pickle

Seth Rogen Is Relieved His Mom Likes An American Pickle

Family is a tricky thing. Most people rest assured knowing that their family loves them….but does that mean their family likes them too? Such is the conflict at the center of HBO Max’s Seth Rogen-starring comedy An American Pickle. Rogen stars as both Herschel Greenbaum and his great grandson Ben Greenbaum. Herschel is a salt-of-the-earth old world Jewish man who becomes quite literally salty when he falls into a vat of pickles and is perfectly preserved for a century. He wakes up to a world of a gentrified Brooklyn, ubiquitous cell phones, and a disappointingly unmasculine descendent.  The concept comes…
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An American Pickle: A Story of Family…and Pickles

The origins of the Seth Rogen-starring comedy, An American Pickle, trace back to 2013 when writer Simon Rich asked himself one crucial question: How would he fare in a bare knuckle brawl against his great-grandfather? A humorous, exaggerated query, to be sure, but Rich’s amusing hypothetical arose from examining ideas of family, generations, and progress—or the seeming lack thereof. Modern life had become quite comfortable for Rich, a successful novelist, short story crafter, and TV writer (Miracle Workers, Man Seeking Woman). How would his ancestors, whose lives were anything but, feel about that? “I’ve always been interested in my ancestors’…
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An American Pickle

Herschel Greenbaum (Seth Rogen) is a struggling laborer who immigrates to America in 1919 with dreams of building a better life for his beloved family. One day, while working at his factory job, he falls into a vat of pickles and is brined for 100 years. The brine preserves him perfectly and when he emerges in present day Brooklyn, he finds that he hasn’t aged a day. But when he seeks out his family, he is troubled to learn that his only surviving relative is his great grandson, Ben Greenbaum (also played by Rogen), a mild-mannered computer coder whom Herschel…
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