I think this is possibly a good article, or maybe even featured article. I've put a lot of work into it, but feel it probably needs more. I'm hoping some other folks can help out and possibly get me pointed in the right direction. — WiseKwai 20:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Fair use rationales needed for: Image:Rickdankolastwaltzstill.jpg, Image:Garthhudsonlastwaltzscreens.jpg, Image:RobbieR.png, Image:Lastwaltzlogo.gif.
  • The lead needs to be expanded to summarize the article (see WP:LEAD).
  • "an essay of" I've never heard this before, and I think it should be "an essay on".
  • "The group then backed Bob Dylan in the 1960s, and Dylan performs with The Band towards the end of the concert." Rephrase. The then makes one think after Hawkins is their guest.
  • "Other artists perform with The Band and cover musical history and various genres" Awk. Rephrase.
  • "in concert order" change to "chronologically" or "in chronological order" (I prefer the former.)
  • "Robertson talks about Hudson joining the band on the condition that the other members pay him $10 a week each for music lessons so he could tell his parents he was music teacher, instead of squandering his classical training playing in a rock and roll band." Long. The instead doesn't really hold it together. Try reading it out loud to see what I mean.
  • "The live performances" Maybe change to "live songs".
  • The whole last paragraph of the summary does not flow.
    • I need to take another crack at that.
  • "The idea for a farewell concert came about early in 1976 after Richard Manuel was seriously injured in a boating accident, and Robbie Robertson began giving thought to leaving the road, envisioning The Band becoming a studio-only band, similar to The Beatles' decision to stop playing live shows in 1966." Split into two sentences.
  • "then the notion was hatched" Change to active.
  • "Starting from 5:00 p.m., the audience of 5,000 was served turkey dinners and treated to ballroom dancing and music by the Berkeley Promenade Orchestra. The concert started at 9:00 p.m." You can make this one sentence.
  • ", with McClure reciting the introduction from The Canterbury Tales in the original Chaucerian dialect." This clause is just tacked on. Maybe move it to the performances list?
  • "16mm" and "35mm" Insert a non-breaking space.
  • "metastasized into" ?? "metastasized" is a very clinical word that to mean only means the spreading of cancer through the body. How about the much simpler and clearer "grew into" (did you mean "metamorphosized into"?)
    • Metastasized was a term left by an earlier editor. I know what it means, and shouldn't have left it there. Embarrassing.
      • Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't know what "metastasized" means. I should have thrown in an "as far as I know".
  • "a backdrop on the stage" Again I haven't heard "on" used this way and I would suggest changing it to "for".
  • "all the cameras were shut down as Muddy Waters was to perform "Mannish Boy", all the cameras that is except one – László Kovács'." Redundant and showy.
    • Thing is, I knew I was being redundant and showy, and I went ahead and did it anyway. Again, embarrassing.
  • Who is Bill in "Dylan's refusal"?
  • "a MGM" I'm not sure but I think it should be "an" because of the pronunciation. (Say it yourself and see if you agree. The first "M" is said "em".)
  • "Among the things fixed in post-production" wordy.
  • ", listed among the films considered the greatest ever" strange placement. Should be moved or the whole sentence rephrased.
  • "(As Clapton was taking his first solo on "Further on Up the Road", his guitar strap came loose. Clapton said "Hold on," but Robertson picked up the solo without missing a beat.)" Why the parentheses?
  • ", claiming that the film was shot to make The Band look like Robbie Robertson's side-men." again strange placement, as if tacked on. Move/rephrase.
  • "He complains about Manuel's and Hudson's minimal screen time, an example being "I Shall Be Released" where Manuel sings part of the song (as he did on Music from Big Pink) with Bob Dylan (who wrote the song) but the viewer sees only either the whole array of performers (besides Manuel, who is hidden behind them) or Robertson, Van Morrison and Dylan." Drop the parenthetical remarks and considered changing "an example being" to "such as when".
  • "There are several shots catching Ronnie Hawkins looking around but not singing, yet Manuel is invisible." Change to "yet Manuel remains invisible"
  • "the film was remastered, given a new theatrical print and Robertson remixed the sound." faulty parallelism.
  • "The DVD features a commentary track by Robertson and Scorsese and a featurette, Revisiting The Last Waltz, and a gallery of images from the concert, the studio filming and the film premiere." What's with the extra "and"s? Or are you going for polysyndeton? ;)
    • Not sure what I was trying for there.
  • "The original soundtrack album was originally" redundant
  • "includes many songs not in the film, including" try to avoid repeating using "including" so close to "includes"
  • "and the set with Bob Dylan extended even further" change to "and a further extended set with Bob Dylan"
  • "In his "mockumentary", This Is Spinal Tap, director Rob Reiner references The Last Waltz, calling himself "Marty DiBergi" in a play on Scorsese's name and interviewing the members of the fictional band in a similar manner to Scorsese's talks with The Band." Break into two sentences or rephrase. You have a habit of trying to incorporate too many ideas into one sentence.
  • "Summary" change to "Summary of the film" or "Plot summary" or some such thing. At a glance, one thinks it is a summary of the article.
  • Oh and consider running it through an automatic peer review (it would have caught some things I mentioned here).
    • Will do, as soon as I figure out what it is.

--Supernumerary 23:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    • This is my first peer review. It is a most humbling experience, but I am glad I did it. Thanks for the work! I have implemented most of your suggestions. Thanks again. — WiseKwai 14:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should easily pass the GA process. As for FA, I'm not as familiar with that process. FA would probably frown on the many fair use images and the lists. They're very careful about the style of the prose. They might also want additional cites. Oh, I just noticed you didn't use cite web or cite news. Both GA and FA will want that so go get them here. (You could also take a look at categories to see if anymore apply (like English language films and American films).)

As for the automated peer review, here is a link to it. It's easy to use once you install it. Here is what it generates when I run it for the article:

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Supernumerary 20:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • This article has clearly came a long way since creation; however, Peer Review focuses on areas for improvement, so here goes: the article is unpleasant to the eye - images aligned to the left rather than default right always appear as if there is an error in the WikiCode, and clutters up the screen. In particular, the images in the "Performances" section really ruin the image of the table. Apart from that, I am not knowledgeable on the topic of the Last Waltz so I can't comment on the content, but you appear to have your sources sorted so just sort the images, and keep improving the prose right up until you choose to let it go for WP:FA status, and you're in for a chance. Regards, Anthonycfc [TC] 22:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. Sorry it has taken me so many days to come back to this page and respond. I don't see any problems with the images in either Firefox or Explorer. The right-facing Danko image is so placed per suggestions in the Manual of Style. The table also renders just fine for my eyes today. I'm not trying to argue that there aren't problems. I just can't see them. — WiseKwai 09:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]