By Cheryl Eddy

READ ON FOR our highly opinionated, and by no means exhaustive, guide to 2005's wannabe blockbusters, plus the coolest local festivals and indie releases. All dates are subject to change (hey, that's showbiz).

May 12-22 The coolest, weirdest, and juiciest true stories are mined by the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival (www.sfindie.com).

May 13 Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) pits increasingly irrelevant Jennifer Lopez against long-AWOL Jane Fonda in Monster-in-Law. Possible saving grace: Wanda Sykes plays Fonda's acerbic sidekick. Also: the long-delayed Renny Harlin serial-killa thrilla Mindhunters; Will Ferrell as a crazed soccer dad in Kicking and Screaming; and Jet Li as a mad-dog fighter in Unleashed. Beyond the megaplex, seek out the quirky Korean sci-fi fantasy Save the Green Planet and the lady wrasslin' doc Lipstick and Dynamite.

May 19 After angering an entire generation with The Phantom Menace, George Lucas made marginal amends with Attack of the Clones, only to smear his tinker-happy paws all over the long-awaited DVD release of the Star Wars holy trinity. Still, don't expect to see any empty seats when Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, the first PG-13 entry in the series, rolls out today. Expect lightsabers flashing over lava pits, sticky-bun hairdos, and most thrillingly, multiple Wookiees – a phenomenon not seen since 1978's Star Wars Holiday Special.

May 20 Not feelin' the Force? Turn to festival picks Layer Cake, Mad Hot Ballroom, Brothers (all from the recent San Francisco International Film Festival), and Hungarian thriller Kontroll (from last year's Mill Valley Film Festival).

May 27 The voice of Chris Rock (as an animated zebra in DreamWorks' Madagascar) competes with the face of Chris Rock (in the Adam Sandler-starring remake of The Longest Yard). Alternatives include the drama Mysterious Skin, from The Doom Generation's Gregg Araki; Tell Them Who You Are, Mark Wexler's doc about his father, legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler; and the restored, extended version of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 Civil War epic, Major Dundee.

June 3 The 1970s never seemed so cool as they did in 2001's reverent skateboarding doc Dogtown and Z-Boys, now available in narrative form as Lords of Dogtown (scripted by Z-Boys helmer Stacy Peralta and directed by Thirteen's Catherine Hardwicke). Team Beautiful Mind (including director Ron Howard and star Russell Crowe) reunites for the boxing drama Cinderella Man. A real-life School of Rock gets the doc treatment in Rock School. And the San Francisco Independent Film Festival's horror offshoot, "(Yet) Another Hole in the Head," returns for a second year (through June 11; www.sfindie.com).

June 8-12 The seventh annual San Francisco Black Film Festival screens films by and about African Americans and the African cultural diaspora; it also hosts workshops, speakers, and special events (www.sfbff.org).

June 10 Can Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the movie that launched a thousand tabloid covers (and possibly Hollywood's divorce du jour) possibly deliver the goods? Competition for Brad 'n' Angelina comes in the form of Howl's Moving Castle, from Spirited Away anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki; yet another from the one-man movie factory that is Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) – this time, in family-flick mode, with The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D; and an African American spin on The Honeymooners starring Cedric the Entertainer.

June 16-26 It's the oldest and largest event dedicated to queer cinema: the 30th annual San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (www.frameline.org).

June 17 Holy hell yeah! With its all-star cast (Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Katie Holmes), a happenin' director (Memento's Christopher Nolan), a blissfully nipple-free bat suit (worn by American Psycho's Christian Bale), and a cool origin-story script by Nolan and David S. Goyer (Blade), Batman Begins can't open soon enough. Also this week: Hilary Duff plays matchmaker for mom Heather Locklear in The Perfect Batma – whoops! I mean, The Perfect Man. No bats in that one, alas.

June 22 Lindsay Lohan tangles with the Love Bug in Herbie: Fully Loaded.

June 24 The mayor of Zombietown himself, George A. Romero, answers his imitators with George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, and Nora Ephron goes meta on Bewitched, with Nicole Kidman as a real witch who's hired to play a witch in the Bewitched movie; Will Ferrell and Shirley MacLaine – as Endora! – costar.

June 29 Steven Spielberg rolls out H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds, with star power provided by Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, and omnipresent moppet Dakota Fanning.

July 1 Beyond rampaging aliens, this weekend also heralds Rebound, starring comedian Martin Lawrence as a disgraced NCAA basketball coach demoted to the middle school leagues; unsurprisingly, Daddy Day Care director Steve Carr pulls the strings. Also opening: indie darling Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know.

July 8 Jennifer Connelly gets drenched in Dark Water, a remake of Hideo Nakata's Japanese thriller directed by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries); more horror comes in the form of zombie-licious Aussie import Undead, a standout at the 2004 "(Yet) Another Hole in the Head" fest. In other news, Jessica Alba continues her assault on fanboy fantasy lives as one of the Fantastic Four.

July 13 The hype machine awaits pimp-turned-rapper drama Hustle and Flow, which raked in a lucrative distribution deal at Sundance.

July 15 Despite my fierce loyalty to Gene Wilder, yeah, I'm pretty psyched to see Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and that kid from Finding Neverland chomp into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Meanwhile, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are divorce lawyers who figure out a foolproof way to meet chicks in The Wedding Crashers, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's critically beloved Tropical Malady investigates a different kind of love story.

July 21-Aug. 8 The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival celebrates its landmark 25th year (www.sfjff.org).

July 22 Billy Bob Thornton does Bad Santa a whole baseball team better in Bad News Bears (Richard Linklater directs), Michael Bay dares to strike out sans Jerry Bruckheimer with The Island, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as dreamy clones on the run, and Lisa Kudrow reteams with her Opposite of Sex director, Don Roos, for the ensemble drama Happy Endings.

July 29 Superheroes go to high school in the live-action Sky High. Terry Gilliam finally unleashes his long-awaited Brothers Grimm, starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Diane Lane meets cute with John Cusack in Must Love Dogs. And Jamie Foxx puts his Oscar-winning talents to debatable use, emoting opposite a runaway jet controlled by a bad, bad computer program in Stealth.

Aug. 5 Steve Martin stars in The Pink Panther; Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, and Jessica Simpson star in The Dukes of Hazzard. One or two original ideas may be contained in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, starring the new, "serious" Bill Murray. And Office Space cult god Mike Judge finally releases a new feature – 3001, about an average dude (Luke Wilson) who awakes from a long hibernation to discover he's the smartest guy in a future populated with idiots.

Aug. 12 Take your pick from atmospheric Kate Hudson chiller Skeleton Key; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (no description necessary); and John Singleton's Four Brothers, about a quartet of crime-busting foster sibs (including Andre "3000" Benjamin and Mark Wahlberg).

Aug. 19 A big week, with the Wes Craven thriller Red Eye dreamy-teaming Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) and Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls), pigeons actually helping humankind (instead of pooping on it) in the C.G.-animated World War II adventure Valiant, Steve Carrell (The Office) fumbling toward awkwardness in Freaks and Geeks guru Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, and James Gandolfini crooning through John Turturro's Romance and Cigarettes.

Aug. 26 Late summer and horror go together like hapless explorers and underground beasties – or so hopes The Cave. Spelunk-a-dunk!