Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (PG-13)

The animal-y Transformers Maximals make their appearance in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts — collect them all, on sale now at a store near you!

Once upon a time, the gorillabot Optimus Primal (voice of Ron Perlman) became leader of a group of other animal bots who escaped a world about to be eaten by Unicron (voice of Colman Domingo), a Death Starry-looking being who is a little bit Sauron and a little bit Galactus. Though he is able to eat the world the Maximals are living on, Unicron can’t move on to other worlds because his helper Scourge (voice of Peter Dinklage) failed to find the energy key thing that will allow him to wormhole throughout the universe. Optimus Primal and crew took the key while escaping the planet, eventually landing on Earth.

In the present day — which is 1994 New York City — Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is just a guy struggling to help his single mom, Breanna (Luna Lauren Velez), and his sick younger brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez), who is being denied medical care for his sickle cell anemia because his family is behind on his bills. Noah loses out on a security job and decides to turn to a buddy offering him some non-violent criminal work. It’s supposed to be an in-and-out job stealing a Porsche from a parking garage. But the car in question turns out to be Mirage (voice of Pete Davidson), an Autobot. And Noah slides into the car just as Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) is calling all Autobots.

A troubling light beam — that only the Transformers can see — marks the location of a reawakened energy key and the possible calling of Scourge and Unicron.

The key was inadvertently reawakened by Elena (Dominique Fishback), an antiquities expert examining artifacts recently delivered to the museum where she works. She knows the hawk sculpture she’s been given isn’t Egyptian or Nubian as was claimed but she didn’t know the piece’s exterior was going to fall away and reveal a large glowstick crystal inside.

Thus do Autobots, Mirage and Noah and Elena all end up near the key, whose light has called Scourge and some other bad guys that are probably available as action figures and in multi-character sets. Eventually they all fight together to try to stop Scourge from taking the key. Noah thinks they should destroy it to prevent Unicron from eating Earth or any other world but Optimus Prime hopes to use it himself to help the Autobots go to their home world. The gang learns that there is another piece of the key they must find and a Maximal hawkbot called Airazor (voice of Michelle Yeoh) shows up to help them find it.

I was a little surprised to learn that Rise of the Beasts earned a PG-13 rating — it is perhaps the closest live-action analog to those many Transformer cartoons on Netflix that seem to transfix my kids despite seeming to me like a lot of exposition punctuated by very basic fight scenes. The “real” nature of the robots and people (and thus the “realness” of the violence they’re involved in) might put it out of reach for my younger elementary school kids but for interested tweens it’s probably fine. There’s no icky Michael Bay-ish male gaze stuff, and nothing jumps out at me as being super inappropriate for your average double-digit-age kid. Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are both likable, capable people without having a whole lot of personality beyond that.

“This movie would be fine to take a nap to” is a thought I had while watching it, as was “the Transformer action figures this movie is advertising should be cheaper” (you can find some for $10-ish but $15 and up seems more common). This movie is benign enough that I don’t mind that I’m watching a two-hour-plus commercial for a Mirage action figure — particularly if they could price him at $9.99.

Perhaps the movie anticipated some parental grumpiness and thus to keep the elders amused it throws in a few 1990s hip-hop needle drops that have you thinking “aw, hey, that song” and then drifting off on nostalgia. So, if “benign OK-ness for much of the family” is what this movie was shooting for, it basically hits its mark. Maybe it climbs to a B- if your kids are old enough for this sort of thing and you’re just looking for tolerable family entertainment, a C+ for everybody else.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Steven Caple Jr. with a screenplay by Joby Harold and Darnell Matayer & Josh Peters and Erich Hoeber & Jon Hoeber, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is two hours and seven minutes long and distributed in theaters by Paramount Pictures.

Featured photo: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

The Collected Regrets of Clover, by Mikki Brammer

The Collected Regrets of Clover, by Mikki Brammer (St. Martin’s Press, 314 pages)

Clover Brooks is 36, single and surrounded by death — not the thing you’d want to put on a Tinder profile. The lifetime New Yorker lives alone in a rent-controlled apartment she shared with her grandfather growing up and she works as a death doula — the opposite of a birth doula. She sits with dying people, ensuring that they don’t die alone and helping them to process their pain and other complicated emotions they are experiencing. She keeps three notebooks in which she records notes; they are labeled “Regrets,” “Advice” and “Confessions.”

