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Canadian writer/director Reginald Harkema sure loves the 60s. His last feature was the Canuck cult flick Monkey Warfare, which starred Don McKellar and Tracy Wright as a pair of slacker wannabe Abbie Hoffmans struggling to find the energy to start a revolution. His follow-up is Leslie, My Name Is Evil, an examination of the American culture war in the late 60s and early 70s. The film features the pitch black comedy and French New Wave inspired style that has defined Harkema’s previous movies, as well as a few nagging problems that continue to hamper the filmmaker.

Leslie, My Name Is Evil focuses on two primary protagonists. There’s Leslie Von Houten (one of the imprisoned Manson girls) and the fictional character of Perry, a boy from a conservative background who starts to question his values while sitting on the jury for the infamous Charlie Manson trial. Perry is a funny comic creation played with deadpan wit by Gregory Smith. He’s raised by a father who lives for 50s family values and Richard Nixon, the kind of guy who actually wants his child to fight in Vietnam.

Instead, Perry dodges the draft to become a chemist. In his spare time, he pursues a wearisome relationship with Leslie, a pre-feminist idealist who gladly tells Perry “I love you, but I love Jesus more”. Thank goodness for physical chemistry.

As a result of his upbringing and his romance, Perry’s rebellious leanings and sexual frustration mirror the troubled times of conservative American youth. He appreciates the Cultural Revolution that is exploding around him and longs to be a part of it, but is reluctant to stray too far from the path to conformity.

Leslie is another creation all together. After growing up in a broken home and briefly losing herself in drugs and free love, Leslie ends up joining the Manson family. Given that this is a convicted murderer, Harkema and the gorgeous Kristen Hager present the character as empathetic and strangely relatable.

The audience is forced to care for Leslie and understand her plight. The film doesn’t try to justify the murder, but some audiences will be put off by how pleasantly the character is portrayed. She’s a beautiful cheerleader who sadly lost her way. Perry seems to fall in love with Leslie during the trial. The conflicting emotions cause him to question the values he’s been raised to believe and his desire to set the girl free might just cause him to change his ways.

Of course, Reginald Harkema is far too cynical for that to be the case. While his movie might seem to be about the Manson trial, it’s primarily about the culture war going on in America. His film condemns the conservatives who came down on the Manson family so harshly while ignoring the fact that the violence their government was enforcing in Vietnam was even worse.

It’s an interesting point, but a little clumsily executed. Consistent tone is always problem for Harkema and it’s never clear whether he wants this movie to be a comedy or a tragedy. That conflict might be deliberate, but it makes for a frustrating viewing experience. It doesn’t prevent Leslie, My Name Is Evil from being a compelling and intriguing movie, but a more focused screenplay could have led to a black comedy classic.

Very much in line with what I imagine to be the Platonic form for “chick flick,” Letters to Juliet is a formulaic love story, another of many gleaning from the original success of the Romeo and Juliet romance.

I will admit, I really didn’t want to like the movie. The first portion of the story follows Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), an American fact checker at the New Yorker who really just wants to be writing, instead - if only she had the courage to speak up for herself at the office!

But there’s more: Sophie is engaged to Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), a selfish food-and-wine-obsessed chef who means well, but whose love for the art of cooking seemingly outweighs his love for Sophie, or rather his investment in the restaurant seemingly outweighs his investment in the relationship. We kind of smell relationship trouble right away, but it smells like delicious pasta with truffle shavings on top, so we kind of don’t really mind.

Anyway, the two embark on a pre-wedding honeymoon because after they wed, Victor will open his new restaurant, and they simply won’t have time. The destination: fair Verona.

The sprawling Italian country side, coupled with Verona’s stunning cityscapes, really do elevate an otherwise cliché love story, proving that perhaps the real eye candy here is Italy itself.

But back to the characters: While off doing their own separate tourist things, Sophie goes to visit the supposed house of Juliet, where thousands of heart broken girls from all over the world gather to beg love advice from the Capulet’s spirit, slipping their notes into the cracks of the balconied house as though it were Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall. These letters are then collected and answered by a group of Italian women who call themselves the Secretaries of Juliet.

Sophie soon finds herself accompanying an elderly woman (Vanessa Redgrave), and her handsome grandson, on a hopelessly romantic quest for true love, and getting a really great story out of it in the process.

I won’t spoil anything for you (I don’t want to give away any uncharacteristic plot twists…) but Sophie ultimately discovers far more in Italy than she initially intended.

Though admittedly cynical about the film for the entire first half, by the end I found myself getting slightly more emotionally invested in the characters than I had anticipated, or hoped to. But then Taylor Swift’s “Romeo and Juliet” invaded the soundtrack, as if the movie itself weren’t reference enough, and I’m not going to lie, it kind of pulled me right back out of it.

But that’s ok. I wasn’t planning on becoming so engrossed in the first place.

This month's DVD release of “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” will take you through magic mirrors and nail-biting deals with the devil.

