It's my favorite time in the movie year. Like a baseball fan on March 30, when your team still is undefeated and might win the pennant this year, I look forward to annual predictions of each summer's hits and misses on the silver screen. While some will rise from the smallest niches and take their place by surprise, most summer movies seem to be birthed from a collaboration of A-listers or top-notch stories that we've read over the last few years of New York Times bestsellers. Sprinkle in a few remakes and sequels, and you're bound to find something to entertain you and keep you cool this summer.

So just for kicks, I've made it my business to have my own list for the last few years, and settled on a "dirty dozen" for your perusal, consideration and, hopefully, argument. So, consider the list and then chime in with how I've gotten it all right (hardly) or dreadfully wrong (strong possibility!) You'll have to excuse me, but action figure stardom (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra), random science fiction (District 9) and remakes of Defiance (Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds) need not apply.

12. Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife (August 14) seems to have the right amount of tension to make a decent flick. It's like The Fountain (Hugh Jackman appears later on this list) except this time a time traveler doesn't stay put with the woman who loves him but instead bounces all over the timeline. Once again, we'll be challenged to chase true love or love the one you're with, this time with Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana.

11. The Taking of Pelham 123 (June 12!) stars Denzel Washington as a subway worker and John Travolta as the hostage-taking, ransom-making gunman in the remake of the 1970s movie of the same name. Star power and standoffs seem to have worked pretty well lately; both actors have been off the radar (for the most part) since 2006-07. The Falling Down-type breakdown and violence that follows provides the opportunity for heroes, but in a world-gone-crazy economically, it bears watching on screen how that tension often hurts more than it heals, no matter what the ransom is.

10. The Ugly Truth (July 24) beat out The Proposal (June 19) for the romantic comedy spot on my list (it's the plot, not that Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler beat out Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds). Ugly Truth seems to have the Someone Like You-How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days bite to it, but the verdict might switch the two by the end of the summer. For the time being, I'll take It folks Heigl and Butler as the winners in this winner take love battle on the set of a morning news show, with enough to entertain the men dragged to the theater by their wives/girlfriends.

9. Terminator: Salvation (May 21) pays homage to the movie trilogy and shows, but takes place in the future (like a prequel, only much much later.) Shining a light in the dark world where computers have taken over, this apocalyptic vision of the future has plenty of social commentary to spread around, not including Christian Bale's Youtube-famous tirade. In his role as John Connor, Bale attempted to reboot a second franchise (Batman) and make believers out of a new generation of neophytes who know that idol worship of technology only abdicates our responsibility. Check out my review.

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