On Demand picks

July 11, 2009

(Comcast Movies and Events) Manny the mammoth (voice of Ray Romano), Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary), and Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) look for higher ground when the glaciers melt. Pure sequel product that will please children and undemanding grown-ups. Others may wonder why a kiddie movie is the only place our culture is willing to address global warming. The Scrat sequences are the best. With Queen Latifah. (PG; runs through July 13) TY BURR

(HBO on Comcast) Evil cyber-masterminds take the US government down by hackery, and only NYPD cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) - “a Timex watch in a digital age’’ - can stop them. Nineteen years after the first “Die Hard,’’ Willis is still able to make his character weary, brutal, and endlessly capable, but the movie breaks the series’ own rules via increasingly implausible action sequences. Costarring Justin Long. (PG-13; runs through July 13) TY BURR

(Showtime on Comcast) Writer-director Noah Baumbach follows “The Squid and the Whale’’ with another bleakly comic tale of family dysfunction. Nicole Kidman is brilliantly horrifying as a self-absorbed Manhattan novelist come home to attend the marriage of her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to a goodhearted loser (Jack Black). It’s a monster movie, but not the sort we’re used to. With Zane Pais and Ciaran Hinds. (R; runs through July 13) TY BURR