Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Our reviews and thoughts on the latest releases, classics, and nostalgic favourites. Things we loved, things we hated, and worst of all, things we were ambivalent about.

In Defense of SPECTRE: A Review For the BEST of Us.

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You may have read Matt’s review of SPECTRE. He seemed to like it but still called it the “dullest, most phoned-in Bond movie” since Casino Royale. That’s a bit ambiguous but I think he liked SPECTRE and Casino Royale and just hated everything that came between Sir Sean Connery and Dr. Daniel Craig.

Real knight.

Not a real doctor. As far as I know.

You may also have read Jay’s review of SPECTRE. You probably should read it just for context.

Jay and I have been together for over six years now. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met and that’s one of the things I love about her. But it also drives me crazy because I have never been able to prove her wrong. Until now.

Jay is right that she was never going to like this movie. She hates everything I like on principle. But that doesn’t make it bad. Obviously I have fantastic taste in movies. Exhibit A: The Rock. Exhibit B: Transformers. Exhibit C: Bad Boys. Not coincidentally, those are all Michael Bay movies and two of them turned into franchises precisely bec nicolas cage the rock ause they were so good (the Rock probably would have been a franchise as well if not for the curse of Nicholas Cage). Because people loved them. You don’t get a franchise any other way, and everyone knows that sequels always live up to the original movie. That’s just a fact.

Score: SEAN 1, JAY 0

Jay also hates franchises on principle. But franchises make action movies better! With franchises, we don’t have to worry about plot, or character development, or other boring things like that. We can get straight to the action! So when we open with the awesome Day of the Dead sequence, we don’t have to have title cards or anything to let us know that the guy who pulls off the mask is the world’s best spy, because the preceding five decades of Bond movies have already set that up. Thank you, franchises, for simplifying our lives.

Score: SEAN 2, JAY 0

And okay, the helicopter sequence in SPECTRE is terrible. Absolutely terrible. But to say it’s worse than a bucket of army guys? That’s just hyperbole. And that’s a logical fallacy. So therefore Jay’s dislike of the helicopter sequence(s) is invalid.

Score: SEAN 3, JAY 0

Jay also hated the train sequence. Because it got destroyed. But that’s actually entirely realistic when you consider who was doing the destruction. Dave Bautista a.k.a. Drax the Destroyer. Just look at how strong he is in the WWE (six time champion) or in Guardians of the Galaxy (where he singlehandedly fought a guy who later survived a spaceship crash). That train was not only real, it was probably very well built, maybe even German. It just didn’t matter because of how hard Bautista can punch. If you want some sort of arthouse surrealism that’s fine, Jay, we can go to the Bytowne this weekend and watch a movie where two people can’t get out of a shed. But don’t blame SPECTRE for your weird preferences.

Score: SEAN 4, JAY 0

Another criticism Jay made was that James Bond had different jackets all the time. Well, that’s the whole point! He’s not just a spy, he’s a fashionable guy with a watch that blows up and a car with an ejector seat. Obviously he also has some sort of flying or floating wardrobe machine as well. They probably covered that in one of the earlier Bond movies, so there was just no need to explain it this time. Again, thank you franchises!

Score: SEAN 5, JAY 0

I think I’ve proven my point. I’ll even give Jay the sockless loafers, Christoph Waltz in general, and the weirdness/creepiness/wasted potential of the whole Monica Bellucci thing, since I’m feeling generous.

Score: SEAN 5, JAY 3

And as for Michael Bay, you already have all the proof you need (The Rock, Transformers, Bad Boys) to rest assured that he’s Hollywood’s greatest living director.

Case closed.

Winner: SEAN

HOLD THE FREAKIN PHONE, MISTER!!!

It seems our math doesn’t quite agree. Over at MY post, there’s a lot more nodding going on. I think we can count Mark, Joel, the other J, and Hammy as all #TeamJay.

99 Homes

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99 Homes, the fifth film from Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo), made me feel something no movie ever has. Movies have made me angry. Movies have made me cry. I’ve walked out of theaters sometimes feeling inspired and other times defeated. But until watching 99 Homes, no movie had ever made me feel heartbroken.

