User:Vanished user 7449738/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article by (somewhat randomly) looking through C-class articles, under the "Australian Cinema" category. I recalled that this film is set in a future wasteland, making it relevant to our class investigation of post-apocalyptic narratives.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section:

Introductory sentence covers the bases well but there is no lead in to the article sections and several are unaddressed. Otherwise, it is concise and reflects the subject.

Content:

The article content is relevant to the subject and essentially up to date, considering that the film is over thirty years old. It does not connect to any Wikipedia equity gaps. One potential addition could be star Mickey Rourke's 2016 interview with Alec Baldwin where he discussed his hatred of the film:

https://ew.com/article/2016/02/09/alec-baldwin-mickey-rourke-podcast/

Tone and Balance:

Article is neutral in tone, particularly since this is a pretty uncontroversial subject. No excessive claims or argumentation.

Sources and References:

All references are related to technical aspects of production and film reviews, rather than direct information. Several of the included press links (LA Times, NYT, EW) no longer connect to the cited materials due to paywalls and 404 errors. Archived links to those pages would be helpful because there is little recent discussion of this film and contemporary reviews are most pertinent to its reception. Given the nature of the subject, there is little concern regarding peer-reviewed sources or more diverse authorship.

Organization and Writing Quality:

The plot synopsis is very in-depth, more than I would consider necessary for a wikipedia article on this subject, and written from a somewhat personal (film viewer) point-of-view. I couldn't locate any grammatical or spelling issues beyond some questionable phrasing in the synopsis. The page is properly divided into relevant sections.

Images and Media:

Article contains a single image, the theatrical poster for the film which is properly attributed and captioned. The article doesn't necessarily require additional images to get its point across but another might make the page "stand out" more.

Talk Page Discussion:

There are two notes on the talk page, one related to a grammatical/phrasing issue and another related to some of the issues I described with the article's plot synopsis. The article is described as C-Class, lacking proper referencing/citation and coverage/accuracy. It falls within the scope of WikiProject Film and is supported by the American and Australian Cinema Task Forces. The technical note about phrasing was interesting to me, in that it related to a detail I probably wouldn't notice or think to investigate (in regard to the radio station call sign). Wikipedeans are certainly thorough.

Overall Impressions:

The article is strong but could use some focus and better integration of outside sources. It's quite detailed and comprehensive in its scope, containing information about the film's soundtrack, reception, and use of advertising figures. The biggest issue is that the plot synopsis reads like a friend excitedly telling you the story, rather than a more balanced, encyclopedic tone. I think honing down the synopsis and bringing in some more formal references, if any exist. I would call the article well-developed, since it primarily needs tweaks here and there to bring it to B-Class rather than total redevelopment.