Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Knives Out/archive1

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 archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 8 December 2024 [1].

Knives Out

Nominator(s): DAP (talk) 08:21, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What do you get when you conceive an Agatha Christie-inspired mystery with an all-star cast, led by a British actor playing a Southern accent that's too cartoonish to be accurate, but is kinda sexy anyways? If you guessed Knives Out, then you are quite the gambling person. This Rian Johnson-directed film follows a flamboyant private detective's (Daniel Craig) investigation of the death of a bestselling author (played by the late Christopher Plummer) in a story critiquing class and race in modern American society. Many thanks to LEvalyn for their GA review, Aoba47 for their peer review, and Baffle gab1978 for undertaking my copyedit request! DAP 💅 08:21, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

mujinga

partone

Hello DAP389, I moderately enjoyed this film when I watched it a while back. A few comments to get the ball rolling:

In the plot section, I don't see why you aren't using surnames to refer to the people. I see a brief discussion at the peeer review about following the style of the film but surely the wikipedia naming convention would overrule that?

Revised. I believe the film style is less confusing for readers since we have a cast of characters with the same surname but don't feel too strongly about keeping it as is. I kept Harlan's given name to avoid confusion with the other Thrombeys though.

I wouldn't say that's done, there's still quite a lot of first name usgae eg Marta. Fran is tricky is she has no surname but she could also just be the housekeeper Mujinga (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the production section, you have 2xthat "Johnson planned to create a whodunit mystery that would be influenced by film adaptations of books by the detective-fiction writer Agatha Christie that he enjoyed as a child"

Rephrased.

"Johnson's greatest challenge was modernizing a genre studios deemed too antiquated for release" - suggest "His greatest challenge" reads better

Done.

"He embedded elements of the Knives Out story with his experience of coping with the intense culture war responses to The Last Jedi" - can you flesh this out a bit? i dont really understand what it's getting at

Rephrased.

What I'm missing here is that the source is saying that the experience of being trolled for directing the star wars film inspired johnson to invent a troll character for this film. Without that info it's hard to understand Mujinga (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"When Johnson showed a finished draft to friends, he recalled the response was cynical because his motivations were poorly understood" - is this meant to be summarising "When Johnson finished a first draft of Knives, an idea that had been germinating for a decade, and showed it to some of his friends, they were skeptical. “A few reactions were ‘We like this kind of movie, but why do you want to do this?’ That did give me pause,” he says. “But I felt like I knew deep down inside why I wanted to do it.”"? somehow the phrasing makes me think we are talking about the characters' motivations rather than Johnson's, maybe it can be rephrased?

Done.

I got as far as the casting section. Cheers, Mujinga (talk) 17:11, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate the feedback @Mujinga:. Lemme know what you think. DAP 💅 05:08, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DAP389 a couple of replies - I'd love to read the rest of the article and give a full review but this week is busy IRL, so it might take a me a while. Cheers, Mujinga (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing with the review, noting that there's still some discussion open above as well. Also I have a nomination open if you care to review it. Mujinga (talk) 17:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