The film opens with an old carnival wagon rumbling along the cobble stones of a modern-day London street. The wagon stops, folds out, and with a dazzling display of mirrors, ruffles and light, we are first introduced to Dr. Parnassus' Imaginarium. Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a thousand year- old man, sits cross-legged and still as the rest of the theater group tries to lure city folk to step right up. Doctor Parnassus' young daughter, Valentina does most of the luring with her young beauty and oval face. Anton (Andrew Garfield) gawks at the crowd, inviting people to enter a magical mirror that's on stage. Percy (Vern Troyer), the final member of the group, is a midget who assists Parnassus and acts as his right-hand man.

The unfortunate setback of Heath Ledger's death during filming forced Terry Gilliam's dream of a simple film to turn into a plot which is much more complex.  As a result, it is not until about half an hour into the film that we meet Tony (Heath Ledger), a fugitive from justice who leaves only vague hints that he is running from his past crimes dealing with charity fraud. Tony befriends the four-man theater group, but he carries a mysterious attitude and is surprisingly adept at luring city folk into the Imaginarium. As Valentina begins fawning over the new groupie, Anton becomes jealous and the plot thickens. We find out that Parnassus is wishing the days would go slower as he is reminded by Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) of the deal the two of them made ages ago. Parnassus had vowed to gain immortality and also give his daughter to the devil on the day she turned 16 in exchange for his true love to be set free.

Tony's ability to captivate crowds puts the Imaginirum in high desire amongst city dwellers. The temptation to escape reality by stepping through a mirror into your imagination was bringing in a long overdue source of revenue for the carnival wagon. The mirror is not all that it seemed, but rather it's a moral conflict between the devil's deal with Doctor Parnassus.

As the mysterious Tony enters the Imaginarium, his story begins to unravel. His alter egos (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell) developing on different aspects of his life and through visionary images we start to see his side of the story.

Tony and Valentina decide to escape together and stepped through the mirror into bliss. But this final scene in the Imaginarium becomes a hodgepodge of confusion. We discover that Anton has also entered the Imaginarium, and Doctor Parnassus and Mr. Nick were also there. It's an exciting sequence with lots going on combining the imaginations of each person who entered into the magical mirror.

The DVD includes a two disk package including the film and loads of bonus features. Grouped with an introduction from Terry Gillium himself, you can also find “Deleted Scenes”, “Heath Ledger Wardrobe Test” each with optional commentary by Gillium. Other notable features include “Behind the Mirror” and an interview with “Heath Ledger” discussing the film and his character, Tony.

The film can be a bit much to take in at points, but overall it's quite captivating and very pretty to look at. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is an extravaganza of dazzle, decor, mystery and, inevitably, imagination.

Kick Ass might not be the most notable comic book-turned-action movie of the past few years, but it just might be the most irrepressible quiet guy-turned-superhero movie to ever splatter itself against the silver screen.

Arriving in theaters with very relatively little fanfare, outside of the mouth-breathing geek community, Kick Ass delivers on its prescient title. For filmgoers who have a fondness for fast-paced fisticuffs that laugh their way towards lovingly ludicrous conclusions, then this movie promises not to disappoint. After all, it’s not every day that a movie features a preteen girl who drops the c-bomb before graphically dismembering a room full of drug dealers.

Hooray for cinematic progress.

Based on the cult comic by Mark Millar, the film provides a twist on the traditional superhero mythology. We’re introduced to a lonely high school loser, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), who spends the opening minutes wondering why no one has ever tried to be a costumed vigilante in real life.

He soon learns a valuable life lesson—the simple act of wearing spandex and carrying a stick does not stop a gang of thugs from hospitalizing you.

Some metal plated bones, and a couple of damaged nerve endings later, Dave emerges from his painful road to recovery with a virtually limitless pain threshold. So Dave does what any self-respecting self-destructive teenager would do—he adopts a pseudonym and drops himself in the middle of the action.

Thus, hero Kick-Ass is born.

Alright, so he can’t fight any better than before. But what he can do is take a beating. His entire plan is to essentially let his opponent punch themselves in submission. This goes on for a little while until some bystander uploads cell phone video of one of Dave’s “victories”, and he becomes an internet sensation. Soon his image is spun off into comic books and his reputation is spun on by eager reporters.

All of a sudden, Kick-Ass becomes a notable name.

But as all famous costumed vigilantes do, Kick-Ass eventually finds himself targeted by a local crime boss who believes that heroes are bad for business. Fortunately, Kick-Ass is not alone in the crime-fighting department. Other heroes begin to emerge on the scene. Take for instance the scorned policeman who dresses up as Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and his assassin-slash-preteen daughter, Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz).

With a cast of characters in place, Kick-Ass shifts into overdrive, delivering thrills to top most superhero fare, while mocking the genre with a collection of would-be heroes driven to fight crime through a combination of sheer insanity and hilarious delusion.

Far from his brooding Young Lennon role in the forthcoming biopic Nowhere Boy, Johnson scores big laughs, bigger thrills, and confirms his status as one of the most promising actors around. Meanwhile, Cage, who is fresh off a string of regrettable movies, delivers an oddly touching performance as the protective paternal figure of Big Daddy. But truth be told, the film is stolen by Moretz and her potty-mouthed portrayal of a pint-sized assassin. It’s an instantly iconic role that is sure to inspire sequels, if the film is successful.

By the way, the film is going to be successful.