For the most part it’s a humdrum week for DVD releases, but there is one bright, shiny film that you could well be hearing a lot more about come awards season. That would be The Visitor, from Overature, a relatively new production company affiliated with Starz. In addition, there are a few others worth a glance. Here’s the rundown:

Rent it: The Visitor-- In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his directorial debut of The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (“Six Feet Under”, Burn After Reading) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor who travels to New York for a conference and discovers a couple of homeless, illegal aliens are living there. What happens next is infinitely surprising, and even more touching. The tagline is: “In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life.” This film is a wonderful surprise. It’s rated PG-13.

Rent it: The Happening-- Very few people saw this film in theaters, which is fine – sometimes its best to see a scary movie in the privacy of your own home. In The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan returns to what he does best: exploring and drawing tension from the silent enemy that could very well be walking among us. Mark Wahlberg plays a Philadelphia science teacher who tries to get out of Dodge as people in New York City start brutally killing themselves. He leaves with his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and his best friend (John Leguizamo), who has his young daughter in tow. They attempt to save as many people as they possibly can while they flee the Northeast, where the “situation” seems concentrated. This is Shyamalan’s first R-rated film.

Skip it: You Don’t Mess with the Zohan—Adam Sandler plays the title character, a super agent who is tired of fighting terrorism and defending his country. What he really wants to do is hair, making everyone’s “silky-smooth.” So he fakes his death and moves to New York, where he carves a niche servicing senior citizens — and styling their hair as well. It’s an equal opportunity offender--no ethnic group is safe from barbs in this collaboration between recently crowned king of comedy Judd Apatow and Sandler. It’s rated R.