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.

Winter's Bone

wintersactuallythisone.jpg
Rating: Crispy.

Rating: Crispy.

It’s easy to see

How Jennifer Lawrence went

To Katniss from Ree.

Let me start by saying one thing that I have to get out of my head, and I will only say it once: Winter’s Boner. Someone had to say it, and now that that’s out of the way, we can proceed.

My relationship with “Winter’s Bone” dates back to many Black Fridays ago, when I purchased the Blu-ray (remember those?) for something like $3.99 at one of my Black Friday staples (not Staples), Wal-Mart or Best Buy. But Wal-Mart is typically only the go-to for DVDs (remember those?), so it must have been Best Buy. After buying Winter’s Bone and returning home from our annual Thanksgiving-in-St. Louis trip, I placed the movie on the shelf in my room, where it’s sat untouched and collecting dust ever since. Every so often I see it and think, I should watch Winter’s Bone, but I never do. Fast forward to January, when I was concepting at work for a client based in the Ozarks. After doing minimal research (read: Wikipedia), I discovered that the author of Winter’s Bone, the novel, was from the same small town as our client. What! I didn’t even know Winter’s Bone, the movie, was based on a book. Obviously I had to read it, and thanks to modern technology, I blew through it within the week (shout out Libby. Check it out if you haven’t heard of it.) A few weeks later, I finally found the time to watch the movie, and the rest, they say, is history.

 Scene-for-scene, Winter’s Bone the movie is a very faithful adaptation of the novel, and every bit as tense and gritty. Anyone who’s seen the movie (since I’m almost a decade late, there should be plenty of you) or read the book knows that there were a handful of scenes, including the ending, that I was absolutely dreading to watch unfold. The book was descriptive enough, thank you, but they turned out to not be as bad as I expected. With the exception of the skinning of one very unfortunate squirrel. I definitely looked away at that part.

 The book was fresh enough in my mind that I could play spot the differences as I watched, but really the only notable change for me was Ree going from having two little brothers in the book to a brother and sister in the movie. The former makes a bit more sense because of [redacted for spoiler purposes but really mostly laziness], but I’m sure whoever’s in charge of making that call had their reasons. If it’s the casting people, I’ll give them a break because holy shit, the casting for this movie was perfect. Every single character looks, sounds and acts exactly as I imagined them to in the book, to the point where for a second I thought maybe I had seen the movie before. But as my lengthy description of how the movie sat unopened on my shelf for years, I can assure you I hadn’t. Plus, bravo to the casting peeps for making Jennifer Lawrence a star. She went from playing a throwaway character in Monk (remember that?) to an Academy Award-nominated actress in this low-budget indie movie seemingly overnight, and now she’s one of the biggest stars in the world. Hollywood’s cool like that.

 The moral of the review is, don’t wait as long as me to check out Winter’s Bone, or any of the other movies on your shelf that you’ve been putting off for years. Just do it! You’ll be glad you did.

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