Why I Changed My Mind

Why I Can Never Make Up My Mind: John Edwards

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“Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America – middle-class America – whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America – narrow-interest America – whose every wish is Washington’s command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even a Congress and a president.” – John Edwards, 2004

Poverty – particularly among the working poor – has really only started to become a headline-worthy issue in the last four or five years when a significant number of people who had perhaps been just on the edge of poverty fell into it thanks to the economic collapse of 2008. At various points in history, of course, poverty and welfare have appeared on the mass media radar, and occasionally escaped from the lips of politicians. Mostly it has been all talk or has been negative, “shaming” talk (much like the 1980s rhetoric of Ronald Reagan demonizing the mythical “welfare queen”).

John Edwards, in focusing on poverty and inequality in America, may have been well ahead of the curve by focusing with laser-like intensity and precision – at the risk of his own political rise. Of course his penis and lies about what he was doing with it unzipped and undid him faster than his dedication to poverty-related issues, which is a shame when you look back on his rhetoric and ideas about America. He has been, as this article in The Atlantic described, been whitewashed from the Democratic Party, despite the fact that the platform the party stands on today is one he essentially built himself. I acknowledge that. It’s easy to gloss over the good Edwards did and would have tried to do given the mess he made of his personal life.

Who among us does not make a mess of our personal life? Most of us screw up – sometimes on a grand scale – but most of us are not in the public eye and won’t suffer serious consequences – like becoming a national joke, destroying whatever is left of our very public marriage, sacrificing any and all chance of holding political office. Unfortunately, Edwards’s fight against economic inequality will always be overshadowed by his personal choices and lies.

Edwards championed those who can rarely speak for themselves and highlighted hard truths about class and economic divisions in America (that many Americans, struggling or not, do not like to admit about America. But it is still hard to make my mind about him – I suppose my approach can be as complex as who Edwards actually is. It is not as though by making very poor decisions and very public mistakes (more than once) negates his role as a thought leader, activist or intelligent man. I suppose it just means that he was perhaps not that well-suited to become president.

Why I Changed My Mind: Lucy Liu

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The other day I wrote a lot about Julianne Nicholson (and every time I write “Julianne” I am very tempted to write “Julianne Moore” since she springs to mind first) – which made me think a lot about the cast of Ally McBeal – one of the shows I have disliked most in my prolific television-viewing history. Many actors associated with the show earned my dislike simply because they were in the show. Some have redeemed themselves in other ways – at least partially – including Lucy Liu.

Lucy Liu has a long television history that I won’t recount. Her bit parts here and there in her early career were not memorable or offensive, but only worth mentioning to note that she has been around for a long time, paying her dues.

She has also been in a bunch of high-profile films, like Charlie’s Angels, which I could do without (even if I am quite sure she was, to use a phrase I would never use but am today, kick-ass in her role).  Perhaps more notable – and about when I started to change my mind about her – the Kill Bill films from Quentin Tarantino. Liu owned her role as O-Ren Ishii and is actually one of the more memorable parts of the Kill Bill series for me.

Another role that made me think twice was Liu’s presence in the musical Chicago. The first time I saw it, I hated it but sat through it anyway. Subsequent viewings have softened my feelings – and I have begun to appreciate it. Liu’s role as Kitty Baxter was not huge – but it was another that remains memorable.

I caught Liu’s roles in the inane Cashmere Mafia (not sure that one is forgivable), the sometimes very entertaining Dirty Sexy Money and ultimately a surprising role that I found quite redeeming, Officer Jessica Tang in the underappreciated cop drama, Southland.

Considered, reconsidered: Where I went from just appreciating Liu and feeling she had been fully absolved of her Ally McBeal and Cashmere Mafia guilt to actually really liking her has been her starring role in Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller. Her serenity and subdued smarts play well off Miller’s portrayal of the over-the-top mad genius, Sherlock Holmes. Liu embraces what has traditionally been a male role and turns it into something all her own in the Elementary version of this classic tale.

