two weeks notice
Dec. 21st, 2002 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfbWell, unlike my dream Ebert (I believe he can get me through the night), I liked Two Weeks Notice. I laughed at most of the parts I was supposed to laugh at, teared up at slightly inappropriate moments, missed New York a good deal, liked Robert Klein and Dana Ivey as liberal activist lawyers, adored Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant as love interests, and was willing to overlook the story's structural flaws.
(I was wondering where I'd seen Dana Ivey before--it turns out she's in a DVD I'm halfway through, Mumford, which I have taken to pronouncing with a Medford accent.)
I will say that it had a serious case of that Hollywood syndrome where we're supposed to believe that movie stars are ugly or ordinary-looking. Sandra Bullock's character is supposed to be, you know, not very attractive or concerned with looks, and I guess she does dress down, as these things go, but, well, in particular, she describes herself as a "compulsive eater" and at one point orders two bags of Chinese food when she's upset, and it's hard to watch someone movie-star thin sitting in front of a table full of food and not wonder where all that food is supposed to go.
My favorite moment was the big fight between Grant and Bullock, shortly before the big reconciliation. I liked Grant's flicker of self-recognition there more than his later acknowledgment of it.
During the previews before the movie, the theater was having some unusual trouble with the sound: The music track was working fine, but the dialogue and sound effects were just missing. Interesting parts of this:
Fortunately they got things working before the feature started.
(I was wondering where I'd seen Dana Ivey before--it turns out she's in a DVD I'm halfway through, Mumford, which I have taken to pronouncing with a Medford accent.)
I will say that it had a serious case of that Hollywood syndrome where we're supposed to believe that movie stars are ugly or ordinary-looking. Sandra Bullock's character is supposed to be, you know, not very attractive or concerned with looks, and I guess she does dress down, as these things go, but, well, in particular, she describes herself as a "compulsive eater" and at one point orders two bags of Chinese food when she's upset, and it's hard to watch someone movie-star thin sitting in front of a table full of food and not wonder where all that food is supposed to go.
My favorite moment was the big fight between Grant and Bullock, shortly before the big reconciliation. I liked Grant's flicker of self-recognition there more than his later acknowledgment of it.
During the previews before the movie, the theater was having some unusual trouble with the sound: The music track was working fine, but the dialogue and sound effects were just missing. Interesting parts of this:
- Brief speculation (before it became clear what was going on) that Antwone Fisher might be a movie about a deaf soldier, and that's why no voices were heard in the trailer.
- Reminder of how shamelessly manipulative the music is in movie trailers.
- New awareness of how the mixing is done--when there's no voiceover or dialogue, it becomes very obvious how dramatically the music volume is brought up to fill in the gaps between lines.
- Discovery that occasional voices--a scream in one preview, some overlapping dream voices in another--are placed on the music track.
Fortunately they got things working before the feature started.
