courtesy of IFC Films

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Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin are locked in a love triangle. Abe Lincoln and the pope want to stage a show, and Buckwheat the Little Rascal keeps going on about how chicken breasts make him "hot and sweaty."

They're all impersonators living together in a Scottish commune in "Mister Lonely," a movie that occasionally switches the channel to an unrelated show about skydiving nuns.

Welcome to the twisted mind of indie flameout Harmony Korine.

"Mister Lonely" is an occasionally charming waste of time with characters who aren't funny enough to earn laughs or pathetic enough to draw sympathy. Korine eschews narrative and assumes that the endless quirkiness of his writing and cinematography will keep your attention. The film, more ant farm than movie, seems like a lazy effort from a talent who has lost his edge.

Korine, the 35-year-old filmmaker who burst upon the 1990s indie scene by writing the screenplay for "Kids" and directing "Gummo," continues to squander his promise and sink deeper into obscurity.

"Mister Lonely" is a half-cocked mess, but every so often it sets its phasers to stun. Take an early sequence in which a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) dances on the street in Paris, emulating the abdicated King of Pop's crotch grabs, squeals and moonwalks, making his own sound effects as passers-by ignore him.

The brief sequence could make an award-winning short film. The same goes for a luminescent scene in which a nun falls out of a cargo plane while dropping food for the needy, then regains her composure and prays for God to save her before she hits the ground.

If you take out the great stuff, you're left with more than 90 minutes of drudgery. But if you've ever wanted to watch Jacko engage the Tramp in a heated ping-pong match, this is your lucky day.

Korine misses opportunities to delve inside the psyche of these human chameleons and squanders the potential laughs in poking fun at the imitated icons' personas. All the acting is way too even-keel, like what you'd expect in a film about surf bums.

"Mister Lonely" is a loathsome, lonesome experience, and an all-too-apparent sign that a filmmaker has lost his artistic harmony.