Talk:Charles Matthau

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article has been automatically rated by a bot or other tool as Stub-class because it uses a stub template. Please ensure the assessment is correct before removing the `\|auto=` parameter.

Movie synopses and general style

I found a few serious issues with this page, some general and some specific.

In general, the chronology in "life and career" is all over the place, jumping from 1986 to 2012, then 2005, then 1991, then 1995. And so on. Also in general, the style often sounds like a PR job, hyping the intentions and the connections, rather than talking about the works' critical reception.

More specifically, the synopses use very strange language (for Wikipedia), a language very much sounding like lifted off a press kit or a (very) friendly review.

I'm referring to things like this (about Freaky Deaky): "The heist-laden plot with heightened reality chronicles the exploits of two bomb-loving, eco-terrorist, radical antagonists, with a trailblazing cop, reviving the indie film idealistic with isolated eccentric characters surpassing the threshold for liberating presentation." (my quotation marks: the passage is without references)

The grammar seems a tad wonky, too, especially towards the end. And most synopses are like this, here: over-elaborate, over-hyped, and promotional in nature, rather than fitting a fact-based encyclopedic house style.

I'm opening a discussion rather than editing the article because I've never encountered a case like this, and wanted to know other opinions and get some guidelines. Alca Impenne (talk) 21:18, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]