Why I Changed My Mind: Jamie Oliver

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In the overwhelming tidal wave of television chefs who show up everywhere, there are very few who interest me. I like to look back to the old days of TV cookery to the seemingly awkward Julia Child or the stark raving drunk Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr, filled the screen. Cooking on TV has always been a thing, often relegated to the domain of public television alongside quite tame “educational programming” (which was, fair enough, not always tame – most foreign films shown on American TV in the old days appeared on PBS – and those films are very rarely what anyone would call “tame”. After all, it was on PBS that I first saw the original version – not the inane Guy Ritchie/Madonna remake – of Lina Wertmüller’s Swept Away).

But things change, and everything is fair game as entertainment – even cooking. Enter the era of the celebrity chef, which arguably has made people a lot more interested in cooking stuff for themselves but has unfortunately launched some, let’s say, unqualified characters into stardom. Undeserved? Who knows? If someone wants to watch Rachael Ray, for example, who is a businessperson and entertainer – not a chef – and supremely annoying to boot – that’s up to them. These celebrity “food handlers” (since they are not chefs in many cases) entertain, bring in viewers and that’s the bottom line now that there are entire TV channels devoted to all manner of food, cooking, taking shortcuts in cooking and so on.

Most of these people – I can take them or leave them. Jamie Oliver is one that I could – or thought I could – easily leave. His accent alone bugs me (just for Esteban: “the shit just got reaw” – not even sure how to linguistically render in writing the dropped-off “L” at the end of words so characteristic of Oliver’s speaking), but then the messiness of his approach to food – always getting his hands deeply dug into all kinds of greasy, slimy foods – even to the point that he advocates wearing gloves to do it sometimes – makes me a bit queasy. I can’t pinpoint what exactly it is that annoys me. Even going to the grocery store and seeing his line of pastas and spices and whatnot – that is just too much. The overcommercialization does very little for me. Why would I buy a Jamie Oliver skillet when I can get a much cheaper and superior cast iron skillet and be happier with it? Personally when I buy kitchen goods, I don’t want any pseudo-celeb’s face on it. I will stick with the basics (even if there are times when tools that go beyond the basics and are extremely useful, even if singular in their use – like garlic presses or a “cupcake holer”. I am usually a firm believer in the “for every task, there is a proper tool” school of thought).

For those frequent cupcake-filling emergencies

For those frequent cupcake-filling emergencies

But I will be damned if I don’t get pulled in every time I accidentally end up on a Jamie Oliver program on TV. I don’t even own a TV at home, so these accidents rarely occur. But because I spend most weekday evenings in hotels, I’ve got a wide range of channels – and twice in the last year, I’ve landed on Jamie Oliver shows and found myself glued to the TV. After he finished each recipe, I prompted myself, “Change the channel, damn you!”

But I was paralyzed. And why? Truth is – he was making stuff that sounded really amazing. Believe me, I don’t use the word “amazing” lightly because I believe it is one of the most overused and misused words in the English language. When someone tells me it would be “amazing” if I could make a tight deadline or deliver a box of cookies for their party, I think “amazing” is definitely overstating the case. But when you can create something that really wows the taste buds without overexerting yourself or spending all day doing it – that IS amazing. I am positively gobsmacked every time I can manage to cook actual food that really amazes someone.

The first Jamie Oliver program I saw (Jamie’s Great Britain, which was a fascinating look at food in Great Britain, in case anyone imagined that food there completely sucks!) featured roasted chicken and potatoes – I have now made both several times to great success, albeit with my own little alterations.

Yesterday, I turned on the telly and it was a program (Jamie at Home) dedicated to pumpkin and squash – be still my heart. He really highlighted the versatility of these kinds of vegetables – making an absolutely fantastic butternut squash soup, a duck and pumpkin salad and some butternut squash spice walnut cupcakes. Naturally I am going to try this stuff out next time I have a guest to feed. I don’t get around to cooking for myself but for others, I will go all out.

Considered, reconsidered – the important thing here is maybe that I can find Jamie Oliver annoying until the end of time, but what he does turns on my culinary curiosities and experimental bent – so he is definitely doing something right. The fact that the recipes are easy to follow and he makes them look easy if you follow a few steps does not hurt – and the results have always exceeded expectations.

