For It Is Man's Number: peter gallagher

Showing posts with label peter gallagher. Show all posts

Friday, 1 December 2023

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Another film I had intended to see many years before now, While You Were Sleeping may not be a classic, but I was hoping for an enjoyable rom-com featuring Sandra Bullock being as enjoyable as she so often can be, and that is exactly what I got.

Bullock plays Lucy, a Chicago train ticket booth operator who spends a small part of each day dreaming about the very handsome Peter (Peter Gallagher). When Peter is attacked one day and ends up on the train tracks, Lucy saves his life. He is comatose though, and one misinterpreted moment leads to people thinking that Lucy is Peter’s fiancé. That pleases his family as they pile into the hospital room and gather around his prone form. And it also pleases Lucy, who starts to become part of a family unit in a way that she hasn’t ever really experienced before. But it gets complicated when she starts to develop a strong connection with Peter’s brother, Jack (Bill Pullman).

Written by two people who didn’t seem to write anything else before or after, Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric LeBow, this is a really enjoyable romantic comedy that is smart enough to sprinkle in one or two plot points to minimise the ickiness of the central premise. Lucy is caught in a brief lie to herself, not intended for others to hear, and the situation spirals from there. She then wants to immediately tell the truth, but a friend of the family (played by Jack Warden) convinces her that having some connection to their comatose son is more beneficial to the family than knowing the truth.

With the smart writing allowing the premise to play out to its full potential, director Jon Turteltaub is able to let the cast develop some very believable chemistry and build a feeling of warmth and fun that leads viewers all the way to the predictable and entertaining finale. This is formulaic stuff (a farce created by a lie, complicated by feelings for someone who cannot know the truth), but it’s an object lesson in how to do it.

It helps that Bullock is so great in the lead role. Although I love her in any guise, she has a great knack of being able to look a bit more harried and “normal” before the moments that allow her to transform and highlight her natural beauty. She also sells both the emotional beats of the film and the comedy, with her ability to do both helping to make all of her films in this sub-genre much better than most. The same goes for Pullman, who is pretty much the male version of Bullock, in terms of how he can slightly adapt his appearance and how he can handle the different elements with equal aplomb. They make a great central pairing, and viewers will start to fret when it looks like the coma patient may be rousing at last. Gallagher doesn’t have as much to do, of course, but plays his part well. The aforementioned Warden is good fun, as are Peter Boyle, Glynis Johns, Micole Mercurio, and Monica Keena as the family who take our leading lady into their lives, and into their hearts (yeah, it’s schmaltzy like that, what do you expect?), and Michael Rispoli provides a number of extra laughs as Joe Jr, a young man who keeps deluding himself that he would be a good match for Lucy.

This has everything you need from this kind of film. There are frantic conversations about the spiraling situation, meaningful looks between two people who cannot be together, one or two pratfalls, a good selection of supporting characters (I will also mention Jason Bernard here, great value for the few scenes he has), a decent enough score from Randy Edelman, and a third act that has, well, I am sure you will already know what it has.

Really enjoyable throughout, this is a great comfort watch that should please all but the most cynical viewers.

8/10

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Thursday, 23 December 2021

One December Night (2021)

Steve Bedford (Bruce Campbell) and Mike Sullivan (Peter Gallagher) were once one of the biggest musical duos around, and "One December Night" was their biggest hit. But they eventually went their separate ways, breaking their relationship into smaller and smaller pieces with each little unresolvable issue. It's a surprise to everyone when they agree to a televised reunion show, but it turns out that Sullivan really needs the money. Does he need it enough to put up with his partner again though? Yes, but that won't stop him from potentially cancelling the whole show if he gets sick of everything, which is where his daughter (Quinn Allan, played by Eloise Mumford) and Bedford's son (Jason, played by Brett Dalton) come into the picture. They are hoping they can smooth things over enough for the show to go ahead, and that also involved getting the pair to agree to sing their biggest hit.

