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On Demand picks

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 12, 2012

AMREEKA ★★★

(Comcast Movies: Free Movies) A Palestinian divorcee (Nisreen Faour) and her bright teenage son (Melkar Muallem) move in with her sister’s upper-middle-class family in a small Illinois town. The movie flirts with too-muchness, but the first-time writer and director Cherien Dabis has a strong, authentic sense of scale and talent for working with her actors. The cast includes Yussef Abu Warda, Alia Shawkat, Joseph Ziegler, and Hiam Abbass. (PG-13; runs through Jan. 31) WESLEY MORRIS

AVATAR ★★★ ½

(HBO on Comcast) James Cameron’s long-game gamble pays off - for the most part. The film creates a planet called Pandora, a race of tall, blue cat-people called the Na’vi, and gives them both a dazzlingly colorful rain forest reality. The 60 percent of the film that comes from the computer is tantalizingly realistic; the roughly 40 percent that’s live action is less convincing. With Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, and Zoe Saldana. (PG-13; runs through Jan. 31) TY BURR

DESPICABLE ME ★★★

(HBO on Comcast) An oddity in the 3-D family-animation sweepstakes, but an entertaining one. Steve Carell uses a thick accent that’s roughly triangulated by Russia, Germany, and the Borscht Belt for his vocal role of Gru, a likably misguided supervillain (think Boris Badenov meets Dr. Evil) who wants to steal the moon. The film has enough novelty to keep kiddies diverted and just enough wit to placate the parents. (PG; runs through Jan. 31)