I had a dream last night—or was it a nightmare?
It opened with me seated in Seth Rogan’s Hollywood mansion.
I rested comfortably in his large home-movie theater.
How do I know it was Seth’s home?
Well, the movie posters on the walls were big clues:
The Forty-Year-Old Virgin;
Knocked Up;
Superbad;
Pineapple Express.
Seth was seated next to me as we watched “An American Pickle” on his humongous 110 inch screen.
Five surround sound speakers beautifully amplified the music and dialogue.
In my cinema-styled chair, I munched on hot buttered-pop corn and slurped on an ice cold Coke.
When the movie finally ended, my mood was as sour as an artisanal Brooklyn pickle.
I thought, “Now’s my time to throw some sarcastic shit at this schmendrick.”
“Seth, I got a great idea for your next movie. I know you don’t like unsolicited advice but hear me out.”
“I’ll bite. Mort, what’s your idea?”
“Well it is pretty implausible but it’s your type of film.
The Opening Scene:
Place: Warsaw, Poland:
Date: August 31, 1939.
Action: Orthodox Jew, who looks like you, but in his mid-thirties, with Tevya-length beard, goes to sleep in his creaky old bed next to his wife.
Next Scene: He wakes up in a bed, in NYC, in his great grandson’s co-op, in 2020.
And here’s the implausible part of the movie, for the rest of the film, Mr. Orthodox Jew never learns about the Shoah or the birth of the State of Israel.
Rogan remained silent.
I can’t read his face, so after a long pause I asked, “Seth, what do ya think?”
“Mort, that’s way too implausible. No one would buy that premise. It sounds like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone.”
“Seth, you don’t know these Jewish-American Millennials and these Generation Z kids. They’re three generations removed from the genocide. They know next to nothing about the Holocaust and even less about Israel. They’re a bunch of bagel-and-lox-eating Jews. As long as the movie is heart-warming and has a few laughs they’ll be in your audience.”
“Mort, that one of the dumbest movie ideas I have ever heard. Who would cough up $20 million to make that piece of dreck like that?”
Before I could answer Seth, I awoke in my creaky bed, stretched and smiled.
Well at least in my dreams, I can tell Rogan to stick his pickle movie where the sun don’t shine.
