Talk:The East (2013 film)

Sources

I added the indieWire review by Logan Hill to the article, but there is another indieWire review by Cory Everett here. I figured one indieWire review was enough but thought I'd share the other one here. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Review from Screen Daily here. Might be good to implement. Erik (talk | contribs) 02:09, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Another source. Erik (talk | contribs) 19:06, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Critical reception

Regarding the "Critical reception" section, I think there are different ways to word the aggregate scores. I've reverted the changes partially. We can go ahead and use "gave" if the word "report" is seen as too objective. However, I think it is important to try to explain the nature of these websites. For example, Rotten Tomatoes treats a review as positive or negative, and this confirms the dichotomy. I re-worded it to exclude "dichotomy" if that is too complicated. I also think that it should say that RT summarized the consensus; to say "the site's consensus" makes it sound like it reviewed the film itself. I also added a breakdown of reviews at Metacritic (something I've done elsewhere) because I think it helps show variance or lack thereof. (For example, you could have lots of highly positive reviews and lots of highly negative reviews and the overall score would be in the middle.) Erik (talk | contribs) 11:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Way back an editor disagreed with the choice of word report (although that editor seemed to dislike the use of Rotten Tomatoes at all, but every review is an interpretation). I agreed with that and take it into account when I copyedit anything about Rotten Tomatoes edits, they do interpret and create scores.

I think the percentage scores are almost enough and I would nearly leave it at that (and avoid explaining the details of how RT and MC work in every film article), but the number of reviews used gives enough context and avoids the need to mention dates (100% after 5 reviews is quite different from 98% after 83 reviews). I deliberately specified the "site's consensus" because Rotten Tomatoes does write that synopsis, and quite often they add many more reviews to the total long after they've written it, the consensus better reflects the early reviews and again contains their own bias and interpretation.

I think your choice of wording is verbose but there isn't anything I substantively disagree with, but I'm trying to follow WP:RTMC and previous discussions from WP:MOSFILM and keep consistency with other film articles and your choices are different from what most reviews include. You should probably add to the discussion at WP:RTMC if you feel strongly that more detail is needed, none of this discussion is actually relevant to The East (film). -- 109.78.239.98 (talk) 12:45, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it is necessary to explain the scores each time because unlike traditional film reviews, each website has a specific way to go about aggregating the scores. We reference Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes back-to-back for that reason, and I think we have to explain them each time. You and I are familiar with how they work, but we cannot say that most readers do. I believe I added the original sample from Hancock (film) to that essay at WP:RTMC, but I've continued to fine-tune the wording to be explanatory. I know it is more wordy, but I think it offers greater insight (especially the Metacritic breakdown). In retrospect, the Hancock example is unnecessary and does not help; I've seen different editors word coverage of the aggregate scores differently. I doubt we can standardize a specific wording every time. An alternate approach is to have a "Notes" section at the end of an article to explain either website so we don't take up space in the article body, but I don't know if that would be taken to mean we would have such "Notes" sections everywhere.

In this case, I can try to tighten up the prose. I feel like the Metacritic passage is fine, but for the Rotten Tomatoes passage, we could drop the review score average and make the coverage of the figures more succinct. Erik (talk | contribs) 13:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Poster

Erik I think we should use the other theatrical poster. I just saw the film in London and that is the poster they use. Also the Sunshine theater in New York where I also saw the film used the three faces against the mask poster. What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Filmopedia (talk • contribs) 18:42, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I'd be fine with that. I find the current one awfully vanilla. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:02, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Plot

The current plot summary is too long at 890 words. Per WP:FILMPLOT (and the policy identified at these guidelines), the summary should be between 400 and 700 words. I think we should try to aim at the middle of the range, at around 550 words, since too many summaries push their luck with just under 700 words. Let's strive for a concise summary like Wikipedia policy says. We just need enough to tell the general story so readers have context for the rest of the article. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:16, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Jam

I beleive the use of the term "eco-terrorism" as a link from the term "jam" in the plot section of this page is incorrect usage of the term. In the film a jam is an action, eco-terrorism is a concept or ideology. Further, to frame the jams performed by The East in the film as terrorism is not true to the morally ambiguous message present in the film. Are the actions of this cell terrorism? Are the actions of the corporations who poison people and the planet? The film asks these questions and to impose the frame of 'eco-terrorism' on the writers interpretation of a jam is untrue to the purpose of the film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.193.11 (talk) 03:04, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

How about we do not link to anything with the word "jam"? If we have to explain the word "jam", we should do that with reliable sources in another part of the article. After all, this is the plot summary, so we just need to convey the general events of the film. Erik (talk | contribs) 12:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Nationality

Regarding Corvoe's edits, I disagree with classifying the film as British. The corporate setup is that Fox Searchlight Pictures is the main studio here and is American, and the production company Scott Free Productions, headquartered in London, works for Fox Searchlight. Also, these British reviews here and here do not ID the film as British. Filming also took place in the United States, so I am more keen to call the film American than British. However, we do not need to do this for the lead section's opening sentence. Per MOS:FILM#Lead section, we can state the backgrounds of Fox Searchlight in Scott Free. However, I think we should revert the date formatting per MOS:RETAIN. As for the poster, I'm indifferent to which one we use. Thoughts? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:54, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

To explain the reason for my edit, it always appeared to me that the nationality of a film is based on its production companies (Scott Free), not its distributors (Fox Searchlight). I stick by my edit, but I'm also fairly uneducated in this department. And as for MOS:RETAIN, if the film is decided to be British, obviously the date formatting should be dmy. However, I'm not opposed to a change of that for now. Corvoe (speak to me) 03:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Corvoe, I think it depends on the nature of the relationships. A film distributor can produce and distribute films, or just distribute films. To show an example, DMG Entertainment has some films where it just distributed what was produced elsewhere and has some films where it contributed to the production and also distributed them. In this case, Fox Searchlight Pictures "produced" this film, but it enlisted Scott Free to do the grunt work. The infobox is not very flexible to report on these relationships, unfortunately. A studio film (one made by any of the big six in the United States) will usually have the studio as distributor, but it does not mean they can't dictate how a film is produced. Now, Scott Free is headquartered in London, but they do have U.S. offices. Since we don't know, that's why I'm fine with not explicitly labeling this film as "American" in the opening sentence. What do you think? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:39, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I forgot to link to this, which says, "Batmanglij was in talks with Fox Searchlight not only to release 'Sound' but also to produce his next project, 'The East'..." Hope that sheds light on Fox Searchlight having a production capacity here. Note that Fox Searchlight bought rights to distribute Sound of My Voice after it screened at Sundance, so it did not help produce that film at all. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:42, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

As I stated above, Fox Searchlight is the studio. One problem here is the limited use of the "Studio" and "Distributed by" fields. For films from the major studios and their film units, they produce and distribute the films, and to produce the films, they hire different companies. Sound of My Voice is a good example of how the studio is different from the distributor, since Fox Searchlight bought distribution rights at Sundance after that film was already produced. For this one, though, the studio and the distributor are the same, so I've revised the article accordingly. I've also updated the lead section to just say "English-language" in the opening sentence and to provide context for Fox Searchlight and Scott Free's involvement with this film. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 14:39, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I failed to answer, but this works for me. Corvoe (speak to me) 17:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Plot length reduction

I have reduced the plot length in line with Wiki MOS [[1]]. Plot summaries for feature films should be between 400 and 700 words. Jontel (talk) 12:53, 17 August 2019 (UTC)