Welcome to the Summer of the Pixel. Or rather, welcome to the summer when digital technology infiltrates every corner of the movie frame, even in the most traditionally low-tech of genres. Digital dinosaurs, digital monsters, digital bombs dropping from digital Japanese Zeroes—even digital humans made up of nothing but 1s and 0s. (That’s one way of facing the possible SAG strike.) The emblematic figure of this summer movie season may be the hero of Steven Spielberg’s fantasy A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), an 11-year-old boy whose love is as real as his mind and body are synthetic.

Hence the summer-movie parade of synthetica starts this weekend with the computer-animated fantasy Shrek, with Memorial Day weekend’s blockbuster release of Pearl Harbor (May 25) kicking off the season in earnest. Some likely blockbusters are already emerging from this summer’s lineup, among them Eddie Murphy in Dr. Dolittle 2 (June 22), the canine/feline battle comedy Cats & Dogs (July 4), and Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes (July 27). There are also some possible sleepers, some promising time-wasters, and even some sterling reissues hidden among the deluge of films. Below, in chronological order, we’ve listed our picks for the summer’s most appealing releases—movies that, no matter how dependent on the digital ether, still hold potential for solid entertainment:

The Man Who Cried Sally Potter follows her eccentrically beautiful The Tango Lesson with this historical drama, starring those Sleepy Hollow lovebirds Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp. Ricci plays a Russian Jew who makes her way to Paris during World War II and becomes involved with a gypsy (Depp), a dancer (Cate Blanchett), and an opera star (John Turturro). Music and dancing take center stage as Potter combines the cross-cultural passion of her previous film with the sense of history’s great movements that informed Orlando. (May limited, June wide)

Baise-Moi Banned or faced with censorship in most of the French-speaking world, Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi’s incendiary melodrama concerns a sex worker and a rape survivor (French porn stars Karen Bach and Raffaela Anderson) who start screwing and killing all the men in their path. (The larky English title is Rape Me.) The press has already pigeonholed this international scandale célèbre as a hardcore Thelma & Louise, tut-tutting over its X-rated sex, over-the-top violence, and explicit feminist rage. Start planning how you’ll get inside the Belcourt without anyone seeing.

(June 1)

Moulin Rouge As taglines go, “Kidman Sings!” will never replace “Garbo Talks!” but Nicole Kidman’s pipes are one of a carnival of attractions in Baz Luhrmann’s fable about good and evil in the fin de siècle Paris underworld. Ewan McGregor plays Christian, a naive poet who joins the freethinking and free-loving bohemians of Montmartre and falls in love with a performer/prostitute named Satin (Kidman). Christian, Satin—we did say it was about good and evil, right? John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, and others will also belt out some anachronistic pop tunes from our own era. The trailer alone is so chock-full of imagery that it’s almost worth seeing another 30 times before the release date (as we inevitably will). (June 1)

The Wide Blue Road After almost 45 years, American audiences finally get to see the visually breathtaking first feature by Gillo Pontecorvo, whose landmark The Battle of Algiers remains taut and immediate after more than three decades. Yves Montand plays a tough fisherman who defies the law to earn his dangerous living with dynamite; the release is sponsored by fans Jonathan Demme and Dustin Hoffman through Milestone Films, which did the superb reissues of The Sorrow and the Pity and I Am Cuba. (June 6)

Evolution After years in the wilderness with high-concept family comedies like Junior and Father’s Day, Ivan Reitman returns to the slapstick adventure vein that he mined so well in Ghostbusters and Stripes. Evolution stars David Duchovny as a scientist who teams up with colleagues Orlando Jones, Seann William Scott, and Julianne Moore to prevent a meteor-spawned creature from evolving into the perfect human-devouring world-beater. The cast is of disparate quality and the premise sounds dully familiar, but we’re suckers for sci-fi comedy. If this is half as funny as Galaxy Quest, we’ll call it a victory. (June 8)

Atlantis There are few things cooler than the great lost continent; a whole civilization, devoured by water...that’s chilling stuff. And even though watching a Disney animated project of late has been something like hearing beautiful music while a defensive lineman capers on your lap—entertaining, but oppressive—the Jules Verne-y look of this non-musical promises a higher level of appeal, especially for those who love adventure stories packed with arcane equipment and secret societies. (June 8)

