Talk:Salinger (film)

Missing person

This article doesn't mention the associate producer, Chris Kubica. An effort should be put into fixing that. Miraklemax (talk) 22:15, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Format

This page does not conform to standard film formatting. The reception section is especially troublesome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.100.25 (talk) 17:44, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Deceptive edits

It seems pretty obvious someone is trying to pump up the film's reputation. It is controversial at best and was widely panned when it came out, yet currently the two top lines after the summary say

The film was one of the top-ten highest-grossing documentaries of 2013. The film holds an audience approval rating of 4 out of 5 stars from over 112,000 votes on Netflix.

In the "Audience and Critical Reception" section, there are no less than a dozen blurbs, most of them praising the film, with the only two negative review pushed to the bottom, both very brief.

The last line of that section:

The film holds a 6.4 audience approval rating and a 40% film-critic approval rating on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 28 critics' reviews.

Which explains why it's "Audience and Critical Reception"; the author puts the audience approval rating ahead of the critical approval rating. No Rotten Tomatoes rating, probably because 40% is slightly better than 35%.

Clearly someone trying to whitewash the profile of a notoriously ill-received documentary (possibly the director himself, whose Wikipedia entry is huge and sports a photo from when he was much younger).

The review below is much more typical:

Shane Salerno—screenwriter of Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and a consulting producer on CBS TV's Hawaii Five-O reboot—directed this godawful documentary, a salacious tabloid-style portrait of J.D. Salinger. The movie has little to say about Salinger's contribution to American literature, but plenty to tell us about his celebrity and romantic infatuation with teenage girls. Any insights the film has to impart about the writing process are delivered in embarrassingly literal fashion, such as having an actor stare sullenly at a typewriter to illustrate Salinger's writer's block. The most appalling moment may come near the end, when the filmmakers remind us for no good reason that Mark David Chapman cited Catcher in the Rye as inspiration for shooting John Lennon—having run out of fresh gossip, Salerno empties out the trash bin.

Here's an expanded version of one of those two negative blurbs (A.O. Scott) currently on the page:

“Salinger,” the doorstop-thick new biography by David Shields and Shane Salerno, announces itself on the dust jacket as “the official book of the acclaimed documentary film” of the same title. (The film itself credits Paul Alexander’s biography of Salinger as its source.) “Acclaimed” is perhaps wishful thinking, but the most dubious words in that puffy phrase are “documentary film.” There are plenty of archival images and talking-head interviews, but “Salinger,” directed by Mr. Salerno, is less a work of cinema than the byproduct of its own publicity campaign. It does not so much explore the life and times of J. D. Salinger as run his memory and legacy through a spin cycle of hype. Salinger moved to the woods of New Hampshire partly to escape the intrusions and indignities of American celebrity culture. “Salinger” is that culture’s revenge.

For now I think it's appropriate to make these edits:

1. Remove the second two lines from the summary at the top.
2. Change the name of the reviews section to the standard Reception
3. Delete all the blurbs under that section right now and replace it with brief Tomatometer/Metacritic data and list some of those negative accusations against the film.

Danwroy (talk) 08:18, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Update: Yep, someone reverted my changes, calling it "vandalism". Danwroy (talk) 08:52, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Biased Editing

User Danwroy editing clearly demonstrates a negative agenda and bias toward this film. The edit history clearly demonstrates that he is the only person making these types of edits. He has removed an entire block of positive reviews and their sources and left only negative ones despite the fact that there were a number of positive reviews from major critics including Richard Roeper at The Chicago Sun Times, Claudia Puig at USA Today (largest newspaper in the United States) esteemed critic Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times and countless others. Furthermore, he deleted without explanation the fact that on Netflix the film has a 4/5 star rating from over 125,000 votes. This is a very positive rating from a substantial number of votes.

He has also buried positive information and added incorrect information. For instance he says that Rotten Tomatoes is based on 289 reviews. It is actually based on 84. Not only is his information bias, it is inaccurate. Anyone looking up this information will see that he has repeatedly vandalized this page – removing all positive information and adding inaccurate information.

