danny rosenberg

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.

Luc's Best Man Speech

The old adage goes that when you marry someone, you’re also marrying their family. Jena, in your case, this means you’re also marrying the Besties. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the name of the long running group chat that Luc, me and our friends JB, Daniel and Josh have had since we were 15. And since, thank god, none of us are 30 yet – that means we’ve been Besties for over half our lives. To give you an idea of just how close we’ve always been, Luc went to one of our rival high schools – but he was around us so much that half the kids in our grade thought he went to *our* school; even some of our teachers did, too. 

So Jena, as I stand before you on your wedding day, let me tell you a little bit more about exactly who it is you’re marrying.

You’re marrying me: Someone whose hand Luc once had to slap a pill out of because a stranger offered it to me at a Machine Gun Kelly concert. 

You’re marrying JB, who used to kiss Luc on the lips when we were in first grade, which I vividly remember being weirdly jealous about (well I guess not so weirdly now…). 

You’re marrying Daniel, who once got Luc to shave his head so he could get on stage in front of thousands of kids for a dance-off with Hoodie Allen. (Luc did a great job with the head shaving, Daniel not so much with the dancing.)

And you’re marrying Josh, who along with Daniel and me, accompanied Luc to the depths of hell and back on our March of the Living trip in Poland. 

Oh! And I almost forgot. You’re also marrying Luc. By this point, you’re well aware that Luc and I go way back, but here are some things you might not know about our friendship. 

Luc and I have been friends since preschool at the JCC, and we’ve sort of always been in each other’s lives, whether it was playing each other’s baseball teams in elementary school, seeing each other at every other bar mitzvah in middle school or spending nearly every weekend together in high school. 

When you’ve been friends for as long as we have, it’s no surprise that Luc and I were there for a lot of firsts in each other’s lives. Like the first time we stayed up late to watch Family Guy at a sleepover when we were seven. (Yes, your now mother-in-law caught us and turned off the TV immediately). Or the first (and maybe not last) time we ever committed petty theft when we stole a construction cone from Tad’s Shaved Ice – a crime we felt so guilty about that we ended up turning around and bringing the cone right back.

But Jena, that’s not to say that Luc and I have only been a negative influence on each other, because Luc has also had a very positive impact on my life throughout our friendship. 

I credit Luc for modeling discipline in high school, balancing sports and AP classes with extracurriculars like BBYO, which we were heavily involved in with our friends. 

I credit Luc for helping me get a summer job at an Italian restaurant called Sugo’s, a glorious two months where we worked busy dinner shifts as busboys together, even though we spent more time taking mirror pics in the bathroom and asking the chef to make us off-menu creations than we did doing our actual jobs. 

I credit Luc for helping maintain our Besties friendships in college, driving back and forth from Columbia to Lawrence playing Switch Lanes by Tyga at 4am on repeat to get back in time for an interview after a weekend of tailgating at Mizzou.

And finally, I credit Luc for showing our friends what finding your forever person looks like, and how to welcome them into our group when you do. Because, not to be cliché here, Jena; but from the moment we met, and you could talk emo music with me, Pokémon with Daniel, and math and science nerd stuff with JB – we knew you were the one for Luc.


So everyone, please join me in raising your glasses to Jena, the first addition to our Besties friend group since our sophomore year of high school. I speak on behalf of all of us when I say that Jena, we love you as much as Luc loves beagles, bags of chips and his membership at East Bank. We can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives with you. L’chaim!

Danny Rosenberg