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On Demand picks

December 28, 2010

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PAN’S LABYRINTH (Comcast Movies: Free Movies) Set after the Spanish Civil War, Guillermo del Toro’s fractured fairy tale features a girl (Ivana Baquero) living with her stepfather, a fascist captain (Sergi López). As he and his troops fight the guerrillas in the hills, the girl discovers a rocky maze and inside meets a faun (Doug Jones), who convinces her that she’s an escaped princess come home. The film is a feat of unique cinematic alchemy: a master of horror-movie schlock has made a stunning magic-realist masterpiece. (R; runs through Jan. 5) WESLEY MORRIS

THE IRON GIANT (Starz on Comcast) A winning animated version of Ted Hughes’s children’s classic. It successfully transplants its Cold War anti-weapons message from England to a coastal village in Maine, and charms us into make-believing in the friendship between a boy and a giant robot from outer space. They reverse traditional parent-child roles, as the sharp kid clues in the formidably lethal but innocent robot. (G; runs through Jan. 6)

STEEL MAGNOLIAS (Encore on Comcast) Comedy-drama about six small-town Louisiana women who meet weekly in a beauty parlor to gossip and bond. Although overblown in the move from stage to screen, it’s got what it needs in the big emotional clinches. Its six actresses — Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, and Julia Roberts — provide nonstop firepower. (PG; runs through Feb. 3)

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