On Demand Picks

February 17, 2010

LOVE HAPPENS

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) A self-help guru (Aaron Eckhart) in denial over his wife’s death meets a free-spirited florist (Jennifer Aniston). Sold as a romantic comedy, it’s really a Big Cry movie, and it progresses from acceptably cute to shamelessly sticky. With Dan Fogler, Judy Greer, and Martin Sheen. (PG-13; runs through Aug. 1) TY BURR

AMELIA

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) This biopic of aviator Amelia Earhart starring Hilary Swank is a big, hollow white elephant with a sharp idea struggling to get out: How does a woman marketed to the public as a star turn herself back into a human being? Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor play the men in Earhart’s life. (PG; runs through Aug. 25) TY BURR

AMISTAD

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) Steven Spielberg followed “Schindler’s List’’ with this big, bold, noble juggernaut of a film confronting the brutal facts of slavery in America. The story’s about an 1839 revolt by Africans on a slave ship bound for Cuba and the subsequent testing of the new republic’s principles when they’re picked up off the coast of Connecticut and put on trial for killing their captors. Djimon Hounsou delivers a towering performance as the leader of the Africans. Anthony Hopkins is mesmerizing as John Quincy Adams. (R; runs through Feb 28)

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