Why I Changed My Mind: Julianne Nicholson

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The TV show Ally McBeal has, for me, placed a hex on most actresses who’ve appeared in it. I hated the show to a degree I cannot begin to describe. The ensemble cast thus suffers. This is true especially of Lucy Liu and Julianne Nicholson. I am not sure I can ever like Calista Flockhart or Courtney Thorne-Smith. Portia de Rossi is exempt because of her work in beloved Arrested Development. That said, it has been hard to watch actors in obnoxious roles and imagine them doing something redeeming. While my feeling about Lucy Liu has changed (softened), a more striking transformation took place in my approach to Julianne Nicholson.

Nicholson is not as high-profile or “on-the-map” as someone like Lucy Liu has been, but her choices have been unusual and unexpected, showing her capacity not just for depth but for losing herself in some very stern, unglamorous roles that show off her talents in ways that something like Ally McBeal never could.

I should not hold the choice of material against actors or believe that these choices somehow reflect on their abilities as actors. Being a working actor, I imagine you take the roles that you can get; you make the best of even bad material – and who can blame an actor for wanting to participate in a popular show, where visibility is much higher? And I am in the minority in believing that Ally McBeal is crap material.

Julianne Nicholson has turned up in the most surprising places, much to my delight. While she has popped up here and there, and has been pleasant, her very different and staid roles in Masters of Sex and Boardwalk Empire have shown the breadth of Nicholson’s range. Her career has been filled with independent films, many of which are well worth seeing (just the other day I saw her in a small role as a supportive friend to the main character in Keep the Lights On). Yet she has balanced these deliberate choices with mainstream roles in shows, such as the aforementioned Ally McBeal and a more entertaining, if procedural, Law & Order – Criminal Intent. Based mostly on her work in Ally McBeal, I never would have said that I thought she’d exhibit the kind of authority needed to pretend to be a cop. But she was surprising and delivered the goods.

Considered, reconsidered – it’s a tough world for working actors. I don’t doubt that for a moment. Thus harsh criticism shouldn’t be the first thing I unleash. I suppose it’s a little bit easier if you are pretty – as Julianne Nicholson is – but easier still if you are distinctive (another score for Nicholson). That said, when the acting is clearly more important, and the willingness to forgo vanity in favor of plainness is something an actor can embrace (not in the showy Charlize Theron in Monster or Nicole Kidman  in The Hours way – but in a more subdued, subtle way), it is easier to see the actual talent and the work that goes into the role. This is where Julianne Nicholson really shines.

Why I Changed My Mind: Paula Malcomson

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I won’t say that I ever disliked Paula Malcomson’s work, per se. She suddenly turned up all over the place, wielding different accents and playing roles representing different social strata across several time periods. I cannot go so far as to say that she is chameleonic – she does not completely disappear into all her roles (notably, her role as Abby Donovan in the recent Ray Donovan, is a bit too over-the-top with the put-upon Boston accent that it stretches believability). That said, she almost disappears into all her roles and imbues each role, even the villainous and suspicious ones, with a vulnerability and humanity that is unusual.

Why I thought of her suddenly, I am not sure. I suppose it’s because I was talking to someone about Battlestar Galactica – laying on thick praise – but cautioning them against its prequel, Caprica, in which Paula Malcomson plays a pivotal role. It is not that her portrayal of Amanda Graystone was anything less than great – she fully embodied and embraced the role and gave it the complexity it needed. It is more that the show never came together. The cast was never the problem.

I guess then that I did not change my mind about Malcomson so much as I decided to afford her work a more serious look. It would almost be easy to overlook her presence because she does slide into all kinds of different roles with such apparent ease. She would be easy to ignore – except that when you are really watching her, you can’t ignore her. In particular, her very human and heartbreaking role as Trixie in the late, great HBO series Deadwood was riveting. But in a show packed with a great cast and often overshadowed by the show’s main character – excessive profanity – it was easy to watch Malcomson be absorbed by Trixie, transfixed, but easily move on to the next thing, the next  Al Swearengen tirade for example.

