How To See Treme Differently

Even after a beautiful-looking first episode, I was already perilously close to saving Treme for accidental Saturday-afternoon watchings. This is due to reasons I've already written about and for reasons I might write more about later, after I actually watch the third episode and make that opinion relevant. For all the problems with the show, though -- almost all of which come down to writing issues -- the one I feel worst about is John Goodman.

He does a good enough job, but he's so big, and whatever he's doing performance-wise is so hidden beneath his own sad bulk, that I've found it difficult just to watch him gasp and waddle around. He was obviously never a svelte guy -- well, he was once, back in his CHUD/Big Easy period -- but he looks like he has gained 80 pounds since "The Big Lebowski." His size and apparent illness -- he looks like a bag full o' whiskey and roux -- makes it hard to imagine him giving another performance like the ones I loved in not only Lebowski but even in less memorable, goofier movies like "Fallen." He does a hilarious Mick Jagger impersonation in that which I don't think he'd be mobile -- facially, even -- to do now.

What I'm saying is, I liked him better in the "Miracles" video and Big Money Rustlas. (The image is from here, and I took the link from Videogum)