Talk:The Haunting in Connecticut/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Beloved Freak 10:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
Needs a good copyedit and attention paid to MoS issues.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
Some better sources are needed, one issue bordering on OR in the true story section, detailed below.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
More information needed about production and reception
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
seems reasonably stable, most recent edits seem to be in preparation for GA review
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
no problems here
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
Too many issues to be dealt with at this time.

I will go through the criteria in more detail, section by section.

Infobox

"Promotional film poster" doesn't need a link, it's obvious what that means
As a side note, no article for Peter Cornwell? Looks like he's won some awards, would probably meet notability guidelines for an article
For "studio", I don't think you need all those companies, particularly the ones with the "with the participation of" credit
For "distributed by", include Maple Pictures, as they distributed in Canada

Prose/MoS

Quite a lot of work to be done here including some glaringly obvious problems, like the first sentence.

Lead

"The Haunting in Connecticut is a 2009 psychological by Gold Circle Films, and directed by Peter Cornwell. " - this makes no grammatical sense. Also, when fixing it, put the director's name before the production Company's & please state that it's an American and Canadian film.
Is it a mortuary of a funeral home? They're slightly different aren't they? later on, you say it's a formaer funeral home, with a mortuary in the basement. Please make the lead consistent with the rest of the article.
"Supposedly based on the "true story"" = this is vague. Why the scare quotes around "true story"? What do you mean by "supposedly"? Please make it clear whether or not these was actually a true case that this could have been based on, who said it was based on true events, and whether or not that was in fact true. What about the book, was that an accurate account of a true story? It's all a little bit confusing. More on this in the next section.
"auther" is an incorrect spelling
Why is thee a colon after In a Dark Place?
The Haunting in Connecticut should be in italics
citations should be placesd after punctuation, not before, and no space in between: "moderately successful film, grossing $76,501,870[1]," → moderately successful film, grossing $76,501,870,[1] - this needs addressing throughout the article
"received the "generally unfavorable reviews" distinction from Metacritic." - this is a bit too vague for a summary of the reception. At the moment, the reception section itself needs expanding, but more on that later. For the lead, there's no need to mention Metacritic. For one thing, I am wondering, why Metacritic but no mention of Rotten Tomatoes? Why pick one over the other? For another thing, the average reader won't know all about Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, so that statement isn't going to mean that much to them. Better to have a short summary of what the reviewers actually thought. but, for that, it will need expanding further down.
The Haunting in Georgia should be in italics

Plot

I don't think cancer really needs a link - everyone knows what it is, and I doubt that clicking through to that article will give any insights into this film. It shouldn't have a capital letter.
Since there appears to be no cast list (which is fine) it would be nice to have the names of the actors in parentheses for the characters that are mentioned in the plot
"begins experiencing violent and supernatural events that the parents initially blame on stress and hallucinations from Matt's treatment..." - Ok, I haven't seen the film, and maybe it's just a really bad story, but I don't understand why they would blame "violent and supernatural events" on someone's treatment. this makes no sense. Could you try to clarify this a bit? Is it only Matt that is having the experiences? Do they not believe him?
"Matt also experiences visions from the perspective of a young teenager from the 1920s named Jonah." - this is a bit unexplained. How does he know he's a teenager form the 1920s? Does he just know?
"The Jonah character" sounds awkward; why not just "Jonah"
"The film comes to its climax ..." - you don't really say what happens at the end. It seems to tail off in a vague way. Is he successful? (Also, you mention more about this in the lead, make sure everything in the lead is mentioned/expanded on later on)
The plot is nice and short; less is often more for plot sections as they can get too detailed and unwieldy. However, I think that this plot summary would benefit from a little bit more detail as it's a bit vague and confusing.