part two

"Filming for the project took approximately 38 days" - why approximately?
"Knives Out was director of photography Steve Yedlin's fifth project with Rian Johnson. Yedlin and Johnson storyboarded their visual composition ideas before principal photography, which did not describe the onscreen universe in depth.[57] " - suggest Knives Out was director of photography Steve Yedlin's fifth project with Johnson. The pair storyboarded their visual composition ideas before principal photography, which did not describe the onscreen universe in depth.[57]
"A double-camera setup was used with two operators, one a long-standing collaborator of Yedlin. Yedlin described the on-set environment as experimental and visually creative.[55]" - suggest A double-camera setup was used with two operators and Yedlin described the on-set environment as experimental and visually creative.[55] to avoid 2xYedlin
just a comment - quite amazing to read about the amount of work behind the film
"Nathan Johnson recorded the Knives Out score at Abbey Road Studios in London (pictured in 2021)." - in this picture caption Abbey Road Studios is linked, but in other pix there aren't links, so to be consistent I'd suggest removing the link
"Knives Out has been read as work" - by who?
"it was designed to provoke all moviegoers to contemplate" - possibly this is a US-eng / Br-eng thing, but i'd expect contemplate to have an object
"Knives Out makes literal class struggle by framing Harlan's death as an explicit tale of good versus evil, and Cabrera emerges as the hero because of her humanity" - feel this needs expanding becuase I don't see the "literal class struggle" here, good versus evil is a different thing
"Professor Eugene Nulman gave a Marxist interpretation of Knives Out" - Nulman appears to be an associate professor, which is not a professor in academic terminology. Maybe it's better to call them a sociologist or say in their book Coronavirus Capitalism Goes to the Cinema ...? Side comment - that's a pretty funny interpretation of the film! [Edit] Actually I'd say an entire paragraph is too much on Nulman's analysis.
" In his essay for " - is this not a book chapter? Also who is Michael Blouin?
" The film begins in a traditional whodunit format " - i notice whodunit is linked in the lead but not in the body
"The film then headlined the 14th Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas as the closing film, then" 2xthen
"Advertisements for the film mostly intrigued men but showed strong appeal from women of all ages." - says who? This doesn't seem very encyclopedic
"Johnson unveiled a set of colorful, brooding character posters, each with the tagline: "Nothing brings a family together like murder".[88] Johnson also recorded an interactive audio commentary to entice repeated business.[89]" - here and elsewhere I find it distracting that the subject of the previous sentence is named again, so I'd suggest Johnson unveiled a set of colorful, brooding character posters, each with the tagline: "Nothing brings a family together like murder".[88] He also recorded an interactive audio commentary to entice repeated business.[89]
"and France (third) at $1.5 million from 437 theaters" - what is third referring to?
"Film critics had high regard for director Rian's comic treatment of a traditional detective story" - here and elsewhere I'm confused by the use of the first name rather than the surname (although I can see sometimes it's necessary eg the bit with Johnson and his cousin)
"the actor noted for emanating "infectious enjoyment" onscreen" - i'd suggest praised for noted, and the direct quote needs inline attribution
", whose portrayal was described as "superb" and "wonderful"," - described by who?
"On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, " - i doon't know if there's a "right way" to do this, but I'd prefer an "as of" date since surely the rotten tomatoes score is changing over time
accolades list - since this is already quite a long article, perhaps it's worth spinning off the accolades to its own page?
"after a controversial one week platform theatrical rollout the previous November" - why was it controversial? i feel like that's worth adding
looking at lead last:
too many Johnsons, some could be "he", as elsehwere

"Police rule Harlan's death a suicide but Blanc suspects foul play," - here like elsewhere Thrombey for Harlan is more encyclopedic

"Knives Out was nominated for" - prob better to say what it won rather than what it was nominated for?
There we are some more comments, happy to discuss on anything Mujinga (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note

This has been open for three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next four or five days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, but after almost four weeks and with little sign of a consensus to promote forming I am going to time this out and archive it. I will insert below my boilerplate on attracting reviewers, which may be of some use. The usual two-week hiatus will apply. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewers are more happy to review articles from people whose name they see on other reviews (although I should say there is definitely no quid pro quo system on FAC). Reviewers are a scarce resource at FAC, unfortunately, and the more you put into the process, the more you are likely to get out. Personally, when browsing the list for an article to review, I am more likely to select one by an editor whom I recognise as a frequent reviewer. Critically reviewing other people's work may also have a beneficial impact on your own writing and your understanding of the FAC process.

Sometimes placing a polite neutrally phrased request on the talk pages of a few of the more frequent reviewers helps. Or on the talk pages of relevant Wikiprojects. Or of editors you know are interested in the topic of the nomination. Or who have contributed at PR, or assessed at GAN, or edited the article. Sometimes one struggles to get reviews because potential reviewers have read the article and decided that it requires too much work to get up to FA standard. I am not saying this is the case here - I have not read the article - just noting a frequent issue.

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.