On Demand picks

November 10, 2011

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS **½

(Max on Comcast) Oliver Stone’s belated sequel is set before and after the 2008 financial meltdown, and it’s an ebullient mess. Schadenfreude energizes Stone: Everyone here is dancing on a bubble, and no one except exiled Street jester Gordon Gekko (a magnificent Michael Douglas) has the guts to admit the bubble’s about to pop. With Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan (PG-13; runs through Nov. 17) TY BURR

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE ***½

(Showtime on Comcast) If you’re a fan of Joy Division or Happy Mondays, this snapshot of the early-’80s music scene in Manchester, England, plays like a rollicking, essential history lesson. Even if you spent the decade listening to Loverboy, high amusement is supplied by British comedian Steve Coogan, who brings a laser wit to his role as music promoter Tony Wilson. (R; runs through Nov. 22) TY BURR

CAIRO TIME **

(Showtime on Comcast) As an American on vacation in this romantic drama, Patricia Clarkson has the face of a woman who just ate a long, delicious meal or cashed a very big check. It’s an apt expression for a movie that requires her to wander around northern Egypt in layers of fabric and fall deeply in like with her guide, an excruciatingly handsome man (Alexander Siddig). Writer-director Ruba Nadda has a bone to pick with perceptions of Arab culture. Her movie is a kind of bourgeois delusion - authentically aggravated but bogusly conceived. (PG; runs through Nov. 22) WESLEY MORRIS