Finally, The information that is at the top of the page is standard for other documentaries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoobyRinkyRoo (talk • contribs) 03:22, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

My edit is very well detailed here in the Talk section. It was a good faith effort and a starting point to change the absurdly overpacked and diluted reception section.

I'm looking at the articles on Winnebago Man and The Fog of War. No Netflix rating above the Contents box.

Explain why it is necessary to preface the "Audience and critical reception" about how "critics hold diverse and wide-ranging opinions" on a movie that got an extremely negative reaction among more than a handful of critics? It's the film's reputation, as evidenced by the low (and until I added it, omitted) Rotten Tomatoes rating. Your edit is very clearly intended to cover that up. You're not adding the context of positive reviews, you're hiding a few light negative reviews among paragraphs of positive ones.

And "RoobyRinkyRoo" (I'm guessing Shane Salerno) also insists the page needs to be packed with a "wide-ranging" list of irrelevant details. Wikipedia is not a ledger of every single one of a film's accomplishments and news bites. This page needs protection.

You got one thing right; I accidentally put the wrong Rotten Tomatoes figure, probably because I cut-and-pasted the format from a different movie. You deleted the RT score from the page.

Danwroy (talk) 11:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

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First, I'm not Shane Salerno. Please review my previous statement as it still pertains to these edits. Danwroy is citing 84 people as representative of the reaction to the film while I am citing 125,000. This is clearly a more accurate picture of the response to the film and cannot be omitted. Additionally, you will notice that Danwroy deleted ALL positive film reviews, including from some of the most influential critics in the country (USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, LA Times). What is accurate is that the film received mixed reviews with some very positive reviews from major critics and THAT is what Danwroy continues to delete. The box office performance of films is always at the top of the page, which is where it has appeared for some time.

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I don't know how to respond to a flat-out lie like the idea that box office performance is "always" at the top of the page; it isn't.

It's standard to cite Rotten Tomatoes. Many Wikipedia articles do nothing but cite the RT score in the Response section. And the RT score includes 84 critics; you opt for the Metacritic score, which references only 28.

Netflix votes are never required for movie articles.

The reviews in my earlier edit were not all negative; they included a positive review from the respected Ben Mankiewicz.

In my last edit, I gave that section it's proper name (Reception), removed all the reviews, said the film got a largely negative response (citing the low 35% Rotten Tomatoes score), and then added the line about it being one of the top grossing documentaries of 2013. This is a good place to start. You can add some of the positive reviews for comparison.

You think it's necessary to have an "Audience and Critical Response" section that leads with a statement about how there is a lot of different opinions on the movie, begins with generous quotes from positive reviews, and leaves out the (low) Rotten Tomatoes score.

You didn't add the "very positive reviews" from Kenneth Turan or Claudia Puig to a larger discussion of the reaction to the film, you made it seem like those are the representative reviews. I'm glad they had nice things to say about the film, but Salinger had some extremely negative reactions. You absolutely cannot discuss the movie in good faith and leave that out.

Danwroy (talk) 09:00, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Edit: it seems clear you are Shane Salerno. Every edit you've ever made, starting in 2011, has been to either Shane Salerno's page or the Salinger (film) page.

As an uninvolved editor, I'd say takings does not belong in the lede and the Netflix audience rating does not eblong in the article as unencyclopedic. The lede (or the article somewhere) could have a short summary of what the film actually contains. Martinlc (talk) 15:28, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

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I am not Shane Salerno. As Wikipedia can confirm, I am on the East Coast. According to google, Salerno is a resident of Los Angeles.

I felt it was appropriate to mention that Salinger has received a very positive 4/5 star rating from 125,000 votes from Netflix viewers. I understand you disagree but it is the largest body of opinion on the film and as more viewers watch Netflix I believe these ratings will become increasingly more important. Since when does an audience score not matter, let alone one that large?

I maintain that the critical response section should be accurate and in the case of Salinger it is accurate to say that the film received mixed reviews. However, it is also accurate to say that a number of major critics across the United States gave the film positive reviews.

