It’s been a warm week in New Orleans. After having a mini-blizzard last winter, I’m expecting a long hot summer. Extreme weather and extreme politics are in vogue right now. I could live without either. If I controlled the weather, it would be 75 degrees with low humidity every day. Oh well, what the hell.
It’s Kentucky Derby day; the only horse race I pay attention to. It’s going to be a quiet one: Our friends who used to have a Derby party have moved. Almost as fun is watching in the Fairgrounds Grandstand at Jazz Fest but we’re one and done this year.
One-word theme song month has carried over into May. This week’s matching movie image comes from 1961’s The Misfits. Given the talent involved it should have been a great, not good film. By all accounts, it was a difficult shoot as Monty and Marilyn were slowly unravelling, which made Gable impatient so he did strenuous shit a 59 year old man shouldn’t do. It’s not always easy being a movie star.
This week’s theme song was written by Ray Davies for The Kinks 1978 album of the same name. Misfits is another ode to oddballs and outsiders, one of Ray’s specialties as a songwriter.
Duke Ellington was emphatically not a misfit. His co-writer Billy Strayhorn was:
Outsiders are misfits too, especially when they’re Texas born and bred liberals like Rodney Crowell.
We begin our second act with a book excerpt. Repeat after me: We love book excerpts.
Casting Tony Soprano: It’s been awhile since I linked to a piece about The Sopranos. The show, however, is never far from my mind, especially with a gangster in the White House. Speaking of which, Lawrence O’Donnell gave Trump a gangster nickname after his bizarre doll comments:
Vulture has an excerpt from the new biography by Jason Bailey, Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend. It details the casting process that made a relatively unknown actor a star. It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the part: Gandolfini *became* Tony Soprano, which was hard on him emotionally and physically. In both movies and television, the two things that matter most are the script and the casting. The Sopranos stuck both landings.
Over the course of the series, Tony Soprano paid several visits to the Emergency Room but never to The Pitt.
The Pitt: I was leery of watching The Pitt, which is set in the ER of a Pittsburgh trauma center. I did my time in the ER at Touro Hospital last year, so I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. I gave it a shot. I’m glad I did.
The Pitt and The Sopranos have some things in common. In both cases, most of the cast were relative unknowns when the shows started. They both feature a charismatic lead performance. Noah Wyle is the glue that holds his ER together even while struggling with memories of the Covid crisis. He comes unglued several times over the course of the season but pulls himself together with a little help from his staff.
The show is full of interesting characters and fine acting. It depicts a day in the life of the ER and what a day it was. At the end of their 15 hour shift, I was alternately exhilarated and exhausted. It’s a wild ride but spoilers aren’t my jam, so you’ll just have to see it for yourself.
Here’s the trailer:
Dr. A and I rarely watch medical shows. She usually finds nits to pick but she was impressed with the accuracy of The Pitt. What’s not to love about a series set in a teaching hospital? Some of the best moments involve the baby doctors on their first day in the ER.
Grading Time: I give The Pitt 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A. I eagerly await the second season.
The last word of our second act goes to The Radiators:
We begin our third act with our favorite stolen feature.
Separated At Birth Casting Edition: John Huston and Montgomery Clift made another movie together right after The Misfits. It was a biopic with Clift as Sigmund Freud. A cigar-less Monty looked good in a beard:
REM recorded a song about the troubled star in 1992:
Your Weekly Oscar: Another week, another OP doubleheader.
Have I told you lately how much I love Oscar Peterson?
The Best of Letterman: I’ve had stupid pet tricks on my mind since writing my Top Ten Stupid MAGA Tricks post.
Classic Movie Trailer: The Misfits is more of a near-miss classic, but it has an amazing cast. As always, Eli Wallach steals every scene he’s in.
Grading Time: I give The Misfits 3 stars and an Adrastos Grade of B.
Saturday GIF Horse: Special effects were primitive in the silent movie era. This devil on Harry Langdon’s shoulder is a good, albeit ticklish example of early FX.
Your Weekly Political Cartoon: The Insult Comedian calls every attack on him a witch hunt. Here’s a classic 1948 Herblock cartoon about a genuine witch hunt conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee:
The image comes from the Library Of Congress archives. Who spilled coffee on it? I’m a spiller but it wasn’t me. It must have been Herb Block since this appears to be the original.
Let’s close down this virtual honky tonk with some more music.
Saturday Closer: It’s another Ed Sullivan Show doubleheader; this time with Creedence Clearwater Revival.
That’s it for this week. The last word goes to the cast of The Pitt:
