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On Demand movie highlights

Uptown Girls ★ ½

(Showtime on Comcast) Fairy tales don’t come much more squirrelly than this feel-bad comedy about a poor little rich girl (Brittany Murphy) who takes a job as nanny to a messed-up tyke (Dakota Fanning). It’s a formula film in which the formula has been adulterated with unrelieved sadness, and veers unconvincingly from tragedy to slapstick and back again. (PG-13; runs through Feb. 4) Ty Burr

Waking the Dead ★ ★

(Showtime on Comcast) This worthy attempt to fuse the politics of the ’70s and ’80s with a ghostly love story can’t successfully pull its parts together into a satisfying whole. It settles for being a mood piece, with Jennifer Connelly’s half-saintly, half-smug crusader tantalizing Billy Crudup’s idealistic young lawyer turned pol, trying not to fall victim to his own pragmatism. (R; runs through Feb. 4)

Amelie ★ ★ ★ ½

(Showtime on Comcast) Captivatingly stylized French confection about a shy, eccentric Miss Fixit (Audrey Tautou) who stealthily tools around Paris, improving people’s lives with her gentle stratagems, until love complicates her life and raises the ante. Delightful and original, with a shabby yet fanciful Paris as one of the delights. Its personalized quirkiness is spellbinding as it inscribes a magical Montmartre of the mind. (R; runs through
Feb. 4)

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