The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 02:35, 8 March 2010 [1].


American Beauty (film)[edit]

American Beauty (film) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominators: Steve; Erik

On-set accidents! Suicidal dwarfs! A thousand elephants! This film's production has none of those. What you do get is a Hollywood rags-to-riches story for the writer and director (well, D-list to A-list), an Oscar campaign aggressive enough to make even the Weinsteins blush, teen nudity, crotchety cinematographers and incest. Allegedly. This is what's kept me from FAC reviewing for the last few months, after Erik suggested it almost as an aside when I said I wanted a bigger challenge after completing my last FA. So we set about taking it from this to what you see today. I don't think we did a bad job. Steve T • C 19:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton (talk) 09:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi; thanks for the comments. Some replies:
    • You really think "cubicle worker" will be unfamiliar to UK readers? It's a term I've heard lots of times. Still, maybe it's a product of overexposure to US pop culture, so I've swapped it out for "office worker"; it's not necessary to make the distinction here (whereas it is important later).
    • "Tortured sentence"—agreed; changed. Had to go passive, but I think it works.
    • The "directorial" is probably redundant; we already say he's the director. Removed.
    • On reflection, rather than expand to explain what the bookend scenes were about, I've trimmed and replaced with the broader, "During editing, Mendes made several changes that gave the film a less cynical tone." The bookend scenes weren't the only changes, so this is probably a better fit.
    • "dissociative"—it seemed an accurate description of Mrs Fitts, but in hindsight, that's a term with a specific medical meaning. No reliable source "diagnoses" her as having dissociative disorder, so I've swapped it for "barely communicative" "introverted".
    • I used Col. Fitts throughout the article to disambiguate from Ricky and Barbara Fitts, but your alternative is a good one. Done.
    • To give Ricky's calling Angela ordinary enough context ... I think we'd need to add too much and might stray into OR territory. It's not important enough to mention, so I've replaced it.
  • Thanks again. Steve T • C 14:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC) (Edited at 22:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Comment The article is 75kb of readable prose - this is going to have to be cut down. WP:SIZE recommends that articles not exceed 30 - 50kb of readable prose, and even that is hard for most readers to get through in a single sitting. I will read the article and make some suggestions for deletion, but I wanted the nominators to be aware that some serious editing needs to take place. Awadewit (talk) 15:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These are some suggestions for places to cut. I'm not saying "Cut these or I won't support" - I'm saying, if you want readers to get through the entire article, some material is going to have to be cut and here are some places I thought you could cut without losing too much. :) Awadewit (talk) 16:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, and thanks for the suggestions. I don't necessarily disagree with you, though I think there might be a good arguments for keeping a couple of those. I'm off out, but that'll give me a chance to mull it over before responding more fully (either when I get in tonight, or tomorrow). Thanks, Steve T • C 17:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so I had a longer response typed out last night, but I'm glad I didn't post it. Nothing horrible, but I was a bit whiny about losing content, when I'd already cut 14kb pre-FAC. :-) I do still feel that an article like this is unlikely to be read in one sitting anyway, and that WP:SIZE is a bit out-of-touch, considering multiple FA precedents, but I can see the wisdom of most of these suggestions. With that in mind, I'll be tackling them over the next day or so. I've already done the easiest, trimming the plot section by eliminating irrelevant details (though I kept the bit about the colonel's beating Ricky, as it's referenced in "Themes"). I don't know if you're watching this page, so I'll ping you when [I feel] I've resolved your concern. Thanks again, Steve T • C 22:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have you considered creating subarticles and making this a summary-style article? Ucucha 00:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have. Indeed, what content can be spun off into sub-articles has already been (score & soundtrack listings, list of awards and nominations). Experience shows that film articles don't lend themselves to as much splitting as might other subjects; I think to fork any more would be to the detriment of overall context. The weight of coverage the film has received over the last ten years means this will always be pretty large, but I think I can get this down to an acceptable size without further splits. (Thanks for tweaking the alt text, by the way; I should have thanked you above.) All the best, Steve T • C 08:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

←Update: I've now worked through the article, making cuts to all the suggested areas and a couple I spotted myself. I didn't put the information from "Theatrical run" into a table, as it just didn't lend itself to the format, but I did remove a lot of the guff, and I think it's parsable now. I retained a few other tidbits, but the article is now shorter by 25Kb than it was a couple of weeks ago, and 11kb shorter than yesterday. Still large, but a lot more manageable; it's well below many featured articles, and a few other film FAs. Steve T • C 23:21, 15 February 2010 (UTC) (Edited at 23:49, 15 February 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Sorry it has taken me so long to return to this FAC. Some off-wiki drama arose in my life. Anyway, I still think 67 kB is too long for an article on a single film. The point of the article is to summarize what has been said about the film, not repeat the majority of it. I feel that the article could do a better job of this. I do understand how difficult it is to cut an article that one has worked so hard on, but it is possible (I've done it myself). I would strongly urge the creation of subarticles - that way the material is not lost. I'm afraid I don't have time to work further on this FAC at the moment, but I did want to register my comments. From my perspective, the article is, without a doubt, comprehensive and well-researched. I think that it needs a bit of work on summary style, however. That said, it is still a wonderful achievement. I hope that I can return and help out more - I would really like to do so, but I simply cannot promise anything at this time. Awadewit (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Having read much of the available literature, trust me when I say that this is a summary rather than a reproduction; this film has had a heck of a lot written about it and you should see some of the material I discarded. :-) Still, thank you for coming back to take another look, and especially for your kind words about the other aspects of the article. However, I think it's at this stage that I make a stand about the size. If this scuppers the FAC, then I'll happily accept that result. For other potential reviewers, I'll simply point to my previous arguments: the individual aspects of a film's production—development, filming, post, etc.—do not lend themselves to being spun-off as well as the subsections of other articles, not without losing vital context; with a definite beginning, middle and end-result, filmmaking is a closed process with a strong narrative running through it; the better film articles reflect that. In this case, I think the whole would be weakened if any more than the three current sub-articles were spun-out. And should this pass, it would not be anywhere near the largest FA, nor even the largest film FA. I've made efforts to reduce load times—for example, converting the citation templates to fully-written cites. As for holding readers' interest, I don't think that's an issue. Everyone's different; when reading articles this size some people will take the time to read it all, others will skip to the sections they have a particular interest in, while some will simply use it as a quick reference point for specific facts they want to research. Our goal should be to present the most comprehensive resource available anywhere online, for whatever use; I think we've achieved that. Please trust me when I say that none of my comments come from a particular love of my own prose; I'm more than happy to put some in strategic distance before coming back to wield the axe. And I really do appreciate the time you spent looking at the article. You have helped improve it; indeed, you indirectly led me to this point in the first place. Thanks again, Steve T • C 22:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article marks a significant turning point in my Wikipedia life in that it's the first film article I've spent more time reading than actually watching the film and I am hard pushed to say which was the more enjoyable use of a couple of hours. --bodnotbod (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Thank you for those kind words. They mean a lot, coming from you. Honestly. Though I realise no-one else here has any way of knowing that's true. :-) I've checked the references you mentioned, and they all seem to work for me, both in Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, it looks like you've been reading this while I've been making changes, so perhaps one of my intermediate edits munged the links temporarily and you happened to be reading that version. Try it again, and if it still doesn't work ... I'll check on another PC and get back to you (though I might reply on your talk, to prevent this page getting too large). On the "unreferenced" sentence at the beginning of Cinematography, cite [132] covers it; throughout the article, any citation you see covers the block of text before it—i.e. multiple sentences—right up to the preceding citation. Thanks again, Steve T • C
The '2004' ref works fine now. The ones to the DVD commentary still function a bit strange; my browser just goes off to the bottom, but if I scroll up a little bit I can indeed see the DVD commentary reference highlighted. I shall put it down to a browser glitch... Aha! I've been using Chrome; it works fine in FF. I'll keep an eye out for this possible Chrome bug as I review other articles. But as far as this is concerned, support for Featured Article status. --bodnotbod (talk) 15:56, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: to help the closing delegate more easily tally "supports" and "opposes", I've edited the above comment to remove the bold formatting on the last sentence. Bod won't mind. :-) Steve T • C 08:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yarp. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 22:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarified by mentioning that he gets $60,000 out of it.
  • Silly reply that references some previous interaction.
  • An earlier version mentioned their credentials, but I cut them when trying something, anything to reduce the word count. :-) I've readded them (though I might relegate the info. to footnotes before the end), but I'm not sure what to call Patti Bellantoni—"colour expert"? :-)
  • Done!
  • Cheers for taking a look, Steve T • C 23:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
why is "nondiegetic" in quotation marks?
The only other (minor) quibble I have is that I feel there are too many direct quotes from critics and critiques. However, I am not sure there is an easy way around this without inadvertently changing meaning. In any case, the article stands up really well.

Overall, well done - I had to review this to get a sense of completion - a good film with as sucky a cop-out ending as I have seen (umm...gee, let's solve the moral dilemma of Lester by killing him...(facepalm)) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think Mendes would go with the "mythic quest" excuse; the death of the hero is a well-established trope. ;-) Ahh ... everyone seems to have a problem with the ending. For William Goldman, it was because Lester didn't have it off with Angela ("That's such Hollywood horseshit ... He's got to fuck her!"—lovely quote, not from a RS, unfortunately). Anyway, back on topic: I know what you mean about the direct quotes, especially in the analysis section; that was such a bugger to write to make sure I didn't misrepresent the sources. Early attempts too often missed the point, but I overcompensated in later versions and hewed too close to the source text. In the end, I felt it best to acknowledge my limitations and spatter the section with quotes. "Nondiegetic" is I think a holdover from that. I'll take another look to see what else I can paraphrase. Oh, and cheers for the review and support; I know it was a long one to look over, so it's appreciated that you took the time. Steve T • C 00:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My pleasure, it was a great read :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Rather good, I say. Can you get your colleagues at the WikiProject films to bring the field up to this standard? Well done.

But really, these are trivial. I think I might get the DVD. Tony (talk) 12:59, 6 March 2010 (UTC) PS Ah, it's Steve who has nominated this (with colleague). I might have guessed: he has created an excellent writing tutorial for the Wikiproject, based in part on the MilHist equivalent. Tony (talk) 13:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Again, thanks for taking a look, and for those very kind words. Your suggestions above look like good ones, so I'll amend accordingly. All the best, Steve T • C 00:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. A very well written and informational article. Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 00:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.