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.

January: Boy Erased, Cold War and more!

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Cold War: Perfectly Toasted.

Cold War: Perfectly Toasted.

A month of reviews

I finally caught up on.

Sorry 4 the wait.

Okay, first of all, what the fuck!!!!!!! Fuck the cloud. I no longer have access to Microsoft Word on my Mac because it was linked to my student email. This never would have happened before subscription-based everything took over. I began typing this in Notes, but a friend smarter than me suggested I use Google Docs to replace Word. Back to the cloud I go.

Secondly, I apologize for my January absence. I’ve been up in the gym working on my fitness in preparation for a trip to Mexico, and that along with the 9-to-5 grind have been pretty all-consuming. I don’t want Soggy Waffles to turn into a monthly recap format, but that may be what happens. We’ll see how I do after this post. In January, I watched four flicks: “Boy Erased,” “Cold War,” “The Kid Who Would Be King,” and I finally caved and watched “Bohemian Rhapsody” now that it’s streamable. Takeaways: Cold War is far and away my favorite movie of the year so far (I can say that because it’s January!), while IMO the Queen biopic wasn’t nearly as awful as the Letterboxd community made it out to be. Let’s dive in.

BOY ERASED

There are no surprises here. For better and worse, Boy Erased is the type of movie where what you expect to see is what you get. It’s the type of movie that screams Oscar bait from the first time you see the trailer, and in normal years I tend to be put off by movies like that, but this year has me yearning for more bait-y films over the likes of mother-fucking “Green Book” and Bohemian Rhapsody. I’m still pretty surprised that Boy Erased has been “erased” from any Oscar conversations as it’s got all the makings of an Oscar film (issue-based true story, actor-turned director, strong supporting cast, fall release date), but that’s not me complaining. Boy Erased is middling at best, but it’s heightened by another great Lucas Hedges performance (who is officially my favorite actor of my generation) and a Harry-Styles-in-“Dunkirk” turn for Troye Sivan. I far preferred “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” to this story of conversion therapy, but it wasn’t the worst way to spend a weeknight. Rating: Microwaved.

COLD WAR

Cold War is what you’d get if Richard Linklater took his Before trilogy, condensed it into one 80 minute movie and set it against a 1950s European backdrop. And it’s every bit as dope as it sounds. Cold War is breathtakingly beautiful, rich in storytelling and possibly the most focused movie I’ve ever seen. There’s so much that happens in its all-too-brief runtime that no moment is wasted, and you can tell that every shot, every shred of dialogue is perfectly calculated to elicit some sort of emotion from the audience. It’s mesmerizing and transportive in the best sense. And don’t get me started on the ending. Maybe I should’ve seen it coming, yet it blindsided me all the same. It’s so great. No spoiling. You just have to see it for yourself. What’s most ironic about my viewing experience is that I was especially motivated to see Cold War when I heard the director was nominated for Best Director, which is a very big deal considering Cold War is a foreign film and not “Roma,” which I still haven’t fucking seen (I’ll get to it before the ceremony, I swear!), and director Pawel Pawlikowski (spelled that right on the first try, must be my Polish roots) is the same visionary behind “Ida,” which I saw with my mom a few years ago and we both hated. I guess that just goes to show that you shouldn’t give up on a director just because of one movie you didn’t like. But if that director gets a DUI and blames the Jews for all the world’s problems as he gets apprehended by his arresting officers, then you can drop that motherfucker faster than he can sober up in his crusty jail cell. Fuck you, Mel Gibson. Rating: Perfectly Toasted.

THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING

A January kids release with an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes that reviewers are calling as magical as “Harry Potter” sounds like the perfect movie to drag my family to for my birthday, but alas, it was not. The Kid Who Would Be King was meandering, 20 minutes too long for my bladder and had the unfortunate problem of suffering from two distinct endings. I wish it would have ended at the first. But perhaps my biggest gripe with the movie was its self-seriousness. There was no magic like other reviewers claim; nobody seemed to be having any fun. And kids movies should be fun! Especially epic quests about a boy who learns he’s an heir to King Arthur and must go on a quest to find his father and save a modern Britain from King Arthur’s evil sister! I’ll give it props for tackling head-on some headier topics that a lot of movies aimed at a certain demographic refuse to do, but ultimately, you can do a lot better than The Kid Who Would Be King. Even in January. Rating: Frozen

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

I’m not kidding when I say that I almost couldn’t get through the first 10 minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody because of Rami Malek’s awful teeth job. Had I been watching it alone, I probably would have. And while I’m abhorred to find myself admitting this, I’m glad I didn’t. I wasn’t looking forward to Bohemian Rhapsody, but I liked it a lot more than I expected to. Of course, there’s a lot of negative shit you can say about it, and since most of it has already been articulated by writers far more eloquent than me, I won’t get into the nitty gritty about things like the dangerous ramifications of the way the movie portrays Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality or the murkiness of the movie’s timeline that allows the writers to play fast and loose with facts (see Rolling Stone’s fact-checking article here.) You can only imagine how vastly different the movie would’ve been if Mercury was alive to give his input on the movie the way the surviving members were able to paint themselves as victims and babysitters when Mercury’s partying got in the way of productivity and led to him going solo. I think everyone’s problem with the movie is that we wanted a Freddie Mercury biopic, but got a Queen one. It’s really not bad for what it is, but it just could have been so much better. Rating: Microwaved.


In Theaters, Now Streaming, Frozen, Microwaved, Perfectly ToastedGuest User