The summer season is a difficult time for arthouse films. There seems to be a malfunction in the human body, between May and August, that makes men and women allergic to anything that is not pure entertainment. If your film does not offer large-scale escapism, it will most likely go a few rounds and quickly hit the mat. Each year brings a few exceptions, but a few exceptions over four months is not much. If arthouse pictures are the best way to gather PTA points during fall and winter seasons, summer is a whole different story. Blockbusters do it much better. I'll take a global look at the summer's arthouse best offerings in a couple of weeks, but today, the plan is to take a look at the May 2 releases: Mister Lonely, Fugitive Pieces, Redbelt and Son of Rambow.

Harmony Korine is not your typical American filmmaker. At the age of 35, the California native makes a return to directing feature films with his third such enterprise, Mister Lonely. It's been a while for Korine, who emerged on the film scene back in 1995 when, barely more than a 20-year-old, he wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark's incendiary Kids. Soon after, Korine himself stepped behind the camera with a couple of depressing small-town America features, Gummo in 1997 and Julien Donkey-Boy in 1999, the latter being the first American film directed under Lars Von Trier's Dogme conventions. Then Korine vanished from the film scene, surfacing only to write the screenplay for Larry Clark's scandalous Ken Park. It took him eight years, and a few odd jobs in music videos and TV, to get around to making his comeback.

Mister Lonely debuted last year at the Cannes Film Festival. It follows a young Michael Jackson impersonator, who's invited by a Marilyn Monroe lookalike to come with her to a Scottish property where she's founded a community of impersonators, with her Charlie Chaplin husband and Shirley Temple daughter. Korine may leave America, but it seems he still craves misfit characters, as the poetic trailer suggests. And since the director has been living in oblivion for many years, distributor IFC Films's strategy of opening Mister Lonely exclusively at the IFC Film Center in New York City will help the film garner good PTA numbers on opening weekend.

With a cinephilic cast that includes Diego Luna, Samantha Morton and directors Werner Herzog and Leos Carax, and an impressive festival run that's taken the film from Cannes to SXSW, with stops at Toronto, London and Sitges, there is enough arthouse power on paper to make the film a decent pick in Ultimate Movie Moguls leagues, where it's cheaply priced at $3. On the other hand, mixed reviews, lukewarm word-of-mouth (the current User rating is only at 5.6 with 700 votes) and Korine haters (there are some) could prevent the film from doing anything meaningful. At best, Mister Lonely will probably only grab a few thousand dollars, a User Rating in the neighborhood of 6 and, with luck, at least one PTA point. Not very exciting indeed.

Harmony Korine is not the only director coming back to making feature films after almost a decade of absence, although Jeremy Podeswa does not benefit from the same reputation. Fugitive Pieces is the Canadian's first film since 1999's The Five Senses, which was also his most renowned work to date. Since then, Podeswa has devoted his career to TV, handling episodes of every kind of series from Queer as Folk to Carnivale, Six Feet Under to Nip/Tuck, or most recently The Tudors.

Fugitive Pieces is no small picture made in the backyard. It's an ambitious Canadian production, based on an acclaimed novel by Anne Michaels that tells the story of a young Polish boy who survived his family's massacre by the Nazis during World War II and found a shelter in an old man's home in Greece. Produced by Robert Lantos, the frequent collaborator of such directors as David Cronenberg and Istvan Szabo, Fugivite Pieces will be a hit-or-miss film, both artisically and commercially. Based on an acclaimed novel telling a strong human story, it is the kind of film that either grandly seduces or strongly disappoints, and the chances are audience word-of-mouth will be better than reviews, which should be very mixed.

If you've seen the trailer, then you'll know that the film has been quite efficiently sold, with a sense of history, emotion, and a strongly European feel in its theme and cast. It's a strong overall pedigree that forges a thematic link to Istvan Szabo's Sunshine, which, in the same cinematic vein, was a masterpiece on its own. As for festival presence, Fugitive Pieces opened the Toronto International Film Festival last September, and won a Best Actor Prize for Rade Serbedzija at the Rome Film Festival a couple of months later.

Samuel Goldwyn Films holds the United States distribution rights. That's a company that often rhymes with ambition or quality, but has had its share of commercial failures, such as Southland Tales or Goya's Ghosts last year. It also recently handled Priceless, 2 Days in Paris and Amazing Grace. So there's no doubt the guys over at Samuel Goldwyn can drive a film to success. Some will say that, for $8 in Ultimate leagues, the price is too high to take such a bet. They'll probably be right, because as much as the film has the potential to bring $6 or 7 million at the box-office, 3 or 4 PTA points and a User Rating above 7, it could also stall before reaching $2 million and never bring any PTA points if the release pattern is not carefully chosen. All you'd be left with then would be a good User Rating. As a filmgoer, however, Fugitive Pieces is sure to end up on my must-see list.

Most of the time, the director and the actors attached to a film are the people whose names excite film lovers the most. Yet there are a few screenwriters that have that same kind of power, at least in the film buff's mind. David Mamet is one of them, making Redbelt, which he wrote and directed, a must-see for many cinephiles. If you're too young to know Mamet as anything but the producer of TV series The Unit, then take a look at his filmography.

