danny rosenberg
sr. copywriter

Soggy Waffles

Welcome to Soggy Waffles. Here’s how these bite-size, digestible movie reviews work. Every movie gets a haiku. That’s one movie, 17 syllables. Every movie gets a short write-up. I’m talking so short that you should be able to completely syrupize a plate of waffles in the time it takes to read the write-up. If not, then I’m not doing my job. This is my take on the movies I see, not a chewed up and spit out version of anything you’ll find online.

 And finally, every movie gets a Soggy Waffles rating. The scale is as follows:

1 = The Frozen Waffle. The type of waffle that you can still taste the freezer burn when you bite into it. That bite was so traumatizing that you it might be awhile before you can safely bite into another.

 2 = The Soggy Waffle. You don’t need a pick-axe or other climbing gear to attack this waffle, but the pneumonic device you learned in elementary school to memorize the cardinal directions still applies: Never Eat Soggy Waffles.

3 = The Microwaved Waffle. This is the type of waffle that won’t stick with you for the rest of your life, but damn you enjoyed it nonetheless. Not every movie can be a Superbad.

 4 = The Crispy Waffle. Oh yeah, it’s not the best waffle you’ve ever had, but it’s pretty close. This is the type of movie that cracks into your End-of-Year best list, but doesn’t quite make it onto your Best of All Time.

5 = The Toasty Waffle. This is that from-scratch, special recipe, best-you’ve-ever had waffle. The kind in which the waffle is so good that the act of adding chocolate chips, butter or even syrup would be sacrilegious. You can never eat it for the first time twice, so savor it when you’ve got it.

Logo and illustrations by Adrienne Luther.

Logo and illustrations by Adrienne Luther.

Welcome to Soggy Waffles Reviews. Here’s how these bite-size, digestible movie reviews work. Every movie gets a haiku. That’s one movie, 17 syllables. Every movie gets a short write-up. I’m talking so short that you should be able to completely syrupize a plate of waffles in the time it takes to read the review. If not, then I’m not doing my job. This is my take on the movies I see, not a chewed up and spit out version of anything you’ll find online. And finally, every movie gets a Soggy Waffles rating. The scale is as follows:

Soggy_Waffles_Draft-08.png

1. The Frozen Waffle

The type of waffle that you can still taste the freezer burn when you bite into it. The whole experience is so traumatizing that it might be awhile before you can safely bite into another.

Soggy_Waffles_Draft-07.png

2. The Soggy Waffle

You don’t need a pick-axe or other climbing gear to attack this waffle, but the pneumonic device you learned in elementary school to memorize the cardinal directions still applies: Never Eat Soggy Waffles.

Soggy_Waffles_Draft-03.png

3. The Microwaved Waffle

This is the type of waffle that won’t stick with you for the rest of your life, but damn you enjoyed it nonetheless. Not every movie can be a Superbad.

Soggy_Waffles_Draft-02.png

4. The Crispy Waffle

Oh yeah, it’s not the best waffle you’ve ever had, but it’s pretty close. This rating is reserved for the movise that crack into your End-of-Year best lists but don't quite make it onto your Best of All Time.

Soggy_Waffles_Draft-01.png

5. The Perfectly Toasted Waffle

This is that from-scratch, special recipe, best-you’ve-ever had waffle. The kind in which the waffle is so good that the act of adding chocolate chips, butter or even syrup would be sacrilegious (but obviously you still do). You can never eat it for the first time twice, so savor it when you’ve got it.

Support the Girls

suppor tthe gilrs 1.jpg
Rating: Microwaved.

Rating: Microwaved.

It’s truly rare

For my reaction to be

This plain indifferent.

Picture this: Labor Day weekend. Me in a tiny Landmark theater, small popcorn in hand. Picturesque, no? If only “Support the Girls” had been better. I really wanted to like it, and maybe I did like it. But I don’t think I did. It’s hard to say because I really didn’t dislike it, either, and typically I feel much more strongly one way or the other about the movies I see. But this time, I think I got more enjoyment out of the act of going to the theater than I did the movie itself.

If there’s anything to be said about “Support the Girls,” it’s that it’s got a lot of hearts (Regina Hall’s character sticks several of them throughout the “Double Whammies” restaurant). The writers clearly want you to feel for these characters, and while I almost certainly did for Hall’s shift manager Lisa, I can’t say the case was made for the other girls. There wasn’t enough characterization, or it was too surface-level shallow to be emotional, I don’t know. I just don’t feel like enough happened in this movie, period. It’s one of those movies that is qualified as a comedy, though I think only because no one knows how else to identify it. It’s kind of funny, but not really. It’s kind of dramatic, but I never felt like I cared enough about any of the players to feel the weight of the stakes of the game. For me, the most exciting part of the movie was seeing AJ Michalka’s name in the opening credits (whose name I recognized from Disney Aly & AJ fame) and spending the rest of the movie trying to figure out who she was. Let the record show that by the time her character was finally onscreen, I no longer even cared about my little game of trying to identify her.

And while everyone is rightfully buzzing about Hall’s new feminist superhero-without-the-cape icon (as they rightfully should be), I would like to take a second to point out Shayna McHayle’s awesome performance as Danyelle, one of Lisa’s girls (a Google search just informed me that she’s also a rapper by the name of Junglepussy, so excuse me while I proceed to stream all of her music). Her character was the funniest, the most rounded and the most enlightening. Without her, I would have enjoyed “Support the Girls” significantly less.

Last week I saw “The Wife,” which I thoroughly enjoyed right up until its meandering ending. Ironically, the opposite is to be said about “Support the Girls,” which was almost redeemed by its final 20 minutes. I say almost because even this way it came up a little short. The climax is a pretty funny scene that takes place at the girls’ restaurant during the night of a big MMA fight. It’s also dramatic, but the that builds up amounts to practically nothing. Maybe that was the point, but I still think it missed its mark. That being said, I really did like the final scene of the movie. The understated life-goes-on approach was perfect for a slice-of-life movie like this one. It was nothing revelatory, but there’s something about three working-class women screaming at the world at the top of their lungs while on top of a roof and overlooking their city to make you feel a little more hopeful about the world around you.

In Theaters, MicrowavedGuest User