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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 not promoted 01:32, 14 October 2007.

A Beautiful Mind (film)

[edit]

Self-nomination. I have been working on this article for the past month and I believe that is now up to featured status. It has been passed the Good article nomination and has had a peer review. The Filmaker 20:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments The writing throughout the article could be much improved. Almost makes me want to oppose. Here are some examples:
    • The article overuses temporal adverbs, such as "eventually" and "later", that are almost never necessary. A lot of times, the presence of these words also break up the flow of the writing. For example: "Grazer immediately purchased the rights to the film. He eventually brought the project to Ron Howard, who had scheduling conflicts and was forced to pass." Remove eventually, combine the sentences, and use a better transition to get: "Grazer immediately purchased the rights to the film and brought the project to Ron Howard; he had scheduling conflicts, however, and was forced to pass." "Later" implies a temporal comparison (with "earlier"). However, in a lot of cases, there's nothing to compare against ("Grazer later said that many...", "Bayer later stated that he approached...", "It was later released nationally...", "The filmmakers later stated that the film...", etc.). "Later" contributes nothing to those sentences.
    • Sentences within paragraphs should flow logically into each other. Take, for example, the second paragraph of Production. The first three sentences focus on Goldman and his creative vision for the story. Ok, fine. Then, suddenly, the fourth sentence reads: "Howard agreed to direct the film based only on the first draft." There was no earlier mention of a "first draft", nor any mention of Howard's decision-making process, so we readers are thrown out of sorts. Also, the previous paragraph states that "Grazer was forced to make a decision and chose Howard." There's a disconnect there. See also the last paragraph in production ("The film was shot 90% chronologically.[6] Three separate trips were made to the Princeton University campus. During filming, Howard decided that Nash's delusions should always first be introduced audibly and then visually..."). Reads like a list.
    • The Historical accuracy section needs a lot of work, and at the moment, reads like a random collection of facts. It also suffers from an overuse of the passive voice ("Around the time of the Oscar nominations, Nash was accused of being anti-semitic." By whom??? "It is true that his handlers, both from faculty and administration, had to introduce him to assistants and strangers." What?). "The film has been criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of Nash's life and schizophrenia as well as for the over-simplified representation of the Nash equilibrium." Topic sentence, so we expect to gain more insight into all three areas. Instead, there's nothing more about the portrayal of schizophrenia and the Nash equilibrium. So what are those two doing in the topic sentence? "The film's more major departures from Nash's life and the Nasar biography include that Nash's hallucinations were exclusively auditory, and not both visual and auditory as shown in the film." Very awkward sentence. "Nash also had an illegitimate son in Boston- although his son from Boston plays a part in the movie, as a nurse who manhandles Nash in the hospital." What is going on here?
  • Other random comments:
    • "Grazer then met with a number of screenwriters, mostly consisting of "serious dramatists", but he chose Akiva Goldsman instead, because of his strong passion and desire for the project." If "serious dramatists" is a quotation, it needs a citation. Also, this sentence implies that Akiva Goldsman is not a "serious dramatist" (whatever that may mean); are you sure this is what you intended?
    • "Roger Ebert gave the film four stars (his highest rating) in the Chicago Sun-Times review and gave it thumbs up, along with Richard Roeper on Ebert & Roeper who also stated "this is one of the very best films of the year." Two sentences awkwardly smashed into one.
    • "A running discussion between the director and the composer was the concept of high level mathematics being less about numbers and solutions, and more akin to a kaleidoscope, in that the ideas evolve and change." A bit nonsensical, especially with the passive voice.
    • When you're transitioning into a quotation, please remember to punctuate correctly. For example, this requires a comma after Howard: "After the first screening of the film, Horner told Howard "I see changes occurring like fast moving weather systems." 69.202.63.165 16:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for several reasons:
  • The lead section fails to provide a concise overview of the article, most notably that there is no mention of Production (a large enough section).
  • Lack of specific fair use rationale for the image used in the Plot section. We can see Crowe as Nash in the film poster at the top of the article, so the image in Plot is redundant.
  • Coming back to the image use, I'm not sure if the image in Production has sufficient rationale, either. Per WP:FU, the image only identifies members of the cast (who could or should be viewable on their respective Wikipedia articles), and it does not meet the criteria for how film and television screen shots should be included.
  • Release section lacks sufficient critical reaction for the film. You quote Ebert and Roeper saying that this is a great film, but it's never explained why it's so great. I made this suggestion during the peer review, which was not met -- there needs to be more critical reaction about the film as a film, such as commentary on the direction, the scripting, and the casting.
  • Another glaring omission is the lack of academic studies in regard to this film, another suggestion which I had made during this article's peer review. Here are a few of the studies available to provide some academic insight into the film to render this article more encyclopedic:
  • Mendick, Heather (May 2005). "A beautiful myth? The gendering of being/doing 'good at maths'". Gender and Education. 17 (2): 203–219. doi:10.1080/0954025042000301465.
  • Rosenstock, Jason (June 2003). "Beyond A Beautiful Mind: Film Choices for Teaching Schizophrenia". Academic Psychiatry. 27: 117–122.
  • Bhagar, Harpriya A. (September 2005). "Should cinema be used for medical student education in psychiatry?". Medical Education. 39 (9): 972–973. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2929.2005.02252.x.
  • Keltner, Norman L. (April 2007). "A Beautiful Mind". Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. 43 (2): 110–111. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6163.2007.00112.x.
  • I did add the following sentence and a citation "The mathematics in the film were well praised by the mathematics community, including the real John Nash." as this was all I was able to find at the time. The original link you provided featured links that appeared to pertain more to the film, than to academics, obviously I was wrong. The Filmaker 14:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are just the major suggestions that I have, and the article may need some copy-editing as well. However, the above suggestions are more pressing concerns if this article is supposed to be the finest that Wikipedia has to offer about the film. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:07, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The very first sentence of the lede says it is a biographical film about Nash, contrary to a link given in the article (under "historical accuracy") [1], which explains that "this [film] is not a biopic...it never pretended to be a biopic. It always wanted to be a human journey, based on someone, inspired by someone's life." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.120.178.7 (talk) 11:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Considering the same names and basic events are used, and "Inspired by" is shown in the film's previews (and I believe in the film as well), it is technically a biopic, however the filmmakers felt that the accuracy shown did not have to be to the degree of most biopics. The Filmaker 13:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • That is your POV, and it is fine for you to hold that view, but it should not be expressed as fact in the very first sentence of your article. Many people would dispute your assertion of this film as "biopic". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.120.178.7 (talk) 06:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not there yet. I've copy-edited the opening, to find that the integration of the ideas into the sentences is often awkward or not entirely logical. And things like "who had scheduling conflicts and was forced to pass"—far too informal—don't impress. Need to find someone else to copy-edit the whole text. Tony 14:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object; article does not flow coherently. The plot summary seems a bit on the long side, and goes into excruciating detail at some points (was the final scene of the movie so important that it merits such a detailed description?). The criticisms of the movie and its factual accuracy read like a laundry list, without any logical flow from one sentence to the next. The final section on DVD releases seems overly short, out of place, and reads like an afterthought. The article starts off well, but starts degrading through the plot summary until the end. I'd suggest peer review, but even when referring to peer review was a popular option, hardly anybody commented, so I suspect that would be pointless in this case. Johnleemk | Talk 02:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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