Swordfish Before the espionage scene gets crowded with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt in Spy Game and Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity, John Travolta answers the shoephone as a world-class spy who pressures hacker Hugh Jackman into a billion-dollar scam. The good news: The supporting cast is sharp—Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Vinnie Jones—and the previews rock. The bad news: That’s what we said last summer about director Dominic Sena’s Gone in 60 Seconds. (June 15)

The Fast and the Furious A motor-opera renaissance is on the way, revved up by Driven and hitting extra laps with Rat Race (see below) and planned remakes of Death Race 2000 and Smokey and the Bandit. But none looks more promising than Dragon director Rob Cohen’s high-octane actioner about illegal L.A. street racers, with the driver’s seat occupied by Pitch Black’s Vin Diesel and Girlfight’s Michelle Rodriguez. The only thing cooler than the title is the possibility of seeing it on a drive-in marquee. (June 22)

Rat Race The interchangeable Seth Green and Breckin Meyer co-star alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Cleese, Jon Lovitz, and a cast of thousands in this throwback “race across the country” comedy, directed by Jerry Zucker. The last time Zucker attempted a comedy that wasn’t in the Airplane parodic style, the result was the very funny Ruthless People. Of course, that was co-helmed by his brother David and their partner Jim Abrahams, who are nowhere in sight on this film. Still...it’s a race across the country! That’s what summer movies are all about! (June 29)

Kiss of the Dragon Jet Li, the dean of Hong Kong ass-kickers, flexes his chops in this action vehicle co-written by La Femme Nikita auteur Luc Besson. Li plays a Chinese operative battling a sinister French cartel in Paris, with the help of ex-pat American call girl Bridget Fonda. Point of no return, indeed. (July 6)

Tomb Raider/Final Fantasy Lara Croft is probably pissed. Tomb Raider was all set to be the big geek-appeal draw of the summer, and then those Playstation 2 folks stole their thunder with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a completely computer-generated adventure. FF promises sci-fi thrills mixed with sword-and-sorcery, but the real reason the video-game set is buzzing is the movie’s use of stunningly rendered “synthespians,” or CGI actors. They’re supposed to be just like real live people—“only smoother,” according to one preview viewer. Great, because Angelina Jolie (who plays video-sexpot Croft in Tomb Raider) is just a little too bumpy for a lot of us. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the wiz behind the 10 (and counting) installments of Final Fantasy for your home console, directs; voice talent includes Ming-Na Wen, Steve Buscemi, and Alec Baldwin. Innovative computer graphics have often been tried as a hook to get people to the box office and, in the case of something like Titan A.E., have usually failed to produce a hit by themselves. But this one has preteen acquaintances of ours screaming that if no Best Picture Oscar is forthcoming, there’s no justice in the world. Looks like the marketing may have hit its mark. (Tomb Raider, June 15/Final Fantasy, July 11)

America’s Sweethearts It’s been over 10 years since B-list director and outcast Hollywood player Joe Roth helmed a picture, but he’s got the talent lined up for his comeback. Billy Crystal co-wrote the script for this acidic romantic comedy, which stars Crystal as a publicist for a publicly lovable showbiz couple—John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones—who are privately vicious to their staffs and (especially) to each other. As if that weren’t enough, Julia Roberts top-lines the cast as a dowdy assistant who loses 100 pounds and threatens to tear the lucrative marriage apart. Sounds witty and sophisticated, with star power to spare. (July 11)

The Score Aging thief Robert DeNiro and young hotshot Edward Norton team up for a complicated heist that draws in Marlon Brando and Angela Bassett—at which point the double crosses begin. At best, this is an updated Rififi with a dream cast. At worst—well, you can always check out Rififi. Muppet master Frank Oz directed. (July 13)

