It’s the story of Rip Van Winkle, but also An American Tail, with twin effects in the manner of The Parent Trap/Dead Ringers, and some queer casting thrown in for good measure. It’s An American Pickle and it stars Seth Rogen as an immigrant named Herschel Greenbaum, struggling along in the year 1918. Then he falls into a vat of pickles and gets brined for 100 years. When removed he is perfectly preserved, hasn’t aged a bit, and finds that he has a great grandson (also played by Rogen) who helps him figure out 2019 Brooklyn. In other words, more absurdity from Rogen, his producing partner Evan Goldberg, and writer Simon Rich. As for that queer casting, we get the film debut of YouTube star and Ellen regular Kalen Allen, as well as Broad City’s beleaguered brother Eliot Glazer. It’s all been in development for a while but the film is meant to finally hit screens sometime in 2020. Cue the hit ’80s James Ingram/Linda Ronstadt song “Somewhere Out There.”
First you need Hulu. Then you need to catch up on Shrill, the wonderfully hilarious sitcom based on essayist Lindy West’s book of the same name. The first season is six addictive episodes about a woman (the captivating and perfectly cast Aidy Bryant from SNL) who writes for an alternative weekly newspaper, and who navigates misogyny, fat-phobia, sneering colleagues, editors who don’t believe in her talent, and cruel Twitter trolls, battling all of it with her wits. John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) co-stars as Bryant’s smug, gay and impossibly difficult boss, and transgender comic Patti Harrison steals every scene she’s in with an absurdist presence that has to be experienced rather than explained. Now that we’ve sold you on it, here comes a second season dropping at the end of January. Plan your life around a weekend afternoon binge-watch and thank us later.
Romeo San Vicente would love to get Brined