The old man got to me. In a movie about people losing their homes, it’s easy to grow as numb to the eviction scenes as the evictors do. Most refuse to accept their situation, hurl threats, and yell “How can you sleep at night?!” But not this old man. He just doesn’t quite understand what’s going on and doesn’t put up a fight. He seems to sense that something’s not quite right here but, confused by all the fancy talk and not wanting to cause any trouble, keeps his protests half-hearted as he is forced out of his home.

This poor old guy is one of many people we see forced out by real estate broker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield). Nash wasn’t always this way. When we first meet him, he is an out-of-work construction worker and single father who is behind on his house payments. He soon endures the humiliation of being escorted out of his family home by two sheriff’s deputies and moving his family into a sketchy motel. Needing money and having very few options, Nash goes to work for Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), the broker who profited in a big way both from Nash’s eviction as well as from the housing crisis in general.

We’ve all seen this story before. Carver’s business practices are ruthless and unethical and, as a recent victim himself, Nash is at first revolted by him at first. His questions about the legality and ethics of what their doing, though frequent at first, are quickly silenced when he starts to enjoy the steady cash flow. It’s a familiar arc but the back drop of the housing crisis makes it more relatable.

Garfield takes some getting used to as Nash. Best known for playing skinny nerds, his casting as a working man isn’t a perfect fit, even with the beard and tattoos. As his performance matures along with the character, I found the actor’s baby face to be gradually less distracting. The part of Carver, however, fits Shannon like a glove and he is always believable and never dull. The most compelling thing about the Carver character, and Shannon’s performance, is that the script knows when to stop just short of making him a complete monster. Carver does terrible things the way a real person does, not like a villain in a film. In my heart, the “film villain” label is reserved for Nash after what he did to that poor old man…

A Princess for Christmas

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Jules’s sister and brother-in-law died last Christmas, leaving her to raise her nephew Milo and niece Maddie alone. It’s a daily struggle about to get worse when Jules loses her job shortly before the holidays. But then one day, a man improbably named Paisley Winterbottom shows up at the door, with an olive branch and some plane tickets. Turns out, the kids’ father was some member of royalty disowned by his father the Duke when he fell in love with a commoner with no wealth or title. Now on his death bed, the Duke of Castlebury is entertaining some regrets, and hopes that Jules and the children will visit him.

Penury is an even greater motivator than forgiveness, so Jules (Katie MV5BNzFlNjc0YWQtYjI0NC00ZmRkLWIzNTctZTg2NTEwZDljMTdkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjQwMDg0Ng@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1154,1000_AL_ McGrath) makes the trek out with Milo and Maddie in tow. The Duke (Roger Moore) may or may not be on his last legs, and may or may not have turned over a new leaf, but his son, Prince Ashtom (Sam Heughan) is dashing, handsome, and a little more progressive-minded than his father. If the Duke is not entirely welcoming, the Prince and indeed the staff make up for it. And soon Jules and the kids are decking the halls of what used to be a very cold castle.

Are cute grandkids enough to melt the Duke’s heart? And how will he feel if another son (his only living one left!) is about to fall in love with an unemployed single mother from Buffalo, New York? Well, if butler Winterbottom has anything to do with it (and why wouldn’t the staff be overly involved?), he’s going to push them together and even buy her a ball gown if that’s what it takes. Let the princess transformation begin!

The world has an appetite for royalty at the holidays, that much is clear. And it’s also pretty clear that Sam Heughan needed to pay the bills before Outlander came knocking. The result is A Princess For Christmas – you can take it or leave it.

This Changes Everything

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I have a confession to make. Lately, I’ve been sick of the Earth. Or at least sick of hearing about how we’re ruining it.

Before you judge, you should know that I make a monthly donation to a Save the Planet charity that shall remain nameless (because I’m about to talk shit about them). In fact, some guy from the organization called me last year and told me that my annual donation was in the 95th percentile of their donors, which now that I think about it can’t possibly be true. But they still want more. Not more money, believe it or not. They want my time. They want me to read their emails about whales, tar sands, and our old Prime Minister and how hell-bent he was on destroying the planet. They don’t even ask for more money. They just want to say hi and tell me how bad things are getting.

So I’m burnt out on the topic, I’ll admit it. And, apparently, so is Naomi Klein. Klein, narrator of This Changes Everything and author of the book on which it’s based, opens her climate change documentary with a confession much like mine. She doesn’t usually like documentaries about climate change. She can’t bring herself to care much about polar bears and she feels she’s heard it all before. “Is it possible to be bored with the end of the world?” she asks.

