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.

Skate Kitchen

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Rating: Perfectly Toasted.

Rating: Perfectly Toasted.

For the second time

In the past six months or so

I’ve longed to skate, yo.

When I was seven or eight, I bought a skateboard at Toys “R” Us. Inspired by the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 N64 game that I always played at my grandparents’ in St. Louis, I would roll down the driveway but never left it. Well, even saying I made it to the end of the driveway without hopping off in desperation is probably an exaggeration. That skateboard never amounted to more than a dust collector in the garage, and that’s a real shame. Because for the second time this year, an enchanting slice-of-life movie about a skate collective has transported me to an alternate reality where eight-year-old-me had the balls to skate past the driveway and scrape my shins in the street. I’m of course referring to “Mid90s,” which hit theaters second but was watched by me first. Comparisons between the two are inevitable (and have probably already been made a million times over), so I won’t concentrate on them. All I have to say is that I loved both of them very much, and I’d like to make clear that this is absolutely not a situation where if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen the other. Both are equally special.

I said I wouldn’t make comparisons to Mid90s, but arguably the coolest aspect of both movies is the employment of real skaters. I’m not well versed in the skate world at all, and I didn’t realize until after Mid90s how big its stars, Olan Prenatt and Na-Kel Smith, are in that world. I did go into “Skate Kitchen” knowing the movie was based on the real all-girls Skate Kitchen collective (for the longest time I actually thought the movie was a documentary), but I didn’t realize until halfway through the movie that these actors were the actual Skate Kitchen skaters. And that, to me, is just so fucking cool. On top of being phenomenal skaters, these girls are all phenomenal in their roles. Nina Moran had the obvious standout performance to me, but the movie doesn’t belong to anyone, and that’s what makes it great. I’ve also become quite the Jaden Smith fan since I binged “Neo Yokio” a month ago, and I wholeheartedly think he’ll be a force to reckon with in the near future. Unfortunately though, his character and the subplot involving him was the least interesting and enjoyable part of the movie. The first half of Skate Kitchen is really strong, but it loses some of its of steam when it becomes clear that the conflict over a boy is becoming the central conflict. Of course there has to be conflict to propel a movie forward, but it’s a shame that a movie so focused on the friendships of these well-rounded, hilarious and smart women isn’t tossed aside for a fight over Jaden Smith.

If you blended the spirit of “American Honey,” the understanding of what-it-means-to-be-a-teen-in-2018 of “Eighth Grade” and the feeling of being-part-of-something-bigger-than-yourself-as-a-result-of-skating of “Mid90s,” you’d get Skate Kitchen – an often-times hilarious, deeply moving and wholly unique vision of what it means to be a kid on the cusp of adulthood whose finally found her people. Watching Skate Kitchen, I felt like I’d found mine, too.

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