Malcomson may not stick around on some shows for long but her roles – and what she brings to them – create repercussions in the twists and turns of a story. A case in point – Sons of Anarchy, in which her character, Maureen Ashby, delivered information that infused the story with new life. Her portrayal of Ashby was not only sympathetic but helped to shed light on a character whose specter has hung over the show’s entire run – John Teller – a character who has never actually existed on-screen (alive) in the show but whose history, legacy and legend informed the story and motivations of the characters (particularly John Teller’s widow, son and former best friend). Malcomson was able to subtly bring John Teller – and another aspect of his personality and aims – to life.

Considered, reconsidered – for now, we can enjoy Malcomson’s presence in Ray Donovan – hoping she tones it down just a little bit, becomes slightly less shrill (although she does have her searing moments) – and her return to the Hunger Games film series to reprise her role as Katniss Everdeen’s mother.

Why I Changed My Mind: Minnie Driver

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During my recent headache-inspired film-viewing overdose, I randomly decided to see the film The Governess, starring Minnie Driver and Tom Wilkinson.

While some actors, actresses, musicians or writers strike me the wrong way right off the bat (and I later change my mind), I have no rational explanation for why I decided I did not like Minnie Driver. It was not her performances (all of which were superb, right from the beginning, e.g. Circle of Friends, or one of my all-time favorites, Big Night). There was just something about her that rubbed me the wrong way. Many actors I have disliked and about which I later changed my mind evolved or grew more into themselves, which explains the evolution of my opinions about them. It might not even be about their performances or their aging gracefully into different roles so much as it is about the roles they are actually offered.

But none of this was applicable to Ms Driver. Unlike someone like Kim Dickens, about whom I changed my mind, I did not groan to myself if I knew Driver was in a film – I still watched and enjoyed it. For a while she seemed to be everywhere and showed a great range – period pieces, drama and humor, smaller parts to leading roles, and eventually film to television. Arguably she is a bigger star than most of the people I sat on the fence (and eventually jumped to one side or the other) about – a fact that made her harder to avoid, had I wanted to.

It was not until I saw her in the underrated TV show The Riches (which itself was something I avoided during its original run) that I began to respect the depth of her talent. I think a lot of people sort of fell in love with her when they saw her in Good Will Hunting, but for me, I guess I could have fallen in love with her work, so to speak, much earlier if I had really been paying attention. Her work in the aforementioned Big Night was subtle and insightful, her turn as Debi in Grosse Pointe Blank was believable (in the most broad and comprehensive way – “believable” makes it sound like it was barely passable, when in fact I mean the opposite). Later her memorable TV appearances proved that she was also not afraid to make fun of herself and to make fun in general (Will & Grace in particular, but also more recently in Modern Family).

Considered, reconsidered – being in the public eye and putting oneself out there for the world to see, while a choice, is a vulnerable act. Actors are scrutinized constantly, so the armchair criticism of someone like me – on an individual level – does not matter much. But on the whole, if exposed to this constant criticism en masse – I cannot imagine it’s fun. The public’s – and fandom’s – taste is fickle.

That said, Minnie Driver has been delivering top-notch performances all along.

Why I Changed My Mind: Kim Dickens

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Every day some random thing pops into my mind – a person, a tv show, a movie, a flavor. And I realize that I have changed my mind about it, one way or the other.

Watching the bittersweet ending of Treme, I was hit again by the revelation that I have gone from hating to loving the performances of Kim Dickens.

I used to hate the actress Kim Dickens to the point that when I knew she was in a movie, it would discourage me from watching it. There was something nagging and annoying about her back in the late 1990s – not sure what exactly she was in that I would have wanted to see (Truth or Consequences, N.M.? Mercury Rising? Hollow Man?). I saw these and other things and was always disappointed to see her on the screen (or her name in the opening credits).

When did this start to change? I remember when she showed up in Deadwood, feeling that sinking disappointment but then slowly coming around to her performance as Joanie Stubbs, whorehouse madame.

Next, when she showed up in Friday Night Lights, I remained skeptical but she won me over in much the same way as her character won over her estranged son, Matt Saracen.

Kim Dickens finally won me over completely as Janette Desautel in the sauntering, ever-underrated drama Treme.

The cherry on top is her performance as yet another escort-service proprietor, Colette, in Sons of Anarchy.

Somehow she has grown into herself to offer an elegant, intelligent screen presence.

Considered, reconsidered – Kim Dickens is proof that some things get much, much better with age.