On Demand picks

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) Deliciously quirky comedy of campus upheaval, set in motion when Michael Douglas’s aging wonder boy, a lit prof who’s afraid to finish his second novel for fear it won’t equal his first, meets a gifted student and new wonder boy played by a quietly compelling Tobey Maguire as a raw talent with considerable literary skills ability and no social skills. It’s Douglas’s most likable performance in years, and a smart follow-up for “L.A. Confidential’’ director Curtis Hanson. (R; runs through March 15)

(Encore on Comcast) Narrative pulse sometimes flags, but writer-director Caroline Thompson brings Anna Sewell’s classic 19th-century horse novel to the screen with grave clarity, lots of atmosphere and the same reformer’s zeal as Sewell, who wrote from outrage at the cruelties horses endured in England. (G; runs through April 22)