Talk:White Dog (1982 film)/GA1

GA Review

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Hello, I will be reviewing this article! At first glance, the article body looks well-rounded with the appropriate sections and supple content to be found in each one. Some thoughts:

The lead section opens with "created by", which seems vague. Can it be defined what role each person played?
In the third paragraph of the lead section, there is usage of "can't"; contractions should be avoided
For the "Plot" section, can a setting be introduced? Is it suburbia, is it in the woods?
In "Production", "...leaving things in limbo" sounds casual. Can "things" be replaced by another word?
"...the project was handed to..." → "...the project passed through..." (just a suggestion)
The third paragraph of "Production" has only two sentences, which makes the paragraph pretty short. Any way to merge the sentences to the preceding or succeeding paragraph?
This quote is used: "book shelves are laden with quality novels by black writers who explore the same social and psychological areas with far more subtlety?" I understand the intent with the quote, but it is awkwardly used in a different meaning than the rest of the sentence that preceded it. Any way to rewrite it?
"write up", I think, should be "write-up"
"action's of the studio" → "studio's action"
The quote box in "Distribution" seems a bit oversized for the amount of content here. Is there any way to implement the quote into the section like you did for the "Themes" quote?
In "Reception", the first sentence is in its own paragraph, which seems stark. Any way to merge it into the other two paragraphs?
Can you check through the article to make sure it complies with MOS:QUOTE? For example, "deserves an audience." should be "deserves an audience".
Optional, but can "References" be double columned?
Should the red-linked "The Chronicle Review" point to The Chronicle of Higher Education?
Final thought: Do you think there could be a red link for the novel on which the film is based, to encourage article creation? Or is the novel not notable?

Nothing too major! Let me know if you have any questions about my review. —Erik (talk • contrib) 00:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Final final thought... can the external links be evaluated for usefulness? I am not so sure about Yahoo! Movies and TCM Database. The latter can be appropriate, but this does not seem to be a film that is well-covered in that database, as opposed to some others. —Erik (talk • contrib) 00:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi and thanks :) Hopefully I've gotten all items listed fixed, except the plot. I need to rewatch it to confirm where the accident happened, but almost positive it was a dark woody area because I want to say she lived in a secluded area. Been awhile since I've sat and watched though, since it stopped rerunning on cable like a decade ago and I just go the DVD (its in my queue though) :-) I didn't double column the references, though, as I generally only like to double them when there are 20 or more. Good question on the novel...in some ways, I'd say it is notable if for no other reason that its being the basis of the film, but I'll do some quick scanning to see if it has any notability apart from the film. I also cleaned up the ELs, nothing which ones I removed and giving reasons in case someone questions it. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:44, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up by MacGyverMagic (talk · contribs): I selected this article for review yesterday only to find someone beat me to it. :( Please notify the reviewer next time Erik. In general this article is fine, but there are some issues that still need addressing:

"The film depicts the struggle of a black dog trainer named Keys (Paul Winfield) trying to deprogram a "white dog", a stray dog found by a young actress (Kristy McNichol) who was programmed to viciously attack any black person."
Obviously, the girl isn't trained to attack black people but the sentence makes it seem so. I'm not sure if adding a comma addresses the issue. I'd therefore suggest rephrasing this particular sentence.
Y You're missing the UK release date in the infobox and according to Box Office Mojo, the runtime is 124 minutes, not 130.
Y "It was released theatrically internationally in 1982, including in France and the United Kingdom"
"including in" is grammatically incorrect. I suggest "It was released internationally in France, the United Kingdom and several other countries in 1982." which I assume is the intended meaning of "including".
YI recommend making sure that sentences with multiple numbered references have those references in numerical order.
In the distribution section: "A Sam Fuller thriller was simply not the kind of anti-racist picture that a major studio knew how to market in 1981 or that African-American organizations wanted Hollywood to make at the time"." is left unreferenced.
Y "...Cyril Pearl, called it "bombastic, odd and quite chilling" and felt the film was an anti-racial work that "deserves an audience"." All the sentence is past tense, the quote either needs to be indirect or edited to fit the tense (I think using square brackets for deserve[d] is the norm, but I'm not sure)
Where are the negative reviews?
Box Office Mojo gives a PG rating by teh MPAA for this film. Is this for the recent DVD release? I wonder if it was rated back in 1982 (either by America or any of the countries it was released in) - Mgm|^(talk) 09:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)Fixed the first. The UK release insn't in the infobox because I can't find its exact release date, only "later in 1982." Will search some more. I used Criteron's official run time, which I believe is the more reliable of the two in this case (which 90 minutes...not sure where the 124 comes from?) Fixed statement. Fixed reference ordering. Fixed the missing source (accidentally dropped while making earlier edits above). Fixed tense on Pearl's quote. At this time, I have not found any negative reviews in reliable sources, though I have tried to note any negative remarks make by critics who otherwise gave it a positive review. I would imagine the PG rating is for the box office release, since DVDs aren't "Required" to have them to be released, but will check to see if I can find out for sure one way or the other. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies about stealing the review; I defer to MacGyverMagic here. Sorry, AnmaFinotera, hope this mix-up isn't going to frustrate you. Think of it this way; the article will be doubly good with two independent pairs of eyes on it. :) —Erik (talk • contrib) 14:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No worries...just mean I got extra good feedback :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I checked off the issues you've fully addressed. Please check if you agree with my solution to issue one. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That works fine for me :) For the MPAA rating, yes it is for the film from 1981 per some news reports about it back then. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]