Jurassic Park III Why are we looking forward to this seemingly needless sequel more than we looked forward to the last seemingly needless sequel? Well, pick ’em: It might be the return of Laura Dern and Sam Neill. It might be the addition of William H. Macy and Tea Leoni. It might be the prospect of a new dinosaur clone—the spinosaurus! Mostly, it’s the presence of director Joe Johnston, whose action résumé features dreams (The Rocketeer) and duds (Jumanji), but who is bound to be more committed to this project than Steven Spielberg—who was off shooting other movies when it came time to edit the first two installments. (July 18)

Band of Outsiders/Bob le Flambeur Two reissues to set movie nuts drooling: a brand-new 35mm print of Jean-Luc Godard’s breathless 1961 gangster reverie, with Anna Karina doing the Madison for posterity; and a new print of Jean-Pierre Melville’s smashing caper-movie-cum-character-study, which focuses on a high-rolling safecracker’s last score. They’re both from Rialto Pictures, which blessed moviegoers with recent reissues of Rififi, The Third Man, and Grand Illusion. (Band of Outsiders, July/Bob le Flambeur, August)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Perhaps you thought that Velvet Goldmine was the swan song of the rock opera on film? Think again. This glam extravaganza—about a German transsexual in Kansas trying to resurrect her musical career—was the winner of the Audience Award at Sundance this year. John Cameron Mitchell wrote and originated the character of Hedwig off-Broadway, and he debuts as a writer, director, and star of this film. Advance word is that the songs are catchy, Bowie-esque, and integrated well into the plot. We loved Goldmine (also financed by Killer Films), so we’re cheering for Hedwig to rock all the way to the bank. (July limited, August wide)

Made From the folks who brought you Swingers back in—good Lord, can it really be?—1996, this slacker-gangster comedy reteams Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn as low-level mobsters from L.A., hoping to became “made men” in New York City. Favreau’s script is also part road movie and part sports flick. (His and Vaughn’s characters are in the fight game.) Sean Combs co-stars as the aspirants’ guide to New York; we must confess a certain curiosity about how his credit will read, since Made was filmed while he was still Puff Daddy. (July limited, August wide)

Audition This 1999 shocker by Japanese cult director Takashi Miike (Dead or Alive) has sent festival audiences screaming for the exits. To meet women, a lonely widower (Ryo Ishibashi) pretends he’s auditioning actresses, including a petite young dancer (Eihi Shiina) who seems ideal. Then out come the needles and the flesh-cutting wire. Japan has produced some of the most hair-raising, extreme horror films of recent years; if this one does well, maybe we’ll get more—especially Hideo Nakata’s Ring, an ingenious self-perpetuating scareshow that’s been pegged for a Hollywood remake. (August)

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Kevin Smith has no eye as a director, little insight into characters as a writer, and a poor sense of pacing as a storyteller. But he can write some good jokes, when he’s not busy self-absorbedly filling his films with insider references. This latest and final installment in Smith’s “Jersey saga” promises to be loaded with irritating self-reference, but it could also be pretty funny, given that the concept of the movie is a mockery of the making of a movie about Kevin Smith’s characters. Self-ridicule, perhaps? Smith’s 8 1/2? We can only hope. (Aug. 10)

Osmosis Jones Warner Bros. attempts to follow up its strong animated feature The Iron Giant with this neo-Fantastic Voyage. The story takes place simultaneously in the “outside world” of construction worker Frank (Bill Murray) and in the “inside world” of his body, where the titular hero, a white blood cell, battles an evil virus. Chris Rock voices Jones, and David Hyde-Pierce is his sidekick, an inexperienced and bumbling cold tablet. Several jokes about bodily functions had to be cut to get a PG rating—not surprising, given that the directors of the live-action sequences are the Farrelly brothers. At the very least, the premise takes us back to those Bell Science films like Hemo the Magnificent—which some smart programmer should really revive to show as a pre-feature short. (Aug. 10)

Ghost World Cartoonist Dan Clowes wrote the script for this adaptation of his masterful graphic novel about two high-school grads (Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson) who find that the making-fun-of-others basis of their friendship won’t hold them together as they face the hard choices and compromises of real life. Crumb documentarian Terry Zwigoff stays in the realm of comix for his fiction feature debut, which is already garnering raves from Clowes fans and neophytes alike. (August limited, September wide)