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.

Jojo Rabbit

jojo-rabbit-review.jpg
Rating: Crispy.

Rating: Crispy.

Taika Waititi

Should direct every movie

In 2020.

Before I saw “Jojo Rabbit” with my own two eyes, a friend whose opinion I value posted screenshots of a brutal takedown of the movie from a New Yorker article. I couldn’t have told you what those screenshots said five minutes after reading them, but needless to say, they left a sour taste in my mouth. Though I’d never let a New Yorker article stop me from doing anything, let alone see a Nazi satire from one of my favorite emerging directors in recent memory, I did enter the movie a bit more skeptical than I otherwise would have. I was aware the movie was controversial and divisive, but the specifics of said controversy and division eluded me. Well, I’m happy to report that Jojo Rabbit is not “Moonrise Kingdom”-lite and it’s not the Nazi sympathizer movie that both the Far Left and Far Right want you to think it is. No, Jojo Rabbit is simply a delight.

I’ve been following Taika Waititi since I binged Flight of the Conchords in my freshman dorm room and saw “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” on opening night the following summer (If I were to make a Best Movies of the Decade list, Wilderpeople would surely top it.) His brand of humor is a unmistakably witty, offbeat and above all, heartfelt. Whether he’s following a boy on the lam or directing a Thor/Hulk buddy comedy, Taika loves and feels for his characters, and that’s why we grow to love them so much, too. Knowing this also gave me pause before seeing Jojo, as there isn’t a single day in my life that I’ve woken up in the mood to sympathize with a Nazi, let alone in 2019 when white supremacy is frustratingly alive and well. Luckily, the characters we’re supposed to sympathize with in Jojo Rabbit are decidedly not Nazis. They are Jojo Betzler, (Roman Griffin Davis) and his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson). When the movie begins, Germany is nearing the end of the war. Jojo is overexcited about becoming a member of the Hitler Youth, and we learn Rosie is doing what she can here and there to resist the Nazis. This involves hiding one of her daughter’s old friends, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), in the attic. Elsa is a Jew, and when Jojo discovers her, the narrative unfolds rather conventionally. While that is a bit of a surprise for a movie about a boy with Hitler (Waititi himself) for an imaginary friend, it’s the movie’s style and humor that carries it to its predictable finish line. And that’s perfectly fine with me.

Now, I said Jojo is decidedly not a Nazi because of something Elsa says to him halfway through the movie. Jojo affirms that he, a Nazi, cannot be friends with her, a Jew, but she essentially tells him that he’s just a brainwashed by spewing learned hate he doesn’t actually believe in. And later, a Nazi touring Jojo’s Hitler bedroom says he wishes there were more boys who shared Jojo’s “blind fanaticism” of the Führer. These comments are Taika’s way of telling us it’s okay to empathize with Jojo. He is not a Nazi, so we don’t have to feel conflicted about him as the audience stand-in. How you feel about that will probably have the greatest effect on how much you like the movie. A lot of people are upset that Jojo Rabbit is a movie asking us to sympathize with Nazis, asking us not to judge a Nazi by its cover, and that Sam Rockwell’s Captain Klenzendorf is a White Nazi Savoir in the same way that his Three Billboards character was a Racist White Savior – but I don’t think any of these things are true. We hear stories all the time of very bad Nazis who ended up doing good things to save Jews in real life, so I don’t see any harm with Waititi’s portrayal of any characters here. Sometimes bad people do good things and good people do bad things, but doing a good thing doesn’t necessarily make you a good person, and doing a bad thing doesn’t make you a bad person.

Everyone who sees Jojo Rabbit will have their own unique reaction to the movie, including every Jewish person. I do not speak for all of my people, only myself. And as a Jewish person who is particularly sensitive to Holocaust jokes and anti-Semitism, who has walked the tracks of Auschwitz and lived to see the inside and outside of a gas chamber, all I can say is this – Jojo Rabbit fucking rules.

In Theaters, CrispyGuest User