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40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS That ultimate genre of ill repute, the teen-oriented sex comedy, takes a sideways step with 40 Days and 40 Nights, a mildly tolerable romp that at least offers a sweet center to counterbalance its smarmy surroundings. Josh Hartnett, that stiffest of Next Big Things, delivers a surprisingly adept comic turn as Matt Sullivan, a web page designer who decides that the best way to forget about the icy girlfriend (Vinessa Shaw) who dumped him is to abstain from all sexual pleasures, including masturbation, under the Lenten timeline of 40 days (yeah, it makes no sense, but work with me here). At first, things go well for our celibate hero, but once he meets his perfect match (Shannyn Sossamon), he finds it exceedingly difficult to keep his vow. A few modest laughs and an imaginative sex scene can be found amid the usual condom/Viagra/erection gags, but the film goes limp (no pun intended) during the disappointing climax (ditto), not least because it involves a rape that never really gets addressed. 
HARRISON'S FLOWERS It took the film world several years before it felt ready to start producing Vietnam War features, and now a similar holding pattern seems to have ended in regard to the various international skirmishes that have been devastating the world for a good many years now. Following on the heels of No Man's Land and Black Hawk Down comes Harrison's Flowers, a hard-hitting drama that doesn't shy away from showing the atrocities committed under the tag of "ethnic cleansing." Set in 1991, this stars Andie MacDowell as Sarah Lloyd, whose husband Harrison (David Strathairn), a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, is presumed dead after he travels to Yugoslavia to cover the escalating civil war. Convinced he's still alive, Sarah enters the fray herself, aided in her efforts by various other newshounds. By necessity, MacDowell's character fades into the background as the group finds itself venturing deeper into enemy territory; while this may distance some viewers from the movie's emotional center, it also demonstrates writer-director Elie Chouraqui's commitment to keeping this as real as possible. This may not match the wallop of The Killing Fields (a similar film that was also sympathetic toward journalists under fire), but there's still plenty here to jolt viewers out of their seats.
ICE AGE This year's Oscar ceremony marks the first time an award is being given for Best Animated Feature; if next year's contest adds a category for Best Performance By An Animated Character, then Ice Age's Scrat will doubtless get my vote. Incidental to the main story, this prehistoric squirrel spends his limited screen time in a futile attempt to bury the acorn he's been lugging around -- this dude's such a character, you're sorry every time he leaves the screen. Fortunately, the central plot is enjoyable enough to occupy our minds -- it's like Disney's Dinosaur done slightly better, since it doesn't get weighed down with the mountains of sentimentality that the Mouse House usually slathers on its family flicks. That's not to say it doesn't lean on the Disney template a bit heavily at times -- for starters, there's a cute kid that the protagonists must protect from all manner of peril -- but between Ray Romano's sensible woolly mammoth, Denis Leary's duplicitous saber-toothed tiger and John Leguizamo's imbecilic (but eager to please) sloth, the main characters are unique enough to help us begrudgingly pardon a pedestrian plotline. 1/2
LANTANA An adult drama that could have been called Husbands and Wives or Scenes from a Marriage had Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman not already co-opted those titles, Lantana only looks like it's a murder-mystery; in truth, it's a galvanizing study of the complexities and crises that threaten to derail any given marriage. Anthony LaPaglia, a reliable character actor who emerges as a full-blown leading man here, is superb as an Aussie detective whose strained relationship with his sexy, sensible wife (Kerry Armstrong) leads him into a reluctant affair with an emotionally unstable woman (Rachael Blake). On top of this, the cop also has to contend with a baffling case that involves yet another troubled couple: a psychiatrist (Barbara Hershey) and academic (Geoffrey Rush) coping with the death of their daughter. The events that bind all these characters might seem like a gimmick in a lesser film, but here they're merely necessary stepping stones in a powerful drama about remorse, reparation and redemption. 1/2
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