In the most watchable of his unwatchable movies, "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy" auteur Harmony Korine sends a Mexican Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna who, true to his name, can moonwalk with the best of them) from his alienated life as a Paris street performer to a remote Scottish commune made up of other mimics ... Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton), Abe Lincoln, the pope, etc.

While the residents aren't exactly committed to staying in character at all times, we never learn their real names nor much about who they really are, either; a halfhearted romantic triangle among Michael, Marilyn and Charlie Chaplin is about as illuminating as it gets.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Latin America, nuns are making like Sally Field, jumping out of airplanes with no parachutes. Korine is saying something about the comfort and cost of delusion here. But despite a few lyrical moments, his film is overridingly precious and its realizations, rather than commenting in any real way on a celebrity-obsessed culture, just seem puerile. This is especially disappointing because before he took up directing off-putting films, Korine wrote that incisive study of wayward '90s youth, "Kids."

Compared to that, this faux naive whimsy could be called "Are You Kidding?" With Werner Herzog as a drunken priest.

>Bob Strauss