MAY
Maybe the most damning sign of our culture’s decline is the fact that we have to remake movies from three decades ago to express it. The ocean liner in Ronald Neame’s The Poseidon Adventure symbolized the inversion of values of the 1972 era of Vietnam and pre-Watergate Richard Nixon. I have my doubts that Wolfgang Petersen will do either the original or the age justice in Poseidon — I mean, Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, and a gay Richard Dreyfuss filling in for Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, and Shelley Winters? At least the effects will be better.

Expect no effects in Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential (May 12) as he follows up Crumb and Ghost World in his exploration of the subversive power of idle doodling. Expect instead a sardonic black comedy about a mediocre art student whose fortunes rise with murder. Max Minghella and Sophia Myles star.

Speaking of subversive art: probably only the Vatican will be offended by Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s bestseller The Da Vinci Code (May 19). Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou try to sort out the world’s poorest-kept secret conspiracy before Opus Dei or the Little Sisters of the Poor or whoever can stop them.

Here’s a more believable plot: in Over the Hedge (May 19), the wildlife endangered by encroaching suburban sprawl decide to take advantage of the shifting environment. An animated adaptation of the Michael Fry & T. Lewis comic strip, it’s directed by Tim Johnson (Antz) and Karey Kirkpatrick (Chicken Run screenplay) and features the voices of Bruce Willis and Steve Carell.

Civilization offers more discontents in The Proposition (May 26), an Australian “Western” in which lawman Ray Winstone, eager to tame the Outback, offers outlaw Guy Peace the title deal: kill his bad brother (Danny Huston) and Ray will spare the good one. Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and music; director John Hillcoat demonstrates his love of Sam Peckinpah.

Meanwhile, to paraphrase the Oscar-winning tune, it’s hard out there for a mutant. In X-Men: The Last Stand (May 26), a cure for mutantism drives the X-Men of Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the Brotherhood of Magneto (Ian McKellen) farther apart. Can the franchise survive this and director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour), who replaces Bryan Singer?

JUNE
Ever notice how possessions embody all that’s awful about our lives and relationships? See, for example,  The Break-Up (June 2), a black comedy in which a couple split and both refuse to vacate their condo. Conflict, War of the Roses style, ensues. Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughan star; Peyton Reed (Down with Love) directs.

Think of the world as one big condo and you’ve got An Inconvenient Truth (June 2). First-time director Davis Guggenheim documents Al Gore’s slide show on global warming. Although it gives new meaning to the term “graphic entertainment,” Gore’s show is not as dry as you might expect and the message is a lot scarier.

Scarier than the Antichrist, who’s resurrected 30 years later in this remake of Richard Donner’s The Omen (June 6, or 6/6/06). John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix) sticks to the original’s gleefully hammy and perverse tale of a guy (Liev Schreiber in the Gregory Peck role) who thanks to some hideous and ingenious accidents discovers that his little adopted boy is Satan. Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, and David Thewlis help out.

How quaint to find in the wake of a documentary about the destruction of the environment and a tale of the Apocalypse a cute, hugely budgeted Pixar animation starring the culprit most likely responsible for both. In Toy Story maven John Lasseter’s Cars (June 9), Owen Wilson gives voice to an arrogant racing car who finds himself leading the simple life among redneck pick-ups and other gas guzzlers. Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt also give voice.

These movies make you want to fight back, don’t they? Take heart from Jack Black’s Mexican cook in Nacho Libre (June 16), who wrestles on the side to raise funds for an orphanage. Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) directs. Or Adam Sandler in Click (June 23), which takes the TV-remote scene in Being There to heart and uses it to reprise Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty. Kate Beckinsale, Sean Astin, and Christopher Walken also star; Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer) directs.