May is shaping up as a merry month for movie lovers. A complete list of summer releases will appear May 19, but here are early highlights. As always, dates are subject to change.

MAY 5

"Mission: Impossible III" -- Tom Cruise is back as agent Ethan Hunt and this time, he has a new love interest in Michelle Monaghan and a new villain in Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, looking, sounding and acting nothing like Truman Capote.

"Hoot" -- Middle-schoolers in Florida take on greedy land developers to try to save endangered owls in this PG-rated film based on Carl Hiaasen's book. With original music by Jimmy Buffett, who also turns up as a teacher.

"The Promise" -- Director Chen Kaige moves into the martial arts fantasy genre with this tale of a beautiful princess and three men -- a general, his slave and a rival duke -- who fall in love with her.

"The Notorious Bettie Page" -- Gretchen Mol plays the woman who grew up in a conservative religious family in Tennessee, only to become a famous pin-up girl and Playboy centerfold.

"Art School Confidential" -- The director of "Crumb," "Ghost World" and "Bad Santa" tackles a tiny East Coast art school where a talented young artist (Max Minghella) finds his work not appreciated in an anything-goes class. Cast also includes Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent and Anjelica Huston.

MAY 12

"Poseidon" -- Wolfgang Petersen, the man who took us into the claustrophobic confines of a German U-boat in "Das Boot," transports us to a luxury cruise ship turned upside down. No Shelley Winters, of course, but a cast led by Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss and Andre Braugher.

"Just My Luck" -- When the luckiest woman in the world kisses a bad-luck magnet during a masquerade ball, their fortunes are reversed in this movie starring Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine.

"Goal! The Dream Begins" -- The makers of this soccer movie, about a talented Mexican-American given the chance to play for one of England's premier soccer clubs, are already planning two sequels, with the final film culminating at the World Cup.

"Midnight Movies: From the Margins to the Mainstream" -- A half-dozen movies that fit this title, including George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," are examined in this documentary also celebrating "El Topo," "The Harder They Come," "Pink Flamingos," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Eraserhead."

Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival -- The first of what organizers say will be an annual event will showcase films and filmmakers with origins in India, Japan, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Iran and elsewhere. It runs from May 12-20 at the three Pittsburgh Filmmakers venues.

MAY 19

"The Da Vinci Code" -- Director Ron Howard, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and actor Tom Hanks tackle an adaptation of the Dan Brown page-turner about a murder in the Louvre that unravels a chain of sensational secrets.

"Over the Hedge" -- Wildlife critters are tempted by the world beyond the hedge, where humans live to eat rather than eat to live -- and toss out their tantalizing trash. Voice talent includes Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling and Steve Carell.

"Kinky Boots" -- When a young man inherits his father's failing shoe factory in northern England, he hits upon a cockeyed plan to save it by making women's footwear ... for men, such as a drag queen played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

"Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School" -- A widower (Robert Carlyle) makes a promise to a dying man and ends up at a dance school where he meets a woman (Marisa Tomei) who helps him to love again.

"See No Evil" -- Talk about your counter-programming. World Wrestling Entertainment star Kane stars as reclusive psychopath Jacob Goodnight. He's 7 feet tall, weighs 400 pounds and has a rusty steel plate screwed into his skull and razor-sharp fingernails to pick out victims' eyes.

MAY 26

"X-Men: The Last Stand" -- A "cure" for mutancy threatens to change the course of history -- mutants can retain their powers or forfeit them and become human -- in this third outing. Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, among others, return.

"The Proposition" -- The Australian Outback in the 1880s provides the backdrop for this anti-western starring Ray Winstone as a new lawman, Emily Watson as his delicate wife and Guy Pearce and Richard Wilson as Irish outlaws whose family is linked to atrocities in the region. Cast also includes Danny Huston and John Hurt.

"Water" -- This film will close the Silk Screen festival and then get a regular run. Deepa Mehta's final film in her trilogy on the elements (the others were "Fire" and "Earth") is about an 8-year-old child bride in 1930s India whose husband suddenly dies and what custom dictates for her.

"Take My Eyes" -- Winner of seven Spanish Academy Awards, including best picture, this film examines a complicated marriage rocked by abuse and yet bound by love, eroticism and submissiveness.

"Classe Tous Risques" -- Newly released, full-length restoration of the 1960 French film about a wizened old mobster sneaking back to France after an exile in Milan and the young honorable hood (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who helps him out.