These films do not have armored flying men, extreme car racers, talking lions or fedora-wearing archaeologists. They do, however, still aspire to be scary, funny, moving, or epic. Not all at once, of course, because not all films are as rich as The Host. (Don't thank me for still trying to promote your masterpiece, Joon-Ho Bong, more than a year after it disappeared from theaters!). Who knows, though, there could be some surprises. I mean, I swear I just lip-read Clint Eastwood saying, "I read your column every week Indie Jones," just a few minutes ago on TV while the man was walking the Cannes red carpet. Or maybe he was just asking Angelina if she had seen the new Indy Jones movie. Now that I think about it, that must be it. I'm disappointed ...

Let's forget about Clint and Cannes, and concentrate on Dario Argento. Last week I talked about Stuart Gordon and his reputation among horror fans. What should I say, then, about Argento, who releases his latest film, Mother of Tears, on June 6? The director is one of the most renowned European horror filmmakers, having brought us such classics as The Cat O' Nine Tails, Suspiria and Phenomena, to name just a few. Now, it would be lying to say that Argento is still at the top of his fame and cinephilic influence today, but, nonetheless, the Italian filmmaker has a strong reputation among film buffs and genre aficionados. (After all, he even got Oscar winner Adrien Brody to play the lead in his next film, the currently shooting Giallo.)

Mother of Tears (La Terza Madre, "The Third Mother," is the original title) follows Sarah, a student in Rome who must fight evil forces after she opens an ancient urn hiding the power of the last great (and, of course, dangerous) witch. The lead is portrayed by none other than the director's daughter herself, Asia Argento, who had not acted in one of her father's films since The Phantom of the Opera in 1998. Since then the actress has made a name for herself with her sometimes arty, sometimes trashy, but usually interesting in her career choices (Abel Ferrara, George Romero, Sofia Coppola and many others have directed her).

The prospect of seeing an Argento family collaboration with a theme full of chills and fantasy will no doubt attract a gaggle of curious filmgoers. When you take a close look and notice that the film should open in fewer than 10 theaters, that $4 price tag in May/July Ultimate Movie Moguls Leagues is either really tempting or clearly suspicious. I guess it's a bit of both, since the buzz around the film is undeniably mixed, with many observers underlining its cheesiness. The other (and perhaps bigger) concern derives from the relative inexperience of distributor Mitropoulos Films, which has a very short track record. Mitropoulos's last film was He Was a Quiet Man, which had a very quiet release, indeed. So even with a cheap price tag, Mother of Tears might not bring you much of value on such a crowded weekend, except for a respectable User Rating (by horror standards) of around 6.

I don't know whether Argento's film will be scary, but what I know even less is whether The Promotion will be funny. Back when the movie went into production, when the pitch was announced and the cast put together, The Promotion probably looked like a future winner. John C. Reilly and Seann William Scott playing two assistant managers of a corporate grocery store getting into an intense rivalry to land a coveted promotion — not a bad pitch. Back when it was filmed, during the summer of 2006, Reilly was fresh off the huge success of Talladega Nights, and crafting a comedic duet for him and Scott, at ease with the buddy movie thanks to The Rundown and Bulletproof Monk, probably wouldn't have seemed at all like a bad idea.

It took two years for the film to be released by Dimension Films, however, after the long streak of misses by The Weinstein Company, and now the subject of the film seems a bit flat and the cast is not as hot as it was two years ago. Reilly bombed in Walk Hard and Seann William Scott was a double central character in Richard Kelly's catastrophe movie (both thematically and by box-office standards) Southland Tales (to say nothing of his being roundly upstaged by Billy Bob Thornton in the commercially underwhelming Mr. Woodcock). Releasing The Promotion in the thick of summer feels more like an attempt by its distributor to dump it, than an attempt to find a low-key niche. What also does not help is that the trailer (available, like the poster, very late in the promotional process) is not particularly funny for an R-rated comedy.

Another possible explanation for the distributor's hesitation is the film's creator, writer/director Steve Conrad. Conrad is not a specialist who has written lots of laugh-out-loud comedies. He has, on the other hand, written two scripts that hint that The Promotion may not be the gut-busting comedy we'd all expect, but instead something more socially anchored, a dramedy tainted with bitterness. Conrad's last two screenplays were The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness, the latter being a huge Will Smith success, and the former a particularly underrated film starring Nicolas Cage. Now, if you look at the trailer of The Promotion bearing Conrad's resume in mind, then you may feel that, in fact, this might be much more than a failed comedy, which is essentially all that Variety and The Hollywood Reporter could find to say about it.