True story claims

"Promotional material for the movie claimed..." - "claimed" is rarely a great word to use, since it makes the reader think straight away that the person doing the "claiming" is lying or wrong. "said" is usually fine.
It's not really clear what happened here.
- Someone wrote a book about some real life supernatural happenings. Someone else made a film based on the book. Later, people said that the facts presented in the book weren't true.
- Someone wrote a book about some real life supernatural happenings. Later, people said that the facts presented in the book weren't true. Later still, someone decided to make a film based on the book and ignored the people that said it wasn't true, and said that the film was based on true events.
- Someone wrote a book about some real life supernatural happenings. Later, people said that the facts presented in the book weren't true. Later still, someone decided to make a film, not based on the book especially, but on their own research into the events, ignoring the people that said it wasn't true, and said that the film was based on true events. The film was not directly based on the book.
Those are just three possibilities, and it may seem like nitpicking here, but I was genuinely confused when reading the article. There's no sense of the fimmakers in the story; why did they decide to make the film, were they aware that the stories had been debunked or dismissed by other people? Was it all part of a marketing ploy? When I fist read the statements in the lead, I got the impression that it was a The Blair Witch Project type situation, with a "true story" created to sell the film. This needs clearing up.
"The Snedekers moved into a house in Southington, Connecticut, and would later claim..." → The Snedekers moved into a house in Southington, Connecticut, and later claimed
"plagued by some manner of demonic presence" - can we be no more specific here? Is there no other detail?
"The house was examined by Ed and Lorraine Warren. The story follows that mortuary equipment was discovered..." - this is very wordy. Why not ust The house was examined by Ed and Lorraine Warren who discovered mortuary equipment
"Lorraine Warren would later state, "In the master bedroom..." → Lorraine Warren said, "In the master bedroom...
"Lorraine Warren has told the Associated Press..." → Lorraine Warren told the Associated Press
"The story was also covered in an episode of the A Haunting TV-series..." → The story was covered in an episode of television docudrama A Haunting.
"Since its inception many statements have been leveled with the book (the basis for the movie's story) In a Dark Place" - Ok, first of all, this is the first mention of the book. (remeber the lead is a summary, not an introdcution). As a reader, I'm thinking, what's In a Dark Place and what does that have to do with anything? Introduce the book, say why it's relevant. At this point, I don't even know what it's about. As for the prose, do books have an inception? Aren't they just written? "many statements have been leveled with the book" is not quite right. Please be more specific who criticised the book and for what.
"Ray Garton, remarked on the statements of the family members: "I never met the son..." - what statements by family members?
It would be very helpful to have some dates. We know that the incidents happened in the 1980s; that's a whole decade, can we be more specific? When was the book written? When did Joe Nickell investigate?
"Congressman Chris Murphy also lived in the house for a year and claims he had no paranormal experiences." - this seems really random and not particularly relevant. Does the fact that someone lived in the house prove that there were no paranormal incidents? Including the statement here, with no interpretation by a reliable source is kind of original research. You are presenting a fact and hoping that the reader will interpret it a certain way. It's also not necessary for us in this article to say whether or not the incidents really happened, it's more about was said and how it was reported.

Production

Per MOS:DATE, don't use "of" or "th" in dates; "10th of September, 2007"→10 September 2007. BUT, should it be September 10, 2007? It should be for US-related articles. Canada-related articles can go either way apparently, so I'd probably go with the month, date year format. Whichever it is though, make it consistent throughout the article.
Most of this is about the release, so shouldn't be in a production section. Perhaps combine the theater release with the DVD release in one section

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes should not be in italics

DVD release

Not sure that quote box is really necessary. It doesn't contain anything particularly riveting for the reader.

References

several references are bare URLs, please add title, work, publisher, author, date, accessdate where avilable
Box Office Mojo shouldn't be in italics
Two links are dead = the fangoria review and the msn money central report

External links

There still seem to be a lot of links here. Are they all necessary? The Gold Circle link for example, doesn't really add anything, and is out of date as it says the film is "in production".
The online video - don't list it here, use it as a source to add more info to the article

References, sources, citations

Plot

You don't really need citations for the plot, because the film itself is presumed to be the source. The exception would be anything controversial, likely to be challenged or open to interpretation. In addition, plot synopses on IMDb are user added, and not considered to be reliable sources.

Box office

"surpassing expectations of box office analysts" - is that backed up by that source? I don't see it in there

General

IMDb shouldn't be used for plot details, as mentioned. it's generally ok for other details, although not 100% accurate; it's best not to rely on it for details that can be obtained elsewhere, which I bet a lot of these could.

Broad? Focused?

True story claims

It may be that there is too much information here. Was there much WP:RS coverage of the case? If so, it might be worth writing a separate article , and just keeping the stuff here that is directly relevant to the film. At the moment, it's hard for me to tell how much is directly relevant as the article doesn't tell me how much of the film was based on the events. Something to think about though.

Production

Far too short, and most of the 2-sentence section is about the release of the film, not the production. Given the previous section, I am interested to know why the filmmakers decided to make a film about the story, at what point they got involved etc. I see from the details about the DVD that there are two DVD commentaries available as well as several featurettes. These need to be used to write this article! I bet there's a wealth of information there. Note that, for GA, articles do not have to be "comprehensive", but they do need to be "broad" and cover the major topics. This is not the case at the moment.

Critical reception

Much more cold be added here. 94 reviews from Rotten Tomatoes? Let's see what some of them said! It's ok to mention RT and metacritic, but don't over rely on them. Use them to point you in the direction of reviews. Since it was fairly negatively received, say why, what in particular did they not like. Who did like it? Summarise in particular the most respected / popular reviewers and make sure there are some Canadian ones in there.

Box office

Does that include Canadian revenue? Remember it's a joint US/Canadian production.

Pass/fail

I'm afraid I'm going to have to fail this article; there are too many issues holding it back at the moment. Please don't be discouraged from improving the article by my review, with a bit of work it will get there. I wanted to provide a detailed review so you know what there is to work on. It really does need more information with regard to production and reception. Prose needs sorting out too. I suggest when these issues have been dealt with, you request a peer review to make sure it's up to scratch before nominating it again. At the very least, ask someone else to read through it. There are some silly little mistakes in the prose that could have easily been picked up by a fresh pair of eyes. Erik's advice above was good; look at other film articles that are GA, and FA, to see what you are aiming for. Good luck, --Beloved Freak 11:30, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]