In seasons 4 and 5, they re-position her character in a big way, where Betty's no longer the protagonist of her own story, but the antagonist in Sally's, more or less.

I disagree about Don's arc in season 6 being "redundant". . . it's certainly uncomfortable. And frustrating. But that's precisely the goal. Season 6 is Don at his most disgusting, self-serving, and sadistic. It's his lowest point, morally. The way he leaves Ted and Peggy dangling in the wind during that pitch towards…

I don't know how anyone could watch "The Gypsy and the Hobo" and think Jones was a lousy actress.

Agreed. Ossining should feel like a different planet from Madison Avenue. Don should feel "not right" when he's there.

"It basically handles them the way that Coppola and—to a lesser
extent—Scorsese do in saying that they are necessary in a capitalistic
system, particularly an end-stage capitalistic system."

Yeah, the movie took this weird pro-Mafia, pro-corrupt politicians stance at the end. And for some reason, no one's talking about this at all.

I just wish I'd seen the film you're describing, because it sounds awfully compelling, but it doesn't much sound like the AMERICAN HUSTLE I saw.

Hot damn this is a good answer.

Those damn Liverpudlians.

I disagree with your interpretation, but you've clearly put a lot of thought into this. I'd say you put more thought into it than the actual filmmakers, and that's the problem! Sydney's actions are not very well-motivated, I would argue. I'd attribute that to the fact that she's the character who is the deepest, but…

I doubt if any good movie has ever been made by an artist who stands above his characters, tut-tutting and declaring himself superior. Scorsese knows not to do this.

"If you need narration to tell the story, you're either not using your
story telling tools all that well, or you are treating your audience as
though they are idiots."

I think they were trying to establish Sydney as the smartest one in the film, but the filmmakers really didn't know what to do with her. She becomes a non-entity in the last half hour. She gets established early on as a major character, but she makes no choices near the end of the movie other than choosing one guy…

Except he's smarter than everyone else in the movie. He's always right, and whenever anyone makes a mistake it's because they didn't listen to him. He outwits everyone and the whole plot hinges around him coming up with a perfect plan. So I don't think that interpretation holds up.

What WAS going on with the narration in that movie?

This just sounds like it wasn't the movie for you.

Weird to me when someone complains about "obvious symbolism" in art, when lots of the time the vast majority of watchers don't pick up on what one person calls "obvious", and when, in many cases, the same person will complain about something being "too unclear" when what they actually mean is "I couldn't personally…

WOLF gets extra points for me over AVIATOR and DEPARTED for the freshness of material. I don't feel like I've seen this story, and this world, told on film before (despite obvious structural similarities to GOODFELLAS), whereas THE DEPARTED is just a really, really well executed episode in the crime thriller genre,…

I'd call WOLF great, personally. Depending on how I feel about AGE OF INNOCENCE on a given day, I might say it's Scorsese's best since GOODFELLAS.

Exactly. The Grand Addiction spirals out into a world of smaller, individual addictions that we all partake in to get rid of the pain caused by The Grand Addiction.