The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '>...<i>I highly recommend renting this movie. Fairly historically accurate (for hollywood) re-telling of the Battle of Stalingrad with some great battle scenes. I don't want to give too much away so I'll just mention that the main thrust of the movie revolves around a sniper duel. Really really cool shit. Ed Harris is just excellent in this. Not as good as he was in Pollack, but the guy is just one of the best actors out there...not many guys can be just as good as a bad guy as they can be a good guy.

Partial recommendation for Pollack since I'm talking about it anyway. It's a great movie, but rather depressing and a bit dull if you're not familiar with Jackson Pollack, his paintings or the modern art scene during the 40's and 50's in America. But just for G-Man, Jennifer Connoly is in it...in a bathing suit <big>;^)</big>

Back to Enemy at the Gates, it also has the very beautiful Rachel Weisz in it (the female lead in the 2 Mummy movies) and she looks really gooooood, even covered in dirt and wearing a baggy Russian uniform. Every performance in the movie was excellent, and the final duel between the 2 main characters is worth seeing the movie for.

Another aspect of the movie I really enjoyed was how they showed the propaganda machines at work. While it was a simple struggle between 2 very good snipers, it became a duel of giants for everyone else. As if the entire war hinged on which one would kill the other, yet in the end their duel became nothing more than a personal battle while the war was all but over.</i></div>

<div style='font: 14pt Plakatbau; text-align: left; '>'Enemy at the Gates' wasn't terrible, but it was pure Hollywood. It was also disconcerting that all the 'Russians' spoke with English accents.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial; text-align: left; '>I recommended it back when it was in theatres. Nice film.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Helvetica; text-align: left; '>All Foreign people (when supposedly speaking in their own language) speak english with a british accent.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>Yeah.. loved it in the theatres</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '><i>...it's not like it'd be less Hollywood if they were speaking english with russian accents. They'd still be speaking english, not Russian. And if they were speaking Russian, it'd be subtitled and nobody would go see it and they'd be guaranteed to lose money, which is a bad thing.

I didn't mind the english accents, and I think it was a pretty brave move by the director letting the actors speak as they normally would rather than trying to fake an aceent and having their performance be forced. By letting them speak naturally, the acting was much better then it would have been if they were trying to get an accent right all the time. Probably had to do less takes too.

The one choice all moviegoers have is the ability to suspend disbelief. Yes, Ed Harris is speaking like he's from the US, Jude Law sound like he's from England, but we just accept that one is German and one is Russian and let the words and how they're delivered do the job, not the accent they're delivered with. Yeah, it sucks sometimes having to put up with the Hollywood shit and the need to turn a big profit, but without it a movie like this probably wouldn't be made, so we deal with it.</i></div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Not all foreign people. It just depends on where you live.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Plakatbau; text-align: left; '>

...it's not like it'd be less Hollywood if they were speaking english with russian accents. They'd still be speaking english, not Russian. And if they were speaking Russian, it'd be subtitled and nobody would go see it and they'd be guaranteed to lose money, which is a bad thing.

Of course they'd be speaking English. That's still more tolerable than being told Jude Law is a great Russian hero yet half expecting him to say "Pip-pip" at the end of sentences.

I didn't mind the english accents, and I think it was a pretty brave move by the director letting the actors speak as they normally would rather than trying to fake an aceent and having their performance be forced. By letting them speak naturally, the acting was much better then it would have been if they were trying to get an accent right all the time. Probably had to do less takes too.

I think it was a fault considering how much work and detail was put into visual historical accuracy. The sets were fantastic and really set the stage for a wartorn nation in the 1940s. The accents almost seemed anachronistic and put a dent in the illusion. Not a good thing.

The one choice all moviegoers have is the ability to suspend disbelief. Yes, Ed Harris is speaking like he's from the US, Jude Law sound like he's from England, but we just accept that one is German and one is Russian and let the words and how they're delivered do the job, not the accent they're delivered with. Yeah, it sucks sometimes having to put up with the Hollywood shit and the need to turn a big profit, but without it a movie like this probably wouldn't be made, so we deal with it.

The story was very Hollywood. It was touted as being true, but there was obviously a lot of retooling. Also, there's nothing inherently wrong with occasional suspension of disbelief in a movie, but with the aforementioned quality of sets, costumes and atmosphere, why did they quit halfway? This could have been a more serious movie with a little more work instead of a predominantly 'popcorn' title.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I have to agree with Esque, having just seen a pretty good movie, Thirteen Days, which was partly brought down by making Kevin Costner adopt a Boston accents. If the person can't do it perfectly (like Mel Gibson in Braveheart), don't do it at all.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>My god, he went way overboard with that accent. I wish he'd toned it down a bit, at the very least the way the guy who played JFK did.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>That was Kevin Coster.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Costner never acted as JFK.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>It all depends on the story and script. Like Saving Private Ryan, when the role of the "foriegner" is small, let them speak the actual language.</div>