Back in the '80s, then playwright David Mamet began to write screenplays. Sometimes great ones, like The Postman Always Ring Twice, The Verdict and The Untouchables. Then more personal ones, as when he turned to directing, with House of Games, Things Change and Homicide. Then there's been, of course his adaptation of his own play, Glengarry Glen Ross, which confirmed his status as one of the very best and most sought after writers in Hollywood. Since then, Mamet has worked steadily, although one has to admit his aura has diminished these last few years. Looking at Redbelt, though, and its mysterious subject, Mamet fans are probably holding their breath, perceiving a slight possibility this one might be a great vintage. It focuses on a martial-arts instructor, portrayed by British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who centers his life on honor, respect and refusal of competition, until debts and a job in the film business lead him to break his rules.

If, on paper, the whole martial arts/Hollywood mixup is not exactly enticing, the trailer, and first echoes, tend to imply that there is much more than meets the eye here, as usual for a Mamet script. A string of interconnecting characters, a fog of mystery and complications. Of course there's still the awkward presence of Tim Allen in the cast, in a sure-to-be against-the-type role, but, who knows, maybe the Wild Hogs actor will turn out fantastic. Don't forget Mamet's bold and intelligent choice to cast Steve Martin as a cold and mysterious bad guy in The Spanish Prisoner, in my opinion Mamet's best film to date. Rounding out the cast are a new girl, the equisite Emily Mortimer, and a bunch of Mamet regulars, Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, David Paymer and Rebecca Pidgeon (Mrs. Mamet)

If  reviews confirm the appeal of the film, Sony Pictures Classics could orchestrate a successful release, helped by a launch a few days earlier at the Tribeca Film Festival. But even so, Redbelt will have to be very successful to prove itself worthy of being put on your Fantasy Moguls slates. The R-rated drama will cost you $12 in Ultimate Leagues, which is expensive. It will have to bring considerably more than the Fantasy Moguls predictions ($5 million, five PTA points and a 7.1 User Rating), maybe twice those numbers (except for the User Rating of course), which should prove to be very unlikely to happen. In Box Office Moguls leagues, it could be an interesting $2 pick if Sony successfully expands the release.

The price issue is the same with this week's last film, Son of Rambow. The equation of the problematic is slightly different though. If there is one thing we know about this film, it's that it will have great word-of-mouth and become a crowd pleaser, whether on a small or large scale. It already has an 8.1 User Rating, with more than 800 votes. People who've see Son of Rambow love it, going all the way back to January 2007 in Park City, Utah. British director Garth Jennings was at the Sundance Film Festival to present his second outing as a feature film director, a couple of years after taking on the huge challenge of making his first film out of the big-screen version of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After the wacky space adventure, Jennings took a nostalgic dip into childhood with Son of Rambow, in which a couple of 1980s boys decide to make a film on their own in their countryside after watching First Blood.

Audience response at Sundance was enthusiastic (the reviews were more grounded), prompting Paramount Vantage to buy the film for a hefty $8 million. While everyone expected Son of Rambow to be released soon after that Sundance success, everyone waited ... and waited ... and waited. Did the guys over at Paramount Vantage regret their purchase? Did they hesitate as to what release strategy to apply? Whatever the reason, the film kept being bumped off the calendar, until May 2, 2008, almost 18 months after the Sundance premiere.

Released a couple of weeks ago in the United Kingdom, Son of Rambow has been successful so far, with great word-of-mouth and only minimal dips in ticket sales from one weekend to the next. It's still unclear at this point in time whether Paramount Vantage is going to launch the film in less than 10 theaters, or in a hundred. Because of that uncertainty, the price tag, and the lack of any name that could attract audiences behind or in front of the camera, it's hard to advise you to grab Son of Rambow. It could go much higher than Fantasy Moguls's predictions. It could grab up to $10 million and 8 PTA points. But that is a best-case scenario. Son of Rambow may have what it takes to be worth the $12, but the risk is great. It could be a nice grabber for $2 in Box Office leagues, though.

Am I being too pessimistic lately? I'm in desperate need of optimism it seems, in desperate need of an arthouse film that will offer lots of potential for an interesting price. Does such a pearl exist? Will it be found in next week's column, taking a look at the American drama Noise and foreign flicks Padre Nuestro and Reprise? We'll talk about it then. In the meantime, the Johnnie To homage is over at the French Cinematheque. Sigh. Goodbye Hong Kong cops, goodbye Hong Kong gangsters, goodbye Hong Kong cuties. (Helas! Gong Li plays in mainland China films, she was nowhere to be seen.) The good news is I'm seeing Sergei Bodrov's Mongol this weekend! Au revoir!

Indie Jones knows that ABC means Always Be Closing. And his watch cost more than your car. And he made $970,000 last year. How much did you make? If you can't take the abuse, then leave ... or maybe send e-mail to danceswiththearthouse@gmail.com.