Will audiences disagree with the trades once the films opens? Probably not. So, all in all, The Promotion will feels like an iffy bet to hit its Fantasy Moguls marks, which are less than $5 million at the box office, no PTA points and a decent User Rating in the mid-6s. The Ultimate Movie Moguls price tag is a severely overpriced $7 ... and it's becoming hard to imagine anyone benefitting much by having this film on a Box Office Moguls slate.

Do you remember me mentioning a few weeks ago, upon the release of Then She Found Me, how popular Colin Firth is with the ladies? Well, June 6 will offer another occasion to test that theory, as the actor stars in When Did You Last See Your Father?, a British melodrama about a man who, during his father's final days, examines his memories with the old man.

Try and release in the United States a British film phenomenon, a la Run, Fat Boy, Run or Mr Bean's Holiday, and, more often than not, you'll probably notice a dearth of filmgoers in theaters. Fewer than you'd see in Europe, at any rate. Sony Classics, though, doesn't quite have such a film on its hand, as When Did You Last See Your Father? did not break box-office records in the United Kingdon and should only open in New York City and Los Angeles on opening weekend. What they do have is a film that can attract the ladies (remember that heartbreaker Colin Firth) and that could also connect with a lot of men who may be drawn to the father/son storyline.

The film is directed by Arnand Tucker, most famous for turning Steve Martin's Shopgirl into a film a few years ago, and features, in the role of the father, Bridget Jones's dad, Harry Zidler himself, Jim Broadbent (who's also currently at every multiplex on the planet in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). So, even though reviews should be mixed, as is often the case when you deal with melodramas, the film has the chops to bring more value to your slates than Fantasy Moguls predicts. I'd say it could very well grab 3 PTA points and a User Rating around 7, plus four or five million dollars. Still, in the end, Fantasy Moguls's asking price of $9 in Ultimate, is probably a bit high relative to the film's potential.

Now, in the same price range as When Did You Last See Your Father? (the exact same price actually), I'd be much more tempted to take a chance on Mongol, which I've been high about for a few months now. This Genghis Khan-driven film has some very intriguing qualities from a Fantasy Moguls point of view.

First of all, it is a foreign film. You've all noticed how well those can perform in the PTA category. Secondly, it's not just any foreign film, it is the Academy Award-nominated new feature by revered Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov, who in the past has collected many prestigious prizes for films like Prisoner of the Mountain and Bear's Kiss. The Oscar/foreign/Bodrov connection alone could guarantee the film an interesting arthouse exposure, but the intrigue doesn't stop here. Because then you have the film itself, an epic tale of the young years of a nomad who would enter the annals history as its most prolific conqueror. With an empire that stretched across the breadth of Asia, Genghis Khan is the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. Mongol is a film that could satisfy the hard-to-please film buff looking for foreign sophistication AND the fanboy eager to see an adventure more authentic than the usual forgettable Hollywood crap.

Conceived as the first part of a trilogy by Bodrov, Mongol is not the caricature of an action epic. It is a human story preferring a slow-paced narration with the occasional fulgurant burst of action and violence, an authentic portrait of a man, being entirely shot in the Mongol language with Asian actors. Temudjin, the hero destined to become Genghis Khan, is played by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, seen in Ichi the Killer and Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi. Other actors are mostly Chinese, like Sun Hong Lei, seen in Seven Swords and Triangle.

No need to point out that Mongol's reputation is excellent (7.5 User Rating with more than 1,800 votes) and reviews will be on par with the word of mouth. The only concern I have with the film is that it is being distributed in the United States by Picturehouse, which, as you probably know, is about to disappear following the integration of New Line into Warner Bros. (Which also shuts down Warner Independent Pictures.) Will Picturehouse's demise affect the mini-studio's last films to be released? Let's hope not, because Mongol clearly has the potential to be an arthouse hit, able to collect 6 or 7 PTA points and $3 million-$4 million dollars, in addition to the fantastic 7.5 UR. The film is rated R and should open in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

That closes our week. Next will be much lighter in terms of limited releases, so I'll probably take advantage of that to make a Cannes special column, reporting on all of the results and, most importantly, all of the films that created a buzz. Now you're free to go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Again?) Go on, get moving, or you'll miss the previews!

Indie Jones is available if Harrison Ford and/or Shia LaBeouf don't get back with the gang about that fifth Indiana Jones movie George Lucas has been mentioning. Come on, look at his picture, he'd be perfect! Of course it's an actual photo. Offer to shoot his screen test by writing to danceswiththearthouse@gmail.com.