‘The Sopranos’ meets ‘Yellowstone’ in Stallone’s likable crime comedy ‘Tulsa King’
By Kevin P. Sullivan
A writer’s story about how his family became part of a book deal with the director of the original “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
It’s a rare day when I want to see “Tulsa King” as much as I wanted to see “The Sopranos.” That was until my wife and I drove out to Los Angeles to attend yesterday’s Los Angeles Times Writers’ Lunch.
“Tulsa King” wasn’t even playing in the area when we went last week and found seats at the Roxy so I could soak in the film and the filmmaker’s first major hit, “I am Sam.” This is the second time I’m seeing “Tulsa King” after the L.A. Times asked me to participate in their annual lunch, and I’m eager to see it, but not so eager to see “The Sopranos” again.
“Tulsa King” opened this morning and while I was sitting at the Roxy I kept having to remind myself: There is a “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. There is “The Sopranos” — a film that makes me want to scream and throw up. And there is this. I love it.
While you were enjoying your luncheon, the story I was trying to remember was how my family wound up with a script for “Tulsa King.”
I had been talking to my wife about a story she was working on about her grandmother, Edith, a Southern woman who was born in Oklahoma in 1910 and raised in Arkansas to a strict Baptist family until it was discovered that she had contracted tuberculosis with her father who subsequently died.
Edith went on to have two children, my father and an older sister who was also a sister to my mother.
“Tulsa King” came about after my wife had taken on the story, which was initially about my father’s love