You listed a few excerpts from negative reviews above on this talk page but failed to mention a single positive review. Among others, here are excerpts from a number of positive reviews: “Salinger is a valuable and engrossing biography of the author of arguably the most beloved American novel of the 20th century” (Richard Roeper Chicago Sun Times)

“Compelling and captivating! [An] Exhaustingly researched. . . riveting story of Salinger's life and art. (Claudia Puig, USA Today)

“Mesmerizing. . .What compels us is the energetic pulse of Salerno's investigations, the sheer amount of work he's done. Salerno has spent nine years investigating Salinger's life. The photographs and information Salerno unearthed over all that time are impressive…the film is definitely fascinating.”

(Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times)

“Enthralling. . .the documentary capably strips away the fanaticism associated with his books to create the impression of a human being. . . Salerno's two hour-plus account of Salinger's complexities covers virtually every aspect of his life story. . . [Salinger is] certainly effective at giving him more dimensionality than the tenuous mythology surrounding him” (Eric Kohn, Indiewire)

“4 out of 5 stars. Comprehensive, authoritative and exhaustively researched. . . It's an impressive feat, really, given how determinedly secretive Salinger was…Every bit as impressive is how well-assembled Salerno's film is from a visual standpoint…‘Salinger’ is an engrossing and eye-opening film.” (Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune)

“Salinger is a thoroughly engrossing film that provides a full-bodied portrait of the man, the myth, the legend J.D. Salinger…Filmmaker Shane Salerno spent a decade interviewing friends, lovers, and admirers of the reclusive author of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ It is truly unbelievable how much research went into the making of this film, and it shows on screen.” (Marlow Stern, The Daily Beast)

"A portrait of the writer as an obsessive perfectionist, as a traumatized war veteran. . .as a cultural icon filmmaker Shane Salerno’s documentary Salinger is all of these things. Rich in anecdote and visually arresting, thanks to a skillful interweaving of rare photos and film footage of the elusive Salinger. (Soren Andersen, The Seattle Times)

"Salinger" does what so many documentaries and biopics either fail to do or decline to attempt; it speculates convincingly on the connective tissue between the life and the work of the subject. Director Shane Salerno's documentary exhaustively researches author J.D. Salinger…to present a fascinating picture of one of the 20th century's most enigmatic writers…what emerges is a complex portrait of a complex man.” (Michael Ordoña, San Francisco Chronicle)

“Shane Salerno‘s riveting and stunning portrait of reclusive author J.D. Salinger. . . should be a certain Oscar contender for Best Documentary Feature, not only for its superb execution but also as an investigative piece that has elicited major revelations about never-before-known Salinger literary works left behind by the author” (Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood)

I do not understand how you can delete all of the positive reviews and leave the impression that the reviews were all negative. It is simply not accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoobyRinkyRoo (talk • contribs) 04:02, 14 April 2015‎

NPOV and page bloat

Thanks to repeated reversions, lengthy blurbs, and an absurd amount of trivia cluttering the entire article, this article is now successfully written in a way that someone will likely come away having no idea what people thought of the film when it came out.

· The Reception section is eight paragraphs long, seven of which contain direct quotes from reviews. The (negative) Rotten Tomatoes score is at the very bottom.

· The Production History section also contains three (positive) blurbs.

· Production History section is full of useless information, such as

1. An announcement of which cinematographer was hired
2. Details of the "three-year pursuit" by a TV producer to get distribution rights.
3. The story of how Harvey Weinstein saw the movie before the 85th Academy Awards, loved it, bought the rights for x dollars, and timed the US distribution for it to win at the 86th Academy Awards. It was not nominated.

· The intro section still contains box office information

· There is a one-line "Soundtrack" section soley to mention that the film's soundtrack was released by Decca Records

I am becoming frustrated trying to prevent what I believe is possibly the film's writer/director (or other interested parties) from hiding the strongly negative reaction this film received in many quarters, and the negative reaction it received overall.

Danwroy (talk) 10:27, 20 June 2016 (UTC)