Talk:Detroit (film)

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Film: American

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To add to article

To add to article: what caused Bigelow and Boal to become interested in this subject matter? 173.88.241.33 (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On the optimal descriptor for the reviews

(I am currently preparing a full entry in this space; I will probably take a while. In the meantime, I will ask [possibly unsuccessfully] page editors to hold off on editing the passage in question until the issue is resolved.) — Encyclopedia Lu (talk) 04:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what the issue here is, the provided sources, as well as 84% on RT and 78 on Meta, indicate strictly positive, not mixed or I feel even "generally". But I'm not going to lose sleep over a Wikipedia article haha TropicAces (talk) 13:52, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't sure why there was a dispute either. It seems to have been resolved now, but I'd like to add the previously mentioned "full entry" under this section, if only because it could preempt any unconsidered reversions to the relevant passage of the article. Afterwards, this can all be archived. (By the way, I do think that inserting "generally" in front of "positive" constitutes the most appropriate description. My understanding is that the Wikipedia community treats the full set of critic reviews for a given movie as a composite, but qualifies it slightly by implicitly acknowledging that it does so, at least when not all [or virtually all] of the reviews orient in a particular direction.) — Encyclopedia Lu (talk) 16:48, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for a number of reasons, I'm a bit too late to post an uninterrupted first entry here, to say the least. I will place the following text under my reply to Tropic's. Additionally, the edit conflict appears to have ended, at least for the time being. But before this section of the talk page is archived, I would nevertheless like to publish a somewhat modified version of what I had intended to write, for whatever utility it may provide other than to help the prevention of a potential future conflict over this page's contents:

I would like to offer a couple of arguments for keeping the description of Detroit's reviews as it currently as after the alteration. They follow this sentence.

I think we should adhere to the general encyclopedia-wide consensus regarding what the optimal adjective to describe a movie's reception (or that of any media, really) should be, given a set of critic reviews. I've pulled five examples of movies from the past whose collective reviews, I believe, would be considered by the vast majority to span the spectrum of quality from "mixed" to "generally positive." My argument specifically concerns where the cutoff should be between the two. (Afterwards, we may attempt to establish where the rough cutoff between each descriptor and another one I've seen used on Wikipedia—"mixed-to-positive"—should be.)

Take White House Down. The film has garnered a Tomatometer rating of 50% and a Metascore of 52. I chose this as the low end of the five movies I've compiled, and I think that virtually all would agree that these scores constitute "mixed" reviews for a movie, and the Critical response subsection of the article describes it as such.
Now consider X-Men: Days of Future Past. It has received a Tomatometer score of 90% and a Metascore of 74; I think that most would agree that these figures are quite respectable. Its Wiki page describes its reviews as "positive." This is the film I chose to represent the high end of my spectrum (i.e. "generally positive reviews").
We enter into grayer territory with the latter three films. Lucy has Tomatometer and Metacritic scores of 67% and 61, respectively, and whose critical reception is described in its introductory section as "positive, but also polarizing, critical reviews" 😑 and in Critical reception as "positive and mixed, and later generally positive." 😩 The Wolverine has respective scores of 69% and 60; the reviews are stated to be "generally positive." Godzilla, whose scores are 74% and 62, are also described as having generally positive reviews.

(cont.) I cite these examples to establish what I think is a reasonably representative sample of Wikipedia community's idea of what constitutes a set of [insert descriptor] reviews for a movie, at least for films whose reviews are seen by the overwhelming majority as ranging from middling to what most might consider "good." While each of us may hold different views as to which adjectives (and adverbs) should describe various numerical quantities—I personally tend to think the standard for a decidedly positive descriptions should be higher than what most Wikipedians seem to believe, and would probably prefer the term "mixed-to-positive" for the last three mentioned movies—I am of the view that the overall, "aggregate" consensus should prevail.

(I should be careful in how I phrase this second argument: my userpage should be sufficiently explanatory.) This point concerns only the editor who appears to be the most fervent in advocating for a the "mixed" descriptor. Specifically, it appears to me that Siryoshida's Wiki account was created for the primary purpose of altering the description of Detroit's critical reception. I feel that this suggests they have an agenda of some sort in how this film is portrayed. And their justification for referring to the overall reception of the film reception as "mixed" cites a single review of the New Yorker as evidence. My understanding is that they are implying that if a solidly left-leaning newsmagazine gave a negative review of a movie such as this, the general consensus of all the remaining reviews can be "canceled out." But I believe there are a few problems with this.

Firstly, it seems to be the case that just about every critic in this liberal-arts-oriented occupation of film criticism is somewhere politically left of center, regardless of the general political orientation of the media outlet they work for. One liberal critic offering a negative review of the film doesn't necessitate that the vast majority of those politically sympathetic offered the same.

Secondly, the New Yorker's critic, Richard Brody, doesn't really invoke politics in its review. The quotation provided in the article suggests that Brody had qualms with what Bigelow had the actors do to shoot the film. It's not a review one could point to and reasonably say that, "Hey, even liberals don't like it!"

Finally—and this should be the most obvious point—Brody's negative review shouldn't cancel out those of all other critics, for the reasons described directly above, and because of the simple practical and statistical property that a single outlier value or two shouldn't carry the same weight as the vast bulk of the remaining data. (By the way, another New Yorker critic, Anthony Lane, has given Detroit what I think can be reasonably characterized as a mixed-to-positive review.)

Addendum, to any who may have come across this thread: By the way—might I suggest that the Wiki begin a process of "standardizing" the inclusion of information on critics' reviews (again, regarding works of any media)? For example, I noticed that articles on White House Down and Lucy label the subsections describing the critics' reception for their movies as "Critical response" and "Critical reception," respectively. In addition, while there seems to be a general idea of what a given set of reviews should be characterized as, because Wikipedia is ultimately a decentralized compendium of many thousands of editors who come at the world in as many different ways, there is still ultimately no encyclopedia-wide standard on where the precise "descriptor cutoffs" should be. I'm not suggesting that they should be absolutely rigid, not least because the hypothetical established standards may not truly be "optimal"—an inherently subjective property—and the fact that there are two primarily referenced sources for critical reviews may complicate matters. But I think the community could take a shot at it.

However, I'm hardly the best person to start or, God forbid, lead a Wikimovement [it is possible I have coined the usage of the term in this context!] on this subject. That is why I'm tossing out the figurative bottle for any fellow Wikipedians reading this series of entries who might be interested in helping. — Encyclopedia Lu (talk) 00:55, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect Redirect

This article contains a redirect from Ben O'Toole. I read through the directions on how how to remove it, but it's too technical for me (I can do basic grammar/sentence/link corrections 😅).

But this article shouldn't be linked as a redirect simply because he was an actor in it.

Can someone whose more savvy correct the issue please? Jmays76 (talk) 04:37, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]