That’s what you need to know to understand the title of The Collected Regrets of Clover, a debut novel from Mikki Brammer, an Australian transplant who has a remarkable level of knowledge of New York City, where she lives now. It is a surprisingly upbeat novel, given the subject matter. The protagonist is a lonely young woman who has been hobbled by grief, having lost both parents as a child and, later, more traumatically, the grandfather who raised her. You might call her death-haunted; the first line of the novel is, “The first time I watched someone die, I was five.” (It was her kindergarten teacher.)

Clover does not have much of a life outside her work, caring for her two cats and a low-maintenance dog and keeping up with her neighbors. The only thing she does with any regularity is attend an occasional death cafe — a group where people gather to talk about death and enjoy refreshments (yes, this is a thing) — and every weekend have breakfast out and visit the bookstore she used to frequent with her grandfather before he passed more than a decade ago.

The few friends she has are old, and they include the 70-something bookstore owner and an elderly man who lives in her building and has known her since childhood. An only child who never learned to be social, she sees no reason to make friends and finds all the companionship and solace she needs in her structured life and in her books. Or so she thinks.

You probably see where this is going. Which is the only problem with this generally engaging book.

From the moment Brammer introduces a character named Sebastian, an overly enthusiastic visitor to a death cafe who tries to befriend Clover, there is a likely trajectory of this story. Our heroine will resist Sebastion’s overtures for only so long, and eventually he will bring her the companionship and love that she has long resisted. (She has never, she reveals, uttered the words “I love you” nor had them said to her — although her grandfather, a biology professor at Columbia University, clearly loved Clover deeply, he wasn’t one to say it, and her parents, whom she only vaguely remembers, had been more interested in each other than their child before they died in an accident while visiting China.)

To her credit, Brammer doesn’t follow that well-trampled plot, at least not completely. Instead, the story takes a sharp detour when Clover takes on a new client who, at 91, is dying of pancreatic cancer and has two months to live. Although she had a good marriage and a fulfilling life, she has long wondered if her life would have been better if she had married another man, someone she fell in love with when she was young and living in France. Clover does some research and finds the man seems to be living in Maine, so she sets off on a New England road trip to find him to fulfill the dying woman’s last wish.

In many ways The Collected Regrets of Clover is a literary death cafe — it is populated with millennials who grew up in families uncomfortable with talking about life’s end and who therefore are eager to explore the subject — everything from the legality of burial at sea to burial suits made out of compostable mushrooms. From Clover’s work to her memories to the visits to death cafes, the novel is one long conversation about grief and death. It’s a subject that the author seems to know something about.

One character says, “Someone told me once that [grief is like] a bag that you always carry — it starts out as a large suitcase, and as the years go by, it might reduce to the size of a purse, but you carry it forever.”

Clover has been carrying her own grief for reasons that unfold throughout the novel, and while it’s not an especially complicated story, it’s competently told and has enough light twists to keep readers engaged. The squeamish need not worry; death is largely a concept here; there are no unsettling depictions of the stages of decomposition or other things that happen to the body after we die. Nor does Brammer take up any discussion about the existence (or not) of an afterlife.

In a writing group she joined while she was working on the book, Brammer told others that she was trying to write a book about death “that’s fun and uplifting.” Strange as that sounds, she succeeded. B

Album Reviews 23/06/15

Troller, Drain (Relapse Records)

So this one is basically a cross between the ambient doom-drone of Sunn(((O))), Swans-style apocalypse-noise-punk and Raveonettes, in other words music to chant devil incantations by, in sum. It was purported to me to be possessed of such elements as “witch-house, goth-pop and industrial shoegaze,” which I suppose equals my above assessment; it’s proffered by a trio from Austin, Texas, composed of singer/bassist Amber Star-Goers (possibly not her real name), Justin Star-Goers (ditto) on guitar and SURVIVE synthesist/programmer Adam Jones. The tune “Lust In Us” is assuredly a shoegaze excursion, bathed in decidedly anti-sexual warbling and existential noise that isn’t on a My Bloody Valentine tip, more a sort of radio-static-dipped albeit melodic base. It’s a formula that could have served well enough to produce a full album, but as I pointed to earlier, the trio has other plans, mainly of the volcanic slow-motion-math variety. “Out Back” has an ’80s-synthpop edge to its woozy, muddy weirdness. B+

The Alarm, Forwards (Twenty First Century Recording Company)

