-top ride they gave us last year. And maybe that incredible thing is in the casting. Marlon Brando does a cameo in this one! Sorry, though... the week of the Fourth will be dominated by AI, Rat Race, and probably Tomb Raider, with Pearl Harbor in there for the patriotic among us. If anything does sneak in here in the middle of the week, it'll be Cats and Dogs, a live-action/CGI hybrid that has cats and dogs literally going to war in scientist Jeff Goldblum's yard and house. It's a long shot, but it might sneak in and hit home when the smoke clears.

      Oddly, July doesn't have nearly the "ooomph" that June does. On the 13th, we get a major acting (or overacting) lesson as DeNiro, Brando, and Edward Norton team up for The Score, a story about an aging thief (DeNiro) trying to get out of the business, only to be brought back in by his mentor (Brando) for "one last heist." He has to team up with the newcomer (Norton) to get the job done. I can't shake the feeling that this whole formula has been done to death, both for the good (Breaking In) and the bad (Family Business). But do you think I'm gonna miss these three onscreen together? Not on your nellie. I have the same odd feeling about Jurassic Park III. The first one had moments that almost moved me to tears, because I, like Sam Neill's character, actually felt like I was finally seeing a real dinosaur. The second one had moments that made me wish it had never been made, because it turned into a spoof of itself when the T-Rex hit San Diego. So, of course, we had to do it all again. If this works, it better work like the first one, and not the second one. Spielberg was reportedly too busy with AI to do much here (yeah, right -- like he was too busy to do anything with Poltergeist), but Joe Johnston, who did the under-respected Rocketman takes charge of the dinos this time, and Sam Neill returns, so the 18th will belong to T-Rex. Another one that could fall flatter than a Death Valley tiretrack is America's Sweethearts. Written by Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan, who did Analyze This, it tells the story of a couple who have starred together in several movies and also happen to be married. During their last film, though, she's fallen for someone else, and the problem is, will America still accept her if she is not married to her long-time co-star? (why can I not get Meg Ryan out of my head.) This has a HUGE cast, including Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack, and Billy Crystal, but I can't help but wonder if America is going to fall into the Hollywood mindframe that has to be here. Guess we'll see.

      If anything else has a chance of making it in July, it'll be Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It's a computer game brought to the big screen, with lots of power in the vocal casting, including Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Ving Rhames, and Ming-Na. But, after Shrek, AI, and Tomb Raider, is this thing going to be able to hold on? It's going to be a rough ride, folks....

      Ohhhh, I forgot. There's this other little film coming out on July 27th. Doubt you've heard anything or seen anything about it, though. Planet of the Apes. What, are you kidding me? Tim Burton directing Planet of the Apes?! How is this thing NOT going to be worth watching, if only to see what Tim does with a sci-fi legend? Burton hired Mark Wahlberg, Michael Clarke Duncan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Tim Roth to lead, and hired Rick Baker, the make-up genius (his creations for Gorillas in the Mist were so lifelike that they even fooled zoologists) to up the ante on monkey makeup.

      Which leaves us with August. The first to hit the dog days will be Rush Hour 2, on August 3. The first time out, the teaming of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker was almost a forgotten also-ran according to all the predictors out there. But, lo and behold, Rush Hour went berserk at the box office and got Jackie Chan into the mainstream for good and made a huge name for Chris Tucker. Question is, though, will the teaming work again, or was the first time a happy accident? This time the two are in Jackie's hometown, and Tucker is the outsider. Will it fly? Probably, seeing as how it has no competition for the first weekend, other than the holdover from Planet of the Apes. It won't steal the lead from Apes, but it'll be close...

      August 10 is when the you-know-what hits the fan. Four films premiere on the same day, and all of them have potential to be biggies. First off, the inevitable sequel to the smash American Pie, ostensibly named American Pie 2, reunites most of the original cast in another romp through the hormone minefield. Two of the funniest characters ever on film get their own feature in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. This one will close the door on Kevin Smith's series of films that have always worked the duo into the story. Jay and Silent Bob are on a mission to sabotage a Miramax movie that is inspired by a comic book based on them (follow that?), and this mission takes them on another adventure into madness. Yet another opener the same day is Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Woody returns to period pieces with this comedy about an efficiency expert (Helen Hunt) trying to modernize the offices of a crack investigator (Allen), while he is trying to track down the missing jeweled treasure in the title. Woody does his best work, I think, when he goes back in time, so we'll see how this one turns out. And, last but certainly not least, the heroes of the sick and twisted, The Farrelly Brothers, return to the Summer Movie Roulette Table with, of all things, a live-action/animation crossover called Osmosis Jones. Bill Murray plays a zookeeper that eats a hard-boiled egg that's been contaminated with monkey spit (wait, it gets better.) We then go to cartoon as we trace inside the zookeeeper's body as Osmosis Jones, a white-blood-cell cop voiced by Chris Rock and his partner, a whiny cold pill voiced by Frasier's David Hyde Pierce, try to corral the nasty virus within Murray's body. The virus, voiced by Laurence Fishburne, has an inferiority complex, because he is insanely jealous of E.coli, and wants to prove himself. (Told you it got better, didn't I?) In true Farrelly spirit, the lawmen visit such bodily tourist stops as Booger Dam and a bar called The Zit. Lord only knows where else they stop.... Just on reputation alone, I have to go with the Farrellys this weekend, only because they've proven time and time again to know how to work a summer movie.

