Two Weeks Notice (2002)

Watched ‘Two Weeks Notice’ (2002) on Netflix. (a movie in which Donald Trump has played the role of Trump! In some children's league party!)

I liked the story. Or rather, the paradigm of it. Ambitious builders razing down old buildings, even those that deserve to be preserved owing to their historical or cultural or architectural or social significance. And activists trying to save them.

Lucy (Sandra Bullock), is a lawyer who specializes in historic preservation and environmental law. A few lines of her passionate speech do the character sketching. Economic.
“When I think about how architecture can shape a community and turn strangers in to neighbours, how the right design for a park makes people feel secure, how a school building can be functional and beautiful so kids feel engaged instead of imprisoned.”

She meets the rich and spoilt George Wade (Hugh Grant) while protesting against his firm to protect Coney Island community center from his bulldozers, at a time when he was wanting to hire a lawyer.
He hires the reluctant Lucy. In course of time, he comes to depend on her advice not just on legal matters but also his personal choices.

The viewer is expected to believe that George (Hugh Grant) is a casanova, but he isn’t depicted to be one,.. he is shown indulging in some harmless flirtation but that's it.
Only after watching this movie I came to know of strip chess, because George and a woman are shown playing it. Even in that scene, Hugh Grant hardly looks casanova. More like a joker.

The traits and habits of Sandra bullock, intended to depict her as not dainty and ladylike, are agreeable - overeating, snoring, and other things.. but the scene of her struggling with pressure ‘to go', to do the big job, while in traffic, following some major overeating, and Hugh grant's carrying her to a motel having a toilet, was unnecessary, pointless, and characteristic of America's morbid fascination for the gross.

The story is set in Manhattan. I haven't done a chopper ride in new York, but this movie provides the experience.
As Lucy (Sandra bullock) remarks in the movie, God it is such a beautiful city!
The sky ride over new York skyline with ample views of the Chrysler, Empire state and wall Street skyscrapers was a real treat.
I had to note this down.. commentary between the two, while on their chopper, flying over Manhattan skies.
“My favorite building of all time (Chrysler Building)
Look, Nirosta steel, sunburst tower, gleaming gargoyles, all designed by a man called William van Alen, obsessed with beating his former partner, who was building the bank of Manhattan tower, at 927 feet, so van Alen announced the Chrysler building at 925 feet, and then surreptitiously assembled the 180 foot mast inside the tower and revealed it after the bank tower had been completed, thereby giving van Alen the tallest building in the world until of course the Empire state building.”

This song serves the movie well.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone?

Hey farmer, farmer put away the DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Don't it always seem to go...

Lines I noted..

“You need someone who can write a brief instead of removing yours”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies Closer..”

“You are the most selfish human being on the planet”
“That's silly, have you met everyone on the planet?”

“I think it's immoral that any human being should acquire that much wealth. I don't know how you sleep at night”
“I have a machine that simulates the sound of the ocean”

‘I have never seen you cry. Except when Bush won.’
‘Which Bush?’
‘Both of them, so may be you cried twice’

“Philosopher yogananda says, ‘only that which is the other gives us fully unto ourselves’ !”

“You are a cause! You make Gandhi look like a used car salesman.”

Learnt that ‘Groundbreaking’is the plain Jane version of our Bhoomi Pooja

Hugh grant's has a pathetic mouth but his British accent is so good to the ears.
And how did Sandra bullock become a star with a face and a button nose like that???