User:LarissaSanders/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Melancholia (2011 film)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
Overall I thought the article was well done and nicely detailed, however, there were a couple of things that stuck out to me and thought could be slightly improved or edited for concision. Also this movie is relevant to the class and I'm thinking about possibly having this article as an option for the project.

Evaluate the article
 Lead Section:  While this section is very concise, it seems to have some of filler. Particularly when it mentions every single one of actors' names; since all of the names of the cast is already featured later in the article, having them in the lead feels redundant and repetitive. Instead, I would change this to only having the main characters listed and not the entire supporting cast. Also there is a citation needed for the last sentence of the first paragraph. This sentence (which is a short summary of the movie) could be expanded upon with the right citations.

 Content:  Very well done and all content is relevant and up-to-date. All sections are relatively similar in size. (Further thoughts on specific content detailed in sections below).

 Tone and Balance:  Article is neutral and free from bias as well as persuasion. When first looking at everything, the Summary section seems a little long but after closer reading it just is very thorough. Difficult to tell if it could be edited down without sacrificing different parts of the plot as the writing is already as condensed as it can be. Also in the plot it states, "Justines divorced parents Gaby and Dexter verbally abuse each other in front of the guests..." this seems like the opinion of the author; after rewatching that particular clip of the movie, it could be interpreted as verbal abuse but it also could not be. Rather it seems as though they are still disgruntled old exes who share a stiff, tense moment together and embarrass themselves in front of the wedding party. This claim could be edited out or replaced with something more neutral. On a different note, it was nice to see that there are references to both good and bad criticism of the movie in the Reception section as well as the negativity surrounding the director in the Release section. It gives the feeling of a good balance between positive and negative by not leaning more to one side or the other.

 Sources and References:  Lots of current and up-to-date references. I even checked the Rotten Tomatoes score to see if it was still the same and it was. However, it looks like there aren't any scholarly or peer reviewed sources so checking into that and possibly adding that in or replacing some of the many news and magazine articles would be good.

 Organization and Writing Quality:  Writing quality is professional and the article is nicely organized.

 Images and Media:  All of the images are great, well captioned, and are free from any copyright issues. The only thing I would change is maybe finding a more flattering picture of actress Charlotte Gainsbourg from the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in the Cast section.

 Talk Page Discussion:  Definitely some interesting discussions taking place but there were a lot personal opinions of the film and different aspects of it which would not be helpful or relative to the article. Additionally, I saw someone who was commenting on the director's own personal thoughts around having depression (which is stated as part of the inspiration for the film in the article) and was wondering if the director's thoughts were backed scientifically from a mental health standpoint. A comment that followed this said the quote from the director on his inspiration was "reliably-sourced information" from the director "via PR", although in the training for this class I thought that using PR information was not considered a reliable source. Even though it's directly from the director, I think some clarification is needed here in the article to refer to how these are his own thoughts from personal experience (even though another user said it was not needed in the comment thread). Other than that, a lot of the talk page discussions revolve around what genre this movie would be considered as and how to prove this. This article is rated as B-class.

 Overall Impressions:  Overall I thought this was a good article that could use some tweaking and more research. I thought it was well organized and that the content was well stated; there are just little things that could be adjusted and I think it would benefit the article if there were more reputable sources being referenced.