      The next weekend calms down an bit, but it brings a whole new sort of competition to the table. Romantic comedy versus action versus pure romance. John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale star in Serendipity. This romantic comedy has the two meeting by chance one wintry night. They part ways after walking and talking through this magic night, leaving it up to fate to see if they ever meet again. Ten years later, the two have never stopped thinking about each other, and start searching. They're both about to marry, but they want that magic night again. For pure romance, we have The King of Eyelashes, Nicolas Cage, in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, a WWII story of an officer stationed on a tiny Greek island, where he falls in love with one of the residents (Penelope Cruz). Never mind that she's one of the "enemy," or that she's engaged to marry a local fisherman. Basically, folks, think The English Patient with no burn victims. And, if you want action, how about the ultimate game? No, not "Survivor". John McTiernan has remade Rollerball, one of the grimmest futuristic tales to come out of the '70s, and one that has become an tarot card reading of sports today. Rollerball is roller derby, motorcross, pro wrestling, and any of fifty other extreme sports, all rolled into one ultra-violent game. Look for this one to rule the roost for the weekend, and probably the next too.

      Why? Because the next weekend only has two entries, and both of them are horror movies. Of course, one of them is from one of the Big Daddies of horror, John Carpenter. Carpenter goes to the Red Planet in Ghosts of Mars, a sci-fi horror tale of ghosts terrorizing the colonies that have been built on Mars as of the year 2176. Expect creepy things popping out of darkness and more than a bucket or two of blood. It's almost a sci-fi horror western, actually, with the colonies set up like frontier towns of innumerable John Wayne/Randolph Scott cowboy flicks. The other, Soul Survivors, is more of a spiritual creepfest. Melissa Sagemiller stars as an auto accident survivor who begins to be haunted by nightmares. The director here is Steve Carpenter (no relation...), who brought us such '80s slashfests as The Dorm That Dripped Blood and The Kindred. Guess we'll see if he's learned any subtlety.

      There are two wild cards in August that bear some mention. American Outlaws is a western telling the story of Frank and Jesse James, the fabled gunslingers that remain both heroes and villains of legend. Ordinarily, I'dn't think a lot of this notion, especially after living through both versions of Young Guns. This one, however, is starring Colin Farrell, who stunned the world in his debut film, the Vietnam-themed Tigerland. This guy is good, folks, and he might be able to pull off an upset. The other wild card, one I'm positively afraid of, is called All That Glitters. This film marks the feature debut of Mariah Carey, as she jumps into the A Star Is Born formula about a nobody who becomes a superstar. Why does this bother me? One, it's being WAY overhyped as the film that "could do for Carey what The Rose did for Bette Midler." Them's some HEAYY shoes to fill. Two, I need a bombardment of Mariah Carey soundtracks like I need a hole drilled through my forehead and an window installed. I still can't get Whitney Houston's Bodyguard soundtrack far enough away from me. And three, I can count on one hand the number of singers that have made good actresses. But it would take an abacus to count the ones that have been lousy. And, based on the dramatic skill portrayed on her videos, I'm placing Mariah in the category of Stink Central. If she surprises me, I'll be the first to admit it, but I'd bet my second truck and my dog Orson that she has the acting talent of a filing cabinet. Any takers?

      And that, my friends, is it for the release slate. If I had to pick a must-see list out of all these, it'd be these...

1. Pearl Harbor
2. Planet of the Apes
3. AI
4. The Mummy Returns
5. Shrek
6. Atlantis
7. Tomb Raider
8. Evolution
9. Osmosis Jones
10. Rollerball

     Now, if I had to pick a few to gamble on, I'd go with these...

1. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
2. America's Sweethearts
3. Rat Race
4. A Knight's Tale
5. Rush Hour 2
6. Serendipity
7. American Outlaws
8. Swordfish
9. Jurassic Park 3
10. The Score

     Oh, and, just in case you need a couple of wonderful blasts from the past, there are re-releases planned for Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire and Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring William Hurt and Raul Julia. Both are due in June, but you know you're gonna have to hunt like a prison bloodhound to find them.

      And with that, friends and neighbors, I give you Summer 2001. Let the popcorn popping and majestic music begin.