The concept of a man falling into a vat of pickle juice 100 years ago and only because of the pickle juice he could been preserved and has not aged a day when he was revived is completely absurd. This absurdity is the entire premise for the new movie on HBO Max “An American Pickle”, starring Seth Rogen. There is nothing wrong with having to suspend all common sense in order to buy into the main story of any movie – especially a comedy. The problem with this movie is that even after you suspend all of that common sense, there is nothing that is funny.

Seth Rogen also plays the great grandson Ben Greenbaum, of Herschel Greenbaum and overall I thought the double shooting of both characters played by same person was well done. The story comes down to a billboard that was placed over the gravestone of Herschel’s wife and an attempt to start a new pickle business in order to get 200 thousand dollars to pay to get the billboard taken down. Obviously, this is not a strong enough of an idea to carry a 2 hour movie.

What is most strange with this film are the relatively high 75% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and the very low 46% audience ratings, including IMDB. In this case the critics are very wrong and the audience is right. There is nothing worth seeing here, and I do not recommend this movie.

The movie “High Fidelity” was released in 2000 and starred John Cusack. To this day High Fidelity is one of my favorite movies, because of the stories involving relationships, humor, music and the performance of Jack Black, in what is still his best role.

Due to the outstanding quality of High Fidelity the movie, remaking this into an 8 part series on Hulu had to be a daunting task. This version is basically about the same thing. The owner of a small music store, Robyn(Rob) Brooks, played by Zoe Kravitz, hires two employees, who barely do their jobs or come to work on time. While struggling to keep the store alive, Rob suffers through a series of bad relationship experiences and tries to figure out why he is always being rejected. Why he feels, he is doomed to always be alone. This Hulu series contains many similar excerpts from the original movie and effectively stretches this 2 hour story into an 8 hour streaming series.

The supporting cast starting with Rob’s employees, Todd Louiso and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who plays the Jack Black role were very good in their roles, but Randolph did not get close to being as funny as Jack Black was in this role 20 years ago. I remember enjoying the elitist music egomania of all the employees of this small record shop 20 ago and their ongoing hobby of enumerating their top 5 favorite music categories throughout the original movie. This also happens in this Hulu series remake, but less than the original movie.

I thought this High Fidelity remake series from an original movie, one of the few I have ever known about, was very well done and I highly recommend it.

The new Hulu series “Little Fires Everywhere”, is one of the best serious dramas about every day life, living through high school and race relations that I have ever seen. This 8 part series stars Reese Witherspoon and Keri Washington as two women in their 40’s at the opposite ends of the social status of Shaker Heights Ohio.

Keri Washington plays Mia Warren, who along with her daughter Pearl are homeless and mostly living in their car.  Mia is a starving artist, who is very cash poor due to a series of life challenges.   During a random drive by,  Elena Richardson, played by Witherspoon, notices Mia and Pearl living in a parked car and at first tries to help them, by offering them cheap housing, and then a job for Mia as her maid.  All of this happens despite Mia’s obvious dislike of Elena who is both helpful and condescending to both Mia and her current lot in life.  Many of the scenes in this movie involve Mia trying to hold back her rage as Elena talks down to and disrespects her, to a level that at times was very hard to watch.  There are people like this in the world who derive pleasure from piling on more misery to people who are just trying to get through life. They seem to feel better about themselves only because they feel superior to someone else so they try to knock them down.  

Elena is a reporter for a local Shaker Heights newspaper and her husband Bill, played by Joshua Jackson is a high priced lawyer. Over time, Mia’s daughter Pearl becomes close friends with Elana’s two sons and both of her emotionally challenged daughters Issy and and Lexi. What is most impressive about this 8 episode series is how over time the lives of all of Elana’s children become more and more connected to both Mia and her daughter Pearl.  

Towards the end of this movie there is a new story involving one of Elena’s close friends and a very complex child custody case that also has a connection to Mia’s past when she was a teenager.  All of this leads to a huge climax that involves a house fire that I thought based on what was happening, was too extreme to support this level of drama. Based on the unresolved ending at the conclusion of the 8th episode, there is a strong possibility of a second season of Little Fires Everywhere.  

This series has been nominated for 3 Primetime Emmy’s including Keri Washington who was outstanding in her role as Mia, as well as the entire cast. The other nominee is Lynn Shelton as best director, who unfortunately passed away this past May at only age 54 of a rare blood disorder. This series was also nominated for best limited series and has my vote for the best series of 2020.  

This is the first time I have used the free first month for Hulu and I thought that the quality of this production was every bit as good as Amazon Prime or Netflix.   Little Fires Everywhere gets my highest recommendation as does Hulu that contains very impressive content.