It’s the perfect setup for yet another climate change documentary. I literally AM bored with the end of the world and, if this is going to be the climate change documentary for people that are, then I’m keeping an open mind. Although skeptical at first, I was surprised to find myself thinking, “Okay, I’m with you so far”.

So, for 89 minutes, I decided to set aside my boredom with the end of the world and just let myself relax and be bored by this movie instead. Klein’s thesis, that global warming isn’t about polar bears or statistics but a story that we’ve been telling ourselves for four centuries, makes sense to me. For the last four hundred years (although, in fairness, I’m only willing to accept any personal responsibility for the last thirty), we have stopped seeing nature as something to be respected and revered and started seeing it as something to be conquered and manipulated for our own ends.

While I admire her for reframing the problem of climate change as a story that we keep telling ourselves, Klein and director Avi Lewis lose some points for telling us the same story over and over. This Changes Everything is structured in five short segments that take us to Canada, the United States, Greece, India, and China, documenting the consequences of corporations’ attemtps to conquer nature and the concerned citizens who are actively trying to make a change. Because Klein seems to be making the same point with each segment, the impact of these stories diminishes with each new chapter.

All kidding aside about how I’m kind of bored with the end of the world, we are without question killing this beautiful planet that we are so lucky to have found ourselves on. I finally got to see The Martian last night and it only reconfirmed my feeling that of all the planets in our solar system, we got the best one. Climate change IS very sad, even if I too often feel numb to it. If corporations are allowed to keep doing what they’re doing, disaster is inevitable and, if you doubt it, I’d recommend this movie or Klein’s book or, better yet, I’ve got lots of informational emails from charities that I’d be all too happy to get off my hands. But if you’re already part of the choir, maybe it’s okay sometimes to get tired of listening to the preacher.

Band of Robbers

SPECTRE

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SPECTRE is, without a doubt, the dullest, most phoned-in Bond movie since Daniel Craig took over the part in 2006’s Casino Royale.

How bad SPECTRE, the 24th in the series, really is is a matter of personal taste. Personally, I will always prefer the tone of the Craig films – even the worst (Quantum of Solace, SPECTRE) of them – to even the best of the campy Roger Moore pictures or the silly Pierce Brosnan outings. Given my admitted preference for a rougher and angrier 007, I am still submitting SPECTRE as one of the better (well, Top 10) entries in the franchise.

My expectations going in were high. First of all, I had been dying to order a 007 martini at Cineplex’s VIP Experience ever since it opened earlier this year and had been saving it for this movie. “Oh, that’s the perfect drink for this movie,” my waitress informed me, as if my ordering it had been a coincidence. More importantly though, my eager anticipation of SPECTRE reached new heights once its title had been released.

SPECTRE had always been my favourite part of the old Sean Connery classics and I couldn’t wait to see what the 21st century reboot would look like. Back in the 60s, the organization known as SPECTRE would always be trying to trick two superpowers into going to war with each other. And MI-6, Bond included, would always fall for it for the first half of the movie until the inevitable revelation that would invariably lead to what I consider to be one of the most iconic 007 lines “Of course. SHHHPECTA”.

Because SPECTRE reimagines Bond’s first dust-up with the nefarious organization, I probably should have known that I would not be hearing my favourite line. Which isn’t to say that the latest 21st century Bond film isn’t without its share of silliness. With the success of Casino Royale and Skyfall, the creative team seem more confident than ever and allow themselves licnese to have some fun with the material that Craig’s earlier and darker installments would have never allowed. SPECTRE is a return to Bond’s glory days, featuring exploding watches, secret societies, elaborate torture devices, and unkillable villains.

It’s mostly fun to watch. Craig’s performance, continuing to redefine Bond’s signature charm as a brave face against deep psychological scars, balances the less restrained elements nicely, making it easier to just sit back and enjoy the insanity without rolling our eyes as much. Bond’s close-quarters fight with the indestructable Hinx (played as the strong silent type by David Badista) aboard a train is particularly reminiscent of the best Bond brawls from the Connery and Moore days and was a definite highlight for me.

