Best way to forget July is boiling you
Yes, the summer is too short in New England, and yes, you should be outside reveling in nature. But when it's 90 degrees with the kind of humidity that suggests underwater breathing, who really cares about nature if there's air conditioning to be had? Our favorite climate-controlled adventure is the Museum of Fine Arts' annual French Film Festival. Spanning nearly the entire month of July, the festival offers daylong smorgasbords of films by noted directors like Catherine Breillat and Patrice Leconte, and starring icons like Isabelle Huppert and Daniel Auteuil, as well as artists you've never heard of (yet). Some great films (like See How They Run) will otherwise get no American distribution, while others (such as Intimate Strangers) will get wide release - though, when they do, you get to boast you saw them first. Over the past few years, the slate has included some clunkers (like Grand école), but that only proves that the French occasionally make a bad film too. As long as it's cool in the theater, we'll deal.

French Film Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, (617) 267-9300; www.mfa.org.