On demand picks

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) This adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel is greatly aided by Hugh Grant’s sharp performance as a solitary, selfish lout who reluctantly learns a few life lessons from Nicholas Hoult’s sullen 12-year-old. Ultimately, the filmmakers are too timid to follow through on Hornby’s deeper explorations about alienation and the human need for connection. (PG-13; runs through Jan. 4)

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) Better than the original because it’s more of a Tim Burton film - darker, weirder, more gnarled and more fun as it sends its isolated, conflicted characters through a heavy, oppressive retro Gotham City where the architecture is either fascist or decaying, or both. The sun never shines on Michael Keaton’s brooding Batman, who looks as if he’s been run through the Sharper Image catalog, or Danny DeVito’s embittered Penguin, who suggests an uprooted tree trunk in Dickensian costume. Michelle Pfeiffer, as whip-cracking Catwoman in a slinky, sexy black catsuit with Frankenstein stitching, steals the movie. She’s where Frederick’s of Hollywood meets Freud. (PG-13; runs through Jan. 4)