DVD picks

Flying drunks, celebrity impersonators and Narnia

The way I see it, Will Smith owes me two hours of my life back after making "Independence Day" in 1996, a movie I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. So every summer, like millions of others, I dutifully consume the next Will Smith blockbuster. I figure he can pay me back in installments.

"Hancock," the latest from the Will Smith July tent pole machine, earns back -- oh, I'll give him about a half-hour, on balance. The story of a down-and-out, depressed, hard-drinking superhero, "Hancock" delivers the goods we've come to expect from Smith's popcorn movies.

If you've seen the trailers, you already know the gist. The film considers how it would work if someone really were more powerful than a locomotive, etc., and addresses some of the associated public relations and physics dilemmas. (Hancock flies, and lands, more or less like a meteor.) The movie wins most of its points with great action scenes, truly awe-inspiring stunt work and the big movie star charisma of its leads -- Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman.

That's right, Jason Bateman, the understated and always reliable ensemble actor most recently of "Arrested Development" and "Juno" fame. I'm calling it right now: Bateman is big-time Leading Man material and will be headlining his own films within a few years. Here, he goes toe-to-toe-to-toe with the nuclear charisma reactors that are Theron and Smith, and he does an amazing thing. He holds his own with humor and charm and makes his co-stars shine even brighter.

The DVD making-of extras on the single-disc release are standard issue, with cast and crew all confirming how brilliant and nice everyone is. (Just once I'd like to see this code of mutual admiration broken -- "Bateman? That clown? He's got community theater written all over him.") But in this case, it does seem true that the cast all clicked with one another, and that spirit shines through. The extras also detail the frankly insane stunt work in some key scenes.

So let's see. On the Will Smith Summer Blockbuster-O-Meter, "Hancock" rates: Better than "I, Robot." Not as good as "Men in Black." Better than "I Am Legend." Not as good as "Enemy of the State." And better, goodness knows, than "Independence Day."

On the other end of the Hollywood distribution scale is Harmony Korine's "Mister Lonely," a low-key, surreal indie you might have to dig for at the local rental store. (Netflix and Blockbuster have it online.) One of the great delights of DVD is coming across little gems like this. The film played festivals worldwide but didn't make it to many theaters in the U.S.

Plot synopsis, such as it is: A Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna, "Nicotina") meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton, "Minority Report") in Paris and follows her to an artists commune on the highlands of Scotland. There, a surrogate family of other celebrity impersonators (Charlie Chaplin, Buckwheat, Abe Lincoln, all the Three Stooges) raise sheep and mount community theater productions. Also, in an unrelated storyline, documentary director Werner Herzog ("Grizzly Man") and some nuns skydive without parachutes to demonstrate the existence of miracles.

I know. Trippy. "Mister Lonely" is a prime specimen of what has long been known as the art house film. So arty, in fact, that it never made it to the houses. But it's a beautiful little movie, strange and sincere. Director Korine has a sterling artiste pedigree, having directed "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy" and written the screenplay for the controversial "Kids" at age 18. But here he finds a real depth of feeling among his peculiar tableaus. Several sequences have a very powerful, almost hypnotic effect.