During their early ’80s heyday, pushing hits like “The Stand” (which you’ve likely heard if you’re a devout follower of the 13 Reasons Why TV series; it played in the background of one episode, which led to 3 million Spotify plays) and “68 Guns” (their signature tune), this Leeds, U.K., band was a kinder, gentler Clash, I’d say; there was enough tough-guy edge to make their melodically agreeable tuneage appeal to the safety-pin-pierced patrol while maintaining a rather polite U2 flavor. This album, their first since 2021’s WAR, finds singer Mike Peters taking a decidedly Bono direction (particularly in the mid-tempo ”Another Way), which helps to justify his aping Tom Petty a bit in the blues-tinted “Love and Forgiveness.” “Transition” is the best on board here, fiddling with a sort of Ennio Morricone spaghetti-Western vibe before exploding into its Cult-inspired second half. I wouldn’t say the band’s evolved per se, but they’re still a bunch of (mildly) bad boys with a desire to make a dent. B+

Playlist

• I was privileged to attend the Sisters Of Mercy show at the Big Night Live club in Boston on May 31, so it’s a great time to remind all the young ’80s-goth-rock-loving kids out there that their last album, 1990’s Vision Thing, is still available to buy and act tragic to, if you really want to be an edgelord and impress your little friends with your comprehensive black-fishnet-clad acumen! Oldsters know that the big songs on that one were the title track and “Doctor Jeep,” and that the album was produced by Bat Out Of Hell fixture Jim Steinman, but wait, a few things first. The album you really want is 1987’s Floodland, which includes the band’s most enduring hits, namely “This Corrosion,” “Dominion” and “Lucretia My Reflection,” all groove-centric tunes that inspired the Boston crowd to break into snake-charmer dance moves when they were nicely rendered at the Boston show. The classic songs were the shorter studio versions but effective nonetheless, bringing the loudest applause after a series of less well-known numbers, a couple of which were pretty cool. It was the first time I’d been to Big Night Live (or any club in the last three years, owing to Covid), and I was treated super-nicely: the staff found me a table at which to sit so that my injured foot could take a nice break here and there. Anyway, what was I — oh yes, so even though Sisters frontman Andrew Eldritch is widely regarded as the godfather of goth, he hates that appellation, so don’t do it, even though he is totally, totally goth. He’s no longer the long-haired troublemaker of olde; nowadays he looks more like James Carville than Sid Vicious, but he still sings angrily and spookily, and hearing them play “This Corrosion” was worth getting stuck in an inexplicable midnight traffic jam for 1.5 hours. And voila, there you go, vampire kids, go support your uncle Andrew!

• Getting back to our usual business, June 16 will find you covered head to toe in albums, because it is a Friday, which means zillions of albums — most of them joke albums from troll bands, or just plain bad albums from people who still think the planet needs more albums — will enter Earth’s atmosphere at the speed of light, and they will all change course as they hurtle and make a beeline for people like yours truly, renegade music “journos” who still tell the truth about how most albums are pretty awful. But maybe that will change during today’s album-storm, as we look at the new Deer Tick album, Emotional Contracts, with a clinically detached eye, looking for something praiseworthy in this album. Yes, it’s one of those bands with “Deer” in the name, so I’m lost; I don’t remember the last few album reviews I wrote trying to excuse Deerhunter or Deerhoof or Deerpark or Deer Tick, so (as always) let’s just take the easy way by starting from scratch and having a look at this indie-rock album, which will probably be subtly boring or earth-shakingly awful like all the other “Deer” albums I’ve reviewed over my career. But look at that, it’s not so bad: “Forgiving Ties” is the closest thing to a Tom Petty single since “Learning to Fly,” except it goes nowhere melodically. It is meh but I don’t hate it.

• Jackpot, gang! Look at the title of this new album from psychedelic druggie dorks King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, it’s going to take over half the space for this column, and for that I thank it! Ready to spend eight minutes reading the title? OK, it’s: Petrodragonic Apocalypse; Or, Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation! That leaves us about 10 words left to talk about how the bald Needle Drop music reviewer dude on YouTube thought the title track “dragged a little bit” at the end, which is wrong, as always. If you like old Black Sabbath, that’s what it sounds like, not their usual early Pink Floyd/Flaming Lips nonsense. Never pay attention to Needle Drop, is the moral to this story.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Extra-crunchy okra the healthy way

Okra isn’t an item you find all that often on menus in New Hampshire. That is why I’m advocating for you to cook it at home. This recipe will show you just how amazing it can be as a side dish or appetizer.

There are two key components to extra crunchy okra: an air fryer and panko bread crumbs. The air fryer almost goes without saying. It’s hard to get extra-crunchy veggies that are healthy without an air fryer. Panko is also essential to the consistency of the okra. Regular bread crumbs don’t add enough texture.

When you are cooking the okra it is important not to crowd the slices. My air fryer has shelves, so I divide the okra slices among two racks. I also rotate the racks halfway through cooking to give exposure to both top and bottom. If you are cooking