Unfortunately, director Sam Mendes and company have also taken Skyfall’s success as license to rest on their laurels a bit. The chases too often feel uninspired and familiar, even from – as Jay pointed out – earlier in the movie. Other scenes resort too often to a kind of melodrama that Craig’s earlier films were mostly successful at avoiding.

Still, SPECTRE looks great and is well-cast (although Christoph Waltz isn’t nearly compelling as a Bond villain as Mads Mikkelsen or Javier Bardem were) so is only disappointing when compared with Bond’s best missions.

And the martini was worth the wait.

NHFF: The Best For Last (Chicken)

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The New Hampshire Film Festival was full of great movies – in retrospect, we didn’t see a single bad one, and that’s not supposed to be possible when you’re ingesting just as much film as possible in a single weekend. There has to be a dud in there somewhere – that’s science, isn’t it? Or mathematics? Law of averages? Just my luck? But no, not a bad one in the bunch. There were, however, some super duper standouts.

You’ve already heard Sean crow over his favourite, Robert Eggers’ The Witch, but you haven’t yet heard me swoon over Chicken, the absurdly titled (and I should know) movie that will break your damn heart. There is no way to summarize this movie and do it justice. It’s about a 15-year-old kid named Richard (Scott Chambers) who suffers from some unspecified developmental delay. He lives in a trailer with his brother Polly, who is neglectful at best and I’ll let you use your imagination for his worst. Richard’s only true friend is a chicken who gets included on his many adventures about the property he and his brother (Morgan Watkins, Kingsmen: The Secret Service) are illegally squatting upon. But then one day he meets the daughter of the new owners, Annabel (Yasmin Paige, Submarine), whose abrasive tongue might lose its barbs for such a gentle creature and his faithful chicken. Now take that inadequate synopsis and sprinkle it with magic.

Director Joe Stephenson absorbs us into Richard’s world immediately, and we can’t help but fall in love. There isn’t much plot wasted on this character-rich drama, but you’ll never be bored. Richard is not quite like any character you’ve seen before, aptly and considerately brought to life by the excellent Scott Chambers who wisely chooses empathy over pity. Stephenson knows that Richard is the key to the audience’s heart, but he’s not after some melodramatic tear-jerker, he’s looking for honesty, and he finds it in unlikely places. You’ll be startled to find such compassion from such a young filmmaker but he’s brave enough to give his actors lots of room – literally and metaphorically. You’ll see this translate on the screen as he often takes full advantage of his scenic location rather than closing his characters into too-close shots. He injects a strong cinematic element into what was once a play and has room to spare. Though there’s some unevenness to the script, I easily forgave all not because I cared for Richard, which was easy enough to do, but because I came to care for the brute Polly. And once you have seen Polly in action you will appreciate the enormity of Stephenson’s accomplishment of making you care about both brothers.

You don’t always feel it, but the movie is lathering up to something bigger than the sum of its parts, and once you get there, you won’t want to watch but nor will you be able to look away. At the climax, just as through the whole movie, the characters are complex, sympathetic, and real, and that’s what sets this movie apart and elevates it to a whole new level. These wonderful characters make this movie one you have to watch and one that will stick with you long after you leave the theatre.

Both Chambers and Stephenson were in attendance for this, its North American premiere, and the audience was all too glad to be able to reward their effort with a heartfelt standing ovation. And yet, as I’ve found myself thinking back on this movie even as I’m attending other film festivals, and in fact have watched more than a dozen movies in the week since, I realize that it’s not enough. It’s not every day that a movie gets under my skin, and I’m probably more cynical than most.

This film took home the Narrative Grand Jury prize, and jury member John Michael Higgins presented the award to Stephenson noting “It was a very special experience for me to watch. This film had an incredibly delicate tone, sustained over each event, which is very hard to do.” I’m glad these guys have a trophy to lug home, because this movie’s not going to win an Oscar but it does deserve something that will sit on a mantle and proclaim: I made something moving, and people saw it, and they fucking loved it. Because all of us who were lucky enough to see this film loved it and I have no doubt that you will love it too.

The Witch

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Let’s get it out of the way right up front: The Witch will make your skin crawl. If you like horror movies then mark your calendars and track this down when it comes out next February!

