Obscure Michael Jackson homages

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and now Michael Jackson. In one week it's like an entire issue of "National Enquirer" has been wiped out.

I was never a big fan of Jackson's music, but I certainly respected his impact on Pop Culture. How could you not? Not only are there an overwhelming number of references in the mainstream media, but  he makes appearances in the most obscure independent and foreign movies.

For example, Harmony Korine's "Mister Lonely," which came out last year and stars Diego Luna as an incompetent Michael Jackson impersonator. He finds refuge in an isolated community of other bad celebrity impersonators and, well, it sounds a lot more amusing than it is, though Werner Herzog is quite entertaining as a deranged priest in a wildly disconnected subplot.

Further afield in Estonia, there is Veiko Õunpuu's "Autumn Ball" (2007), in which, apropos of nothing, a bellman in a cheap Tallinn hotel breaks into a nearly silent version of Jackson's "Beat It," and is ignored. This film is one of the more hilarious black comedies I've seen in recent years and maybe the impetus of Jackson's death might give it wider distribution, but I doubt it.

And heading to Moravia, there is Bohdan Sláma's "Wild Bees" (2001), which takes place in a backward village where one of the benighted characters earns scorn as he tries to perfect his Moonwalk.

Then there's a Chinese movie in which a character wears a single glove in homage to the King of Pop, but I can't remember the title.

So, as you can see, Jacko will be missed, but only if you bury yourself in a bomb shelter for the next week or two and avoid any and all media contact.