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:

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.

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 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.

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.

Big Time Adolescence

Hey Alexa, can

You please tell me how tall Pete

Davidson is? Thanks.

(Alexa, please! I don’t talk to her. I’m Team Siri all the way, but Siri wasn’t enough syllables for my haiku.)

Sometimes I’ll watch a movie and be unable to relate to it in any shape or form. And then there are times when a movie feels like it was made just for me. This is the case for “Big Time Adolescence.”

Actually, let me walk that back. I don’t think that’s the case for me at all. As my loyal readers know, I love coming-of-age movies. I’d call them my guilty pleasure, but there’s nothing to feel guilty about. They fucking rule. I really enjoyed Big Time Adolescence, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was made just for me. If that were the case, Jon Hamm would be in it (Jon Hamm also rules). It hits all the usual beats of a COA flick – getting fucked up, losing your virginity, disobeying your parents – but other than some great one-liners…

- “The drive-thru lady knows your name?” “Hell yeah little homie.”

- “No one wants to be the dude that doesn’t feel it.”

- “I work in advertising…”

… BTA is largely a forgettable entry into the canon. It’s just kind of drab, and the movie’s color palette isn’t doing it any favors. Pete Davidson and Griffin Gluck have great chemistry together, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll forget this movie exists in a year’s time. Put simply, nothing about it is all that memorable. Which is too bad, because I really do think Pete has a great career ahead of him. This just isn’t the star-making performance he was hoping it’d be.

Now Streaming, MicrowavedGuest UserMarch 25, 2020