Worth a look

Lisa Edelstein

I’m sorry I didn’t clue you into the Dec. 2 premiere of the Bravo series “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.” I caught the pilot and, to my surprise, it was mucho good. (New episodes air at 10 p.m. Tuesdays, with encores during the week and episodes online.) Lead character Abby McCarthy (Lisa Edelstein, 49) is an affluent Los Angeles resident with a teenage daughter and 5-year-old son. She earns a hefty income from advice books and writes a lot about her wonderful marriage. Problem is, Abby and her husband (Paul Adelstein, 45) are nearing a divorce.

I agree with this Hollywood Reporter review: “A bit of a shocker in that almost everything about it works; for a first effort, that’s defying the odds and then some … this series is the closest anything in recent memory has come to ‘Sex and the City’ when that series was at its zeitgeisty best. … Of particular note is star Lisa Edelstein (‘House’), whose performance is exceptional — there’s really no overselling how outstanding she is in every scene, which is essential to convincing viewers that the show is not only worth a look, but a full commitment.”

Crackle is a web-based TV channel owned by Sony that presents, for free, original series. It’s the home of the Jerry Seinfeld series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” now in its fourth season. New episodes are posted on Thursdays. Seinfeld, 60, recently rode with Amy Schumer, 33.

Another Crackle original, the 12-episode legal/murder mystery thriller “Sequestered,” now can be viewed in its entirety. The cast includes James Maslow, 24; Heather Kent Dubrow, 45 (“Real Wives of Orange County”); and Dina Meyer, 45.

Tradition! Chinese and a movie

Here are some of the big movies with a Jewish connection opening this month in the Bay Area.

Skyler Gisondo

A “reimagining” of the hit Broadway musical “Annie” opens Dec. 19. The screenplay was co-written by Aline Brosh McKenna, 47 (“The Devil Wears Prada”), with original songs by Greg Kurstin, 47 (who last year kept up the Jewish tradition of writing hit Christmas songs with “Underneath the Tree” for Kelly Clarkson). Several songs from the original “Annie,” penned by Martin Charnin, 80, and Charles Strouse, 86, have been adapted for this remake.

Opening the same day is “Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb,” directed by Shawn Levy, 46. From one description of the third pic in the series: “When the magic powers of the Tablet of Ahkmenrah begin to die out, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller, 49) spans the globe, uniting his son Nicky (Skyler Gisondo, 18), Theodore Roosevelt (Robin Williams), Jedediah (Owen Wilson) … and a new Neanderthal named Laa (Stiller) … while embarking on an epic quest to save the magic before it is gone forever.”

Seth Rogen

This is one of Williams’ last films, and it’s the final film made by the late Mickey Rooney. Gisondo, who went to a Jewish summer camp, replaced Jake Cherry, 18, as Nicky.

“The Interview,” a comedy opening Dec. 26, stars Seth Rogen, 32, and James Franco, 36, as celebrity journalists who land an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and are then instructed by the CIA to assassinate him. The film was co-written and co-directed by Rogen and his partner, Evan Goldberg, 32. North Korea’s state news agency called the film “an act of war” and threatened a “merciless” response. The North Koreans also are suspected of a major cyberattack on Sony Pictures, which produced the film. The FBI is investigating the Nov. 24 attack.

Columnist  Nate Bloom , an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected]