ALSO IN AUG.

THE WAY OF THE GUN Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro are crooks who kidnap pregnant surrogate mom Juliette Lewis. But things go awry when James Caan and Taye Diggs enter the picture as a Mob lawyer and hitman on their trail. BOTTOM LINE The heat surrounding first-time director Christopher McQuarrie (a screenwriting Oscar winner for The Usual Suspects), as well as the hip cast, could entice younger viewers. (Aug. 25)

DADDY AND THEMBilly Bob Thornton directs himself and Laura Dern in this romantic dramedy about down-and-out Southerners, costarring Dern's mother, Diane Ladd, as her on-screen mom, and Kelly Preston as Dern's sister. This is Thornton's first time wearing writer, director, and star hats since 1996's Sling Blade, which won him a screenwriting Oscar. As if that weren't enough, Thornton spent part of this production preparing for his next directorial outing—an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. BOTTOM LINE The movie was bumped from its first release date last winter—rarely a good sign.

PRINCE OF CENTRAL PARK Harvey Keitel is a Big Apple cave-dweller (seriously). Kathleen Turner and Danny Aiello are a couple mourning the death of their son. All seek redemption when they meet a young foster-home escapee who is living in New York's famous glade. Adapted from Evan Rhodes' 1975 novel and subsequent long-running play. BOTTOM LINE Dear Kathleen and Harvey: Nudity is prohibited in Central Park.

SEVEN GIRLFRIENDS After his former fiancée (Melrose Place's Laura Leighton) unexpectedly dies, commitment-phobic Jesse (Wings' Tim Daly) first proposes to his boss (The Wonder Years' Olivia d'Abo), then tracks down five old girlfriends to discover what went wrong. Directed by Paul Lazarus (Friends), the romantic comedy won the Best World Premiere at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. BOTTOM LINE If it's as good as Melrose Place, Wings, The Wonder Years, and Friends, we're there...or maybe we'll catch it on TV. (June)

PLUS

This month, TV stars leap to the big screen: As a surfing prophet who speaks in verse, Dharma & Greg's Thomas Gibson somehow factors into PSYCHO BEACH PARTY, based on downtown thesp Charles Busch's lauded Off Broadway show; the friendship of three buddies is tested when they each become WHIPPED by the same perfect woman (Jack & Jill's Amanda Peet); and Judging Amy's Tyne Daly plays a Boston school-bus driver searching for the son her ex-husband raised alone after their divorce 16 years ago in THE AUTUMN HEART. August also features some bona fide movie stars: In SKIPPED PARTS, set during the early 1960s, a sexually curious 14-year-old boy is torn between his party-animal mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and his fantasy girl (Drew Barrymore), and ex-con Christopher Walken is forced into making one last heist despite the concerns of girlfriend Cyndi Lauper in THE OPPORTUNISTS. If Angela's Ashes left you salivating for more literary adaptations, these fill the bill: Based on the 1995 book, Golden Globe nominee AIMEE & JAGUARtells of the love between two German women, a Gentile and a Jew, during World War II; Dostoyevsky is updated for modern times in the Sundance offering CRIME + PUNISHMENT IN SUBURBIA; and everyone's favorite classic sexual narrative THE STORY OF Oalso gets a big-screen makeover. For documentary fans: DARK DAYS, winner of three awards at Sundance, examines a homeless community populating midtown Manhattan's train tunnels; and Arlo Guthrie pops up in THE BALLAD OF RAMBLIN' JACK, which details the life of folksinger Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Also this summer (no specific release dates at press time): The Swedish flick BENEATH THE SURFACE tells of a girl who needs to rescue her sister from a cruel underworld. A teenager makes a connection to a woman named SWEET JANE on the tough streets of Los Angeles. SOLAS finds a handful of poor apartment dwellers struggling to overcome life's challenges. Cool Frenchman Jean Reno appears with cool American Rosanna Arquette in the re-release of Luc Besson's 1988 diving romance THE BIG BLUE. A young woman meets a string of undesirable men after placing an ad in the Chinese import THE PERSONALS. A slick radio entrepreneur enters a quaint Bolivian town and falls for the daughter of an overprotective father in THE DAY SILENCE DIED. In THE WOLVES OF KROMER, an English town feels threatened by the people who live on its outskirts. The U.S.-China co-production RESTLESS follows a beleaguered American woman to Asia, where she finds adventure and romance. A group of strippers forms a union in the documentary LIVE NUDE GIRLS UNITE! Bill Pullman narrates the profile COMING TO LIGHT: EDWARD S. CURTIS AND THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, about the celebrated turn-of-the-century photographer. And a more modern lensman, cinematographer Sven Nykvist (Cries and Whispers), is the subject of LIGHT KEEPS ME COMPANY.