Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 May 7

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May 7

Question about Boreal Taiga music Wikipedia creation: references and acceptance of the page

Hello and thank you for your time. I am writing from the Seattle, Washington USA area.

I wanted to ask, how an article I am currently writing about an established band can be accepted by Wikipedia.

The article link is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Boreal_Taiga

The band and music has been played on national radio in the USA on several radio stations and shows which has a wide audience. The shows have archived the playlists of when it was aired. Boreal Taiga also created a soundtrack for a movie/documentary, "Landscapes At The World's Ends" of which was shown worldwide as well as the band is with ASCAP. Boreal Taiga is signed to a record label in the USA, Wayfarer Records with 5 albums currently available,as physical CD and digital formats available at online retailers such as Amazon and iTunes.

The article I wrote was not accepted so I am wondering what else can be done? I see other musicians that do not have as extensive references as Boreal Taiga being accepted of which some actually just reference their personal website as the only reference seen. If you can help me with this, I would really appreciate your time.

Thank you,

AbarisAbaris23 (talk) 07:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Without directly reviewing this band, I will note that you are focusing on the wrong things to try to determine the acceptability of a topic (any topic) for a Wikipedia article. It isn't based on what you can say about a subject (that is, what facts you can list off about it), rather all that matters is the amount and reliability of text written about the subject. You need to establish that people have written a lot of in-depth text about this band, and that that text has appeared in reliable sources. What the band has done is irrelevant. All that matters is what is written about them. See WP:GNG. --Jayron32 12:52, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, what they've done is relevant to having something to write about. But Jayron's saying that merely having done stuff is, in itself, no guarantee the band is worthy of a Wikipedia article. There have to be other people, not connected to to the band, who've written about the band, and in reliable sources, and in sufficient depth for there to be something worth writing about. If nobody has ever taken enough notice of the band to write anything about them, then that's where it becomes irrelevant (to us) what they've done. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Extinct languages in entertainment

Are there any (relatively) modern works that were recorded in a language that is now extinct? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 15:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

The 2004 film The Passion of the Christ had dialogue mostly in a variety of Aramaic and Classical Latin, neither of which are actively spoken anymore. --Jayron32 15:58, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking more of a language that went extinct a century or two ago (but that works, too). --66.190.69.246 (talk) 16:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting question. Maybe you could give us some examples of languages that went extinct in your time period and the when could come up with the films. In a humorous vein I would nominate Valley Girl (film) and the Bill and Ted films because I haven't heard any Valleyspeak since sometime last century :-) MarnetteD | Talk 18:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Ishi had at least two TV movies and a documentary made about him, though I doubt the producers would have gone to the trouble of contacting him to get authentic samples of his language to use. It seems rather pointless to make a film where everybody has to read the subtitles. The only likely possibility I can come up with is an anthropological documentary about a small ethnic group that later died out or just adopted another more prevalent language. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Milla Jovanovich in The Fifth Element but that language went extinct thousands of years ago, also 400 years ago was that Aztec movie produced by Mel Gibson. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 09:47, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Apocalypto. That employed the Yucatec Maya language, which is spoken to this day. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:43, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes thats it Jack of Oz, was unaware that was still a living language, now that I think of it wasn't it something where it is living but rare, I vaguely remember some tabloid stories on how Gibson was attempting a challenging task at getting that language in the film. Then again I mostly just read the headlines with the Hollywood stuff, I've never really seen the value of reading the details of the "beautiful people" since they rarely have had to get by on anything but their looks! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 05:40, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Cheers. Btw, it's Milla Jovovich. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Nice catch, admirable that a few of us aren't completely distracted by her physique! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 06:05, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I think I can safely say that my relationship with Ms Jovovich's physique is something other than distraction. Now, Ryan Gosling, that's something else again. He also had the good taste to share my birthday.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

And she's speaking a bunch of gibberish essentially, not a real language, extinct or not. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

What makes a great actress, the ability to make believers, could have and did fool me. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 06:07, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

There have been a few films made in the Cornish language, which has been resuscitated after a near-death experience in the 19th century (or raised from the dead according to your viewpoint).[1] According to our article, UNESCO categorised it as an extinct language until 2010. Alansplodge (talk) 01:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

There are also some films and books in Manx; the last 'native' speaker died in 1974 but there has been a lot of revival work since. EamonnPKeane (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

• Not exactly babble. μηδείς (talk) 18:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Factual and unbiased WW2 movies

Please name some World War 2 movies which are unbiased and factual and depicts both Allied and Axis perspectives in a professional manner (such as The Longest Day, Battle of Britain (film), Tora! Tora! Tora!, Enemy at the Gates, Midway (film) etc.), not jingoistic propaganda movies which depict Allied as heros and Axis as villains (such as Saving Private Ryan). --Yoglti (talk) 16:40, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

What's your basis for your categorization of the films you've named? Do you have a source, or is it strictly your personal opinion? And ask yourself this: How likely is any history-based movie to be "unbiased", given that its primary purpose is to generate revenue for the filmmaker? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:20, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

See User:Kotjap. μηδείς (talk) 20:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Oy. Another trip to SPIville. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

You are asking an impossible question, technically speaking there is no film without bias, even a completely unbiased film has bias, against being biased. Now it might be that the bias is minimal or harmless but there are critics of such apple pie things as the Mary Tyler Moore Show that have correctly pointed out biases. With something as divisive as a world war (hundreds of thousands of men were willing to fight to their deaths over it) I doubt any consensus will ever be reached on a totally unbiased or almost completely unbiased interpretation, there is consensus on many facts but a movie by its nature is not a historical documentary and even if it is there are dramatic reimaginings. No one fired a shot over Mary Tyler Moore and yet you could make an argument that show was biased, there are still wounds from World War II so achieving a pure unbiased film is not practical, factual is, unbiased is not. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 01:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Above caveats aside you may enjoy the pair of Clint Eastwood films Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers (film) as they both show the same event but one film from the US perspective and the other from the Japanese. I'm not qualified to speak to their accuracy but they are engrossing and enjoyable films which do not glamourize the conflict. --bodnotbod (talk) 13:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I was going to recommend them too. I also think Patton (film) does a good job in terms of accuracy, but it doesn't show the Germans/Italians too much. Hot Stop 04:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

As a big fan of the film Patton, I was surprised to learn that someone like Ann Coulter who admires Patton, hated the film depiction. She pointed out several ways that George C. Scott had set out to lampoon Patton in a biased way, and then Scott was somewhat shocked that much of the audience didn't get the joke he was trying to make. That was the gist of her comment, and yes preemptively I am aware that Ms. Coulter like many of our pundits have said a stack of things that show her bias. Just adding that even patriotic, veteran admiring, "hawkish" folks can and have seen bias in films remembered as wholesome as Patton. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 05:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Das Boot Gzuckier (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

A fine film though it is, it doesn't pass the OP's test of depicting the allies' perspective at all - the allies are barely in it. There's a few ship and an aeroplane, but I don't recall even seeing a single allied serviceman, never mind one having any lines. 46.208.78.147 (talk) 15:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, reality has a strong anti-axis bias (I'm only half joking). However, you might like The Thin Red Line which nobody's mentioned yet. Shadowjams (talk) 00:03, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The World at War (documentary) is still the gold standard, although it was made in 73-74 when a lot of info (esp. the Soviet accounts) wasn't as widely available. And it's 22 hours long. EamonnPKeane (talk) 15:32, 13 May 2013 (UTC)