Wikipedia:Peer review/Brokeback Mountain/archive1

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain deserves more than this. An excellent film with an excellent plot. Any information on how this article could be enhanced would be appreciated. —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone feel it necessary to include an overwhelming list of nominations and awards? —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good article with the potential to be superb. A few observations:

The awards list is excessive. In a year, nobody is going to care about most of them. Perhaps even sooner than that :-) Suggest breaking it off into another article and keep the major awards as part of a section here.
Trivia section - my pet hate. As soon as I see the word "trivia" I immediately perceive the topic as somehow trivialised. Suggest merging the relevant facts into the text of the article. Anything that can't be merged serves no real purpose and could/should be deleted.
Very little about the evolution of the project. I vaguely recall reading that the rights to the film were sold early on but for various reasons it didn't get made. Finally after some false starts, it fell into place, but it changed hands two or three times. Why was that? And how did Ang Lee, Ledger, Gyllenhaal become involved etc? What did Ang Lee for example bring to the project that wasn't already there? How was the cast chosen? I read that Lee chose Ledger after seeing him in Monster's Ball.
"Filming locations" is too specific a heading. Suggest something like "filming" or "production" and discuss the production more broadly - ie the script, direction, cinematography, music etc and include the filming location info in this broader section.
"US Social conservatives" section. I had to actually go to the link to see what point was being made, and I still don't see a particular point. The only thing that jumped out at me from the link was the comment that leftist films had dominated the Golden Globes awards, (although this is not stated in the article). I think it needs something extra to give it some relevance. It reads as a collection of random quotes at the moment.
"Contraversies" - I find all the subheadings a bit distracting - they break the flow. I'd rather see the subheadings disappear, and this section shown as prose, and perhaps condensed a little. The Wikilinks should be enough to catch the eye and lead the reader from section to section and I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing without all the headers.
I would change the title of the "Reviews" section. Maybe "Critical commentary" or "Criticism" or "Critical discussion" or something. "Reviews" is quite limiting, because critical discussion takes a broader sweep than merely reviews, and occurs in areas of the media other than typical reviewers.
Heading "Commercial success" - I'd change "success" but I don't know what to. November (film) (a featured article) uses the heading "Publicity and reception". Actually that's a good article to look at, I think. It's well set out - it has far less potential than Brokeback Mountain because there is more that can be said about Brokeback but it might be a good article to derive inspiration from. I also think Sunset Boulevard (1950 film) has a structure that could be adapted for Brokeback Mountain.
Phrases such as "A few other gay commentators and bloggers have written disapprovingly..." should be rewritten and sourced. Who are the gay commentators? Are they people whose opinion we should be interested in, (what are their credentials?) or just average people. Much better to say "Comments by several gay commentators such as X and Y have indicated disapproval. X said in "Publication XYZ" that "blah blah....". Backing up opinions like this reduces the risk of them being perceived as weasel phrases.
There is no "notes and references" section. Inline cites are great, but still need to be listed under such a heading.

Please don't think that the long list means I don't like the article. Just the opposite. I'm only going into it in such detail because I think it's good, and as you said "deserves more". Rossrs 13:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The plot section is far too short and general. You should exapnd on it, make it more specific. Morgan695 22:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]