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.

Ad Astra

trying.jpg
Rating: Microwaved.

Rating: Microwaved.

I don’t think I’d mind

If we took a pause on space

Pics for a while.

Every so often, a movie critic comes along who reignites my love for my love for movies and writing about them. When I was a kid, it was Roger Ebert. Most recently, it’s David Erhlich – and I was lucky enough to get coffee with him last week. When we met, we talked about the triumphs and the perils of making a living as a writer, and specifically as a film critic. I told him that I find it much harder to write about a movie I loved than a movie I hated. David, on the other hand, said there’s nothing harder for him than writing about a movie that leaves him feeling absolutely indifferent. I admitted that I’m sometimes guilty of skipping reviews when I feel ambivalent about a movie, and he challenged me to embrace the review of the next movie I feel indifferent about. Little did I know, that movie would rear its apathetic head the very next day, in the form of Ad motherfucking Astra.

In the second half of this decade, we’ve seen Matthew and Ryan go to space, the true story of the women who got us to space and Sandra and George get lost in space. And now, in 2019, we’ve decided to send Brad to the stars as well. The excellent “Hidden Figures” aside, what all these movies share, aside from space, is a failure to elicit a response from me much stronger than a “Yeah that was pretty good.” I don’t know what it is about space movies, but they just don’t do much for me. I love science fiction, so no it’s not that. I just don’t relate to them, and as a result they don’t resonate with me. It’s funny, because my best friend just started his PhD program in astrophysics. He like really loved “Interstellar.” I thought it was pretty good.

For me, “Ad Astra” shined when it was at its most intense, and I was pleasantly surprised with how many pockets of intensity there were throughout its 124-minute runtime. Some scenes were so intense, some images so hard to take in, I was instantly reminded of this summer’s “Midsommar” and Ari Aster’s devilishly unshakable moments of gut-churnery (yes I just made gut-churnery up – if you will it, it is no dream). Most space movies feel claustrophobic, but Ad Astra didn’t. Instead of chest-tightening tight shots, each shot is filled with enough emotion to pack a punch Brad Pitt right in his pretty boy mouth. And Pitt, by the way, is definitely (inter)stellar as an astronaut on a mission to find the father who may not be the hero he’s romanticized – but I’d much rather see him get the Oscar nod for “Once Upon a Time.” 

Spoiler culture would probably deem this a spoiler, so spoiler haters beware: I ultimately found Ad Astra’s ending rather anticlimactic. After some of the most intense sequences of the year, the ending just felt like a letdown of the “Really, that’s it?” variety. It’s not predictable per se, but it’s not quite unpredictable, either. It just left me feeling kind of empty, but not in the good, gutting way that a movie can. My recommendation? If you love space shit, you’ll love this. Otherwise, you can wait til it hits HBO in six months.

 

In Theaters, MicrowavedGuest User