We jumped at the chance to see the Witch at NHFF last weekend, where it won Best Feature (the festival’s top prize). The Witch has also screened at Sundance and a few other festivals, but the NHFF screening was the last one prior to release, so if you haven’t been lucky enough to see it yet then you have to wait until February. I got the sense this screening only happened because director Robert Eggers is a New Hampshirite, particularly because at the distributor’s request, the balcony of the Music Hall was blocked off in order to keep the screening as small as possible (only around 400 people ended up being let in).

The Witch has gathered significant acclaim everywhere it has screened, and all those accolades are well-deserved. In addition to Best Feature at NHFF, Mr. Eggers has also been awarded the Directing Award (Dramatic) at Sundance and the Sutherland Award (for best first feature) at the London Film Festival. I hope that acclaim helps secure a wide release for this movie. It truly is worth watching even if horror movies are not your usual fare. Because this is not your typical horror movie. It is so much more.

What sets the Witch apart is the unique journey that we are taken on. One of the most memorable aspects for me is how completely authentic the Witch feels in every aspect, from dialogue to sets to costumes to the woods themselves (even though, to Mr. Eggers’ stated regret, for financial reasons he had to film in Ontario rather than New Hampshire). This level of authenticity and the care taken in crafting this movie clearly demonstrates Mr. Eggers’ deep love of New England’s lore, history and folk tales. In applying that love to the horror genre, he has come up with something unique and captivating. I was drawn in to this film’s world and that is an impressive feat when I am a polar opposite to the isolated 17th century pioneer family who are the Witch’s protagonists. The loneliness and eeriness of the family farm and the surrounding woods are themes of the movie that we are made aware of instantly by Mr. Eggers, and in every shot the suspense and tension builds. The music is particularly noteworthy, as again and again the score completes these scenes and tells us that worse things lie ahead (and oh my god, do they ever).

I don’t want to spoil anything about this movie so I’m not going to get into the plot at all. It’s one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen, and I did not see the ending coming at all. The climactic scenes in particular kept me on the edge of my seat and gave me even more of a payoff than I could have hoped for. I hope all of you are able to see this because it’s a truly incredible movie.

The Witch gets a score of ten old-timey brooms out of ten.

Experimenter

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As you may have noticed, we recently caught The Stanford Prison Experiment in a Bytowne double-bill. As you also may have noticed, we are at the New Hampshire Film Festival this weekend taking in a ton of films and discovering we may not be festival-ed out yet! It helps that the NHFF, in its 15 year, is a complete change of pace from the frenzied, big city, line-up centric, atmosphere of TIFF. Here, you show up ten minutes before each movie and walk right in, and the program/map included with your pass (which I’ve looked at about a thousand times already) makes clear that at most it will be an eight minute walk between theatres, and so far we haven’t even had to go that far to catch four movies yesterday.

One of those four movies was Experimenter, which tells the story of Stanley Milgram, who will be familiar to anyone who has taken a post-secondary science course or two. Dr. Milgram was the genius behind the obedience experiment. To refresh your memory, or bring you up to speed, the experiment on its face purported to test the effect of negative reinforcement on learning. Two subjects came in together, with one being randomly assigned the role of teacher and the other being the student. Put in adjacent rooms, the teacher spoke through a one-way microphone and gave multiple choice questions to the student, who then got an electric shock for every wrong answer, with the strength of the shock increasing every time. To give the teacher a taste of the effect, the lowest-level shock (of 45V) was given to the teacher before the test began. Every teacher thought even that low-level shock was painful. Throughout the test, the teachers could hear the student through the wall, howling in pain and begging to stop. Though all teachers were visibly uncomfortable with the students’ anguish, 65% of them proceeded all the way through the test, with the last shock being administered to an unresponsive student (as a lack of response was considered a wrong response). The teachers were never forced to administer a shock though they were told it was a necessary part of the experiment and asked to keep going. And they did, even though the last shock was 450V!

Then the curtain was pulled back. This was not a test of the student, it was a test of the teacher. The student was always the same person, i.e., one of the experimenters. He was not being shocked but instead had been recorded making anguished noises. The experiment was designed to examine why humans are so willing to give in to authority, as demonstrated particularly by the Holocaust.

It was a controversial study at the time and still remains so to this day. For me, I think it’s fascinating and necessary. The deception has to happen in order to get past the natural instinct that we all have, namely that if we were put in that scenario we would not shock the person. But over and over this experiment and its successors have proven that more than half of us are lying to ourselves.

Experimenter is worth seeing for that experiment alone. It’s a brilliant illustration of our latent defects and brings to light the evil even “good” (/normal) people are capable of, and what we need to fight against when we are subjected to authority, in order to keep our humanity. That experiment is rightly where Experimenter puts its focus, but unlike The Stanford Prison Experiment, Experimenter looks at a lot of Dr. Milgram’s other work, which was equally brilliant (Six Degrees of Separation!). That extra material was welcome to me but it’s just a taste of it, as there simply isn’t enough time to give the other experiments much attention. Still, I think their inclusion was a good choice in order to show us Dr. Milgram was not a one hit wonder, and also give us a sense of the extent to which the obedience experiment monopolized Dr. Milgram’s professional and personal life despite his best efforts to move on.

I had some issues with the manner in which this story is delivered to us, though. There are quite a few uneven parts of Experimenter, and some distracting choices made here in bringing the story to screen. Two items stood out the most to me.

First, Dr. Milgrom speaks directly to us, which I think sped up the delivery of a lot of material to us but took me out of the cinematic experience and turned me into a student rather than a moviegoer. Perhaps that was the intention but I think it detracted from the experience for me.

Second, there are several scenes with roughed-in backgrounds that clash directly with our foreground characters (e.g., a visit to a mentor’s house where our protagonists sit on furniture that has inexplicably been placed in front of a black and white 2D living room backdrop). I could not figure out why this was happening during the movie and trying to figure out the reason distracted me throughout the movie (and that was not the only scene that had me thinking similar thoughts). Afterward, Jay mentioned that maybe it was roughed in for the time being with the intention of being replaced, and I hope that is the case.

Despite those minor issues, this movie is so worthwhile. I think you will find it fascinating and it does a great job of capturing the effect of the obedience experiment on everyone that it touched, whether directly or indirectly. and as a bonus gives us a bit of insight into a brilliant scientist who opened our eyes to a truth that is hard to for us accept, but an integral part of our nature that we need to know about in order to resist.

I give the Experimenter seven dangerous shocks out of ten.

Harvest Moon

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In a page right out of Schitt’s Creek, a wealthy man goes bankrupt and his spoiled daughter is devastated to have her shopping interrupted. Jenny discovers that her trust fund has been pillaged and all her assets (shoes) seized and there’s only one thing left to her in the world: a lowly pumpkin farm.

Out she trots to bumfuck nowhere, location of “the old Jarrett farm” where several Jerretts are still living and trying to eke out a living, more or less. She meets a handsome Jarrett named Brett who despises her even after throwing her in a muddy puddle (practically her own fault for wearing a designer outfit to a farm, fyi – that’s their MV5BYWNhNjMxYWMtMzdjOS00MTAzLWJkNTMtZjRiNTMyOTZjYmE3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzM0ODg1MzA@._V1_SY1000_SX1500_AL_ definition of “asking for it”). She needs to sell the farm for a nice profit; he’s always intended to buy it back whenever they had a few dollars scraped together. He does not currently have the means, and she can’t afford to wait. Plus, a TERRIBLE real estate gives her bad advice – that she can’t sell the farm because the Jerretts have significant personal debt. So she resolves to put her vapid, superficial skills to use giving the farm a makeover. Somehow new placemats will make the farm more profitable? As you can imagine, Brett and company are not only unmotivated to help her, they’ve got a plan to thwart her plan!

Not that Jenny needs any help getting herself in trouble. If there’s anything in a given scene that can her daisy dukes wet, you bet she’ll find it, and then act like a cat pawing at its arch nemesis when she does. Cinema at its finest!

Harvest Moon has more dead mothers than you can shake your Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte at. But will Jenny ever find enough “revenue streams” to make someone else’s business viable enough for her to sell the land right from under them? Do NOT question the business sense, her father’s in-house lawyer looked it over, goddammit (yes it’s the same lawyer under whom the family went bankrupt, but what does that prove?).

There’s a lot of questionable content here – a condescending makeover, slapstick involving a tractor, even a Footloose dance lesson knock off without any budget for music. But most importantly, there’s a vaguely handsome widow who is just mean enough to Jenny for her to fall in love with him. Somehow.