Written by Eric Brooks, One December Night is an enjoyable and easygoing Christmas TV movie that is elevated by the leads, but it’s a shame that the material wasn’t reworked to play to the strengths of what some might consider its most valuable asset, Bruce Campbell.

Director Clare Niederpruem keeps everything ticking along nicely, the generic music blends together to create the notion of a career with a few hits in it and the visuals are what you expect; snow, small town charm, and bland and appealing supporting characters.

Excelling in the moments that hint at his usual persona of cockiness and narcissism, Campbell is fun in his role, but is also allowed to settle into more straightforward drama in the third act. Fans may well want more from him though, and not without good reason (as letting him go even bigger could have provided an entertaining vein of comedy through something that feels more po-faced than it needs to be). Gallagher is a good choice alongside him, a decent actor who plays things with a more subtle approach. Mumford is cute and bubbly, as she has been in other movies for this season, and Dalton is fine, although the least of the four leads. The other person worth noting is Jasmine Forsberg, playing a lesser-known musical artist who may well get her big break supporting Bedford & Sullivan at their reunion show.

People after something typically full of the spirit of Christmas won’t be disappointed. This does the job. It’s just a shame that nobody decided to tap into the potential provided by the casting, which could have made this a genuinely amusing comedy drama. It almost succeeded anyway, especially when you see Campbell’s approach to fake guitar playing.

Serviceable. I just wish this one had reached for more.

5/10

Wednesday, 21 April 2021

Prime Time: Palm Springs (2020)

The feature film debut from director Max Barbakow (who has a number of shorts and a documentary already to his name), Palm Springs is a time loop comedy-drama that focuses on two wedding guests who get to know one another better as they try to make the best of their situation.

Andy Samberg is Nyles, a man who seems to know everything that is about to happen, which helps him to make a strong impression on Sarah (Cristin Milioti). After spending a memorable evening together, things start to get crazy when Nyles is attacked by someone wielding a bow and arrow. Crawling into a glowing cave, Nyles implores Sarah not to follow him. Not heeding his pleas, Sarah enters the cave, which takes her into the same time loop that Nyles has been experiencing for a very long time already. Freaked out, obviously, we see Sarah go through a number of phases that Nyles already went through. She is confused, she wonders if death can end the loop, she tries to right some wrongs, and she and Nyles have some fun, in between conversations about the lack of consequences and the meaning of life.

Although Andy Samberg is the male lead here, those who might not always enjoy his schtick should know that this performance is nowhere near his usual full-on Samberg. He's actually perfectly cast, a mix of confidence and understandable fear. Milioti, who I am much less familiar with, is equally perfectly cast. She's likeable, strong, and very capable of pushing Samberg's character towards being a better person. Meredith Hagner is fine as Misty, the girlfriend of Nyles (who we find out very early on isn't being faithful to him), but the only other person who really gets to stand out is J. K. Simmons, playing Roy, a man who ended up stuck in the time loop after a night of partying with Nyles.

Barbakow directs well enough, keeping things lively and clear throughout (markers dotted throughout, of course, and a montage here or there), helped in no small way by the script, from Andy Siara. Although it takes what is, by now, a premise that could be seen as overly familiar, Siara adds some layers to be peeled away on the way to the ending, one or two twists that help to explain different character motivations, and he also does enough in the third act to make the science seem remotely possible.

If you like time loop movies, and I do, then Palm Springs is a worthy addition to the sub-genre. It's a lot of fun, but it also takes some time to remind viewers of why we should value the lives that we lead, whether time seems to march on too quickly ahead of us, or whether we are sometimes stuck with the consequences of bad decisions. Those consequences mean that your life is having an impact, on yourself and on others. Worrying about the time you have available to you means that you have things you want to do with your time that have meaning to you. But, let's face it, being stuck in a time loop for a while would be pretty damn cool.

8/10