As the sun begins to set on another summer, the big screen will soon light up, as studios parade their "prestige pictures" in time for Oscar consideration.

Late August and early September are typically the dumping grounds for producers, here are a few cinematic distractions to pass the time:

The Lifetime Movie Game. You don’t want to see Joanna Kerns, Donna Mills and Meredith Baxter-Birney peddling cosmetics on the Home Shopping Network, now do you?

Well, maybe you do, but you, too, have a chance to keep their movie careers in stride by providing your own "female in jeopardy" flick online at the Lifetime site (www.lifetimetv.com/ movies/games/). Your role as writer is to create a new scenario to punish these poor damsels, and an opportunity for them to find Harlequin-esque romance by the story’s end, just by filling in a few blanks. Think of it as "Mad Libs" for the battered housewife. Here’s a little sample:

A "Smelly" Vision

A small-town "trash truck driver" begins experiencing psychic connections to a string of "obtuse" homicides. When she reluctantly confides in the police she is dismissed as being "wretched." A rookie "pig farmer" senses her earnestness and strikes up an "itchy" relationship. His love and protection can’t prevent the scared woman from becoming a "sassy" victim of her own violent visions when she’s entrapped by the psychopath responsible for the killings.

Filmscape.com also has a host of games to channel your inner movie mogul (www.filmscape.co.uk/games/).

Test you wits and movie knowledge with our Movie Mogul Trivia Quiz.

Answer questions covering actors, directors, titles, the Oscars, taglines, quotes, and plots.

All questions are multiple choice and are randomly selected from a frequently updated database. But be prepared, things can get rather tough. For example, if you do not know what the "H" stands for in William H. Macy’s name, you will be met with a curt "Stop Wasting My Time!"

Here are the rules:

• Controls: Use keys A,B,C... for answer options A,B,C.

• Scoring system: 1 point for correct answers and -1 point for incorrect answers.

• You have 10 seconds to answer a question.

• Single or multiplayer modes available (up to 4 people—20 secs per Q)

• Chose from 5 game options.

• The skill level of the questions range from easy to difficult.

The site also contains an online "Movie Hangman," "Word Search" and "Jumble" to further test your knowledge.

For a totally trippy experience, visit Filmwise.com’s famous "Invisibles" game (www.filmwise.com/invisibles/index.shtml), where famous scenes from beloved (and despised) flicks have been erased of their actor’s heads and body parts.

The successful series of stills has now reached 191 compilations, enough to keep buffs occupied until Halle Berry delivers her Best Actress Oscar speech for Catwoman.

Feeling hungry? Head over to Moovees.com and play the site’s "Save the Cows: Movie Hangman (www.moovees.com/features/savethecows/). The game is rather simple: Using the typical hangman setup, predict the title of the movie before all of the cows are killed.

If you think you can get a lot from a little, mosey over to Cool Quiz’s Movie Trivia game (www.coolquiz.com/quizzes/movies/index.asp). The site tosses out tidbits from famous flicks as you venture to guess from a multiple choice group of answers. Questions range from numbingly easy "Who left her parents in Irreconcilable Difference?" to the more obscure "You’re my number 1 customer, you’re my number 1 customer!" (from Ah-nuld bellyflop Jingle All the Way.)

Fancy yourself a cineaste of cinematic sludge? Take a stab at the "B-Movie Quiz" at Oh! The Humanity.(www.ohthehumanity.com/quiz.html). Very little is taken seriously at the site, except for their passion for the putrid. At the site, you can test your prowess on pictures featuring such B-film cinematic staples as barbarians, robots, monkeys and sequels.

And finally, for those whose video libraries are costlier than their cars, there is the Huge Movie Quiz (www.hugemoviequiz.com/). The site offers a myriad of movie madness, separated by decades, quotes, inauspicious debuts, even beefcake and baby pictures of celebrities.

Participants use on online keyboard to provide their response. A sample question features famous first and last lines of films, such as: "I know how you feel. You don’t know if you want to hit me or kiss me. I get a lot of that."