Iron Man opens this week, and thus the summer movie season has officially arrived. I love a good summer movie as much a the next guy, but this morning I found myself looking back at some of the little films that cropped up during the summer; some of them managed to get a "summer" feel on a much lower budget and without all the advertisement and hype. My absolute favorite summer art house movie has to be Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run (1999). I saw it three times that summer, and each time I clutched my seat, my heart pounding. I was amazed at how brilliantly Tywker had mapped out his three possible storylines and how lovely the small, quiet interludes were. I loved Franka Potente, and I loved his throbbing score, which practically entered into your bloodstream and pumped up your adrenaline by hand. Every color, movement and cut was designed for maximum effect (I've always been puzzled how Tykwer's movies since have seemed so long and sluggish.)

Also that same summer, John Sayles delivered his baffling adventure/suspense film Limbo, which had several people trapped on an island awaiting rescue and stalked by bad guys. The ending had everybody in an uproar and caused the film to die a quick death. The summer before that one, Darren Aronofsky's debut feature Pi gave me a good dose of sci-fi thrills, as well as a few head-scratching puzzles (which were actually real). 2000 was a particularly bad summer, but John Waters' Cecil B. DeMented provided a mischievous little oasis in the middle of it all. In that film, renegade filmmakers kidnap a Hollywood starlet and force her to be in their indie production; each team member has a tattoo of a maverick filmmaker's name. (I've often wondered which filmmaker's name I would pick for a tattoo? Maybe David Cronenberg...)

It's usually only a matter of time before any filmmaker makes a bad film, but early in many careers it is easy to think certain directors can do no wrong. Currently I feel this way about Tom Tykwer, who has been solid since his debut film, Deadly Maria. I have to confess I haven't yet gotten around to viewing the two films he made prior to his breakthrough, Run Lola Run, but I mean to really soon (if only watching movies was my first priority these days). The thing that is so special about Tykwer, though is, visible just with his last four features: He keeps improving upon his visual style while constantly changing things up a bit. Following last year's beautifully enchanting Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, I am very eagerly awaiting his next film.

That film has just been officially announced as The International, and it is set to star Clive Owen. And, from the sound of what little there is to know about the plot, it sounds like this is a film for anybody who still wishes Owen could play James Bond. It is an action-thriller about an Interpol agent (Owen, I assume) working on a case involving corruption and arms-dealing within a powerful banking institution, one which his own agency seems to be protecting. Tykwer is expected to begin shooting from Eric Singer's script this September.

This news is exciting because Owen's involvement could expose Tykwer to a bigger audience. Run Lola Run should have made the director a big name, but unfortunately too few people saw his even better subsequent films. Of course, we all saw recently with Children of Men that Owen isn't exactly the big draw that he should be either. Whether or not people see the film, though, is their own business. For me, I am only a bit worried about this film's script. It seems to be Singer's first screenplay, so it is hard to be prejudiced, but that doesn't mean I'm not wary. That said, though, the director's last two films were based on the work of others (he was fortunate enough to work off of Kieslowski on one of those) and were still great, so hopefully this won't be a problem.

I just caught Philip Gröning's extraordinary documentary Into Great Silence (2 screens and opening wider), about Carthusian monks living in a charterhouse in the French Alps. It runs just past two hours and 45 minutes and I would wager that no more than two hundred words are spoken throughout. The film merely shows the monks going about their daily business: praying, chanting, caring for gardens, shoveling snow, sawing firewood, cooking, eating, etc. I have to admit part of my enthusiasm for the film stems from the fact that it contains no talking heads or clips; I was just about ready to scream if I saw one more documentary shot in that tired old PBS format. But I was also drawn to the film's meditative rhythm.

Or is it just slow? Already some of the reviews have trudged out the word "boring" to describe the film, and certainly it's a hard sell. But why? It's apparent that Gröning doesn't have any particular viewpoint about the monks; he's not trying to sell us on their dignity or righteousness, nor is he trying to uncover some secret, seamy underbelly. He merely wishes to show them to us. And in his great, quiet stretches, a viewer can easily get lost in his or her own thoughts. Indeed, I believe that Gröning actually prefers us to get lost in our own thoughts.

With the shopping rush and rampant buy, buy, buy commercials, it's easy to get bogged down by the material aspects of Christmas and forget about the fun. However, we shouldn't forget the one tradition that allows you to give love and steal a kiss from someone special -- the mistletoe. The parasitic plant morphed from a pagan symbol in pre-Christian Europe that signified life and fertility, to a Christian symbol inextricably linked to Christmas and kisses. (It's funny how years can change the scope of things.)

In honor of the tradition, and as an opportunity to distract oneself from the smothering kisses of Great Aunt Bea, I thought I would put together a list of mistletoe escapes. What follows are three men and three women who provide an alternative choice to mistletoe fantasies -- free from the mainstream, full-lipped Angelinas and muscle-bound Brads of the world. Better yet, the actors and actresses are teamed with a good film in which they are particularly smoochable. Some of this list might make you nod in agreement, and some might make you think I'm crazy (even though I already took out the likes of eyebrow-raisers such as Christopher Walken). At the very least, it will provide a list of recent film fodder for when things wind down or you're hiding away from family.

July Fourth weekend has come and gone, and one thing has become clear: 2006 is a summer movie dud. This weekend's so-called blockbusters You, Me and Dupree and Little Man -- two of the year's worst stinkbombs -- only comfirm it.

Sure, last year was no prize either, except that George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (one of the year's best films) eventually reared its head, and if you were like me, you got a huge kick out of the final Star Wars (Revenge of the Sith). But take a look at the soulful, rich, clever, snappy cornerstones of summers past: Spider-Man 2 (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Minority Report (2002), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Mission: Impossible II (2000), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Bulworth and/or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Face/Off and/or Men in Black (1997), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Speed (1994), The Fugitive and/or In the Line of Fire (1993), etc.

• Christa McAuliffe: Reach For The Stars - Massachusetts native Christa McAuliffe has become quite inseparable from the image of the ghastly tendrils of smoke hanging over the Florida sky after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1986, but she's also remembered as a schoolteacher who never stopped teaching. It is this second image on which first-time filmmakers Renée Sotile and Mary Jo Godges focus, going beyond blindly reverent fluff and digging into the humanity that made the loss of McAuliffe and the subsequent grounding of the Shuttle so much of a tragedy. With a warm, comforting narration by Susan Sarandon and a note-perfect song track by Carly Simon (whose tapes McAuliffe brought aboard Challenger), the film captures the spirit of exploration and discovery through McAuliffe's example, and not by just stating she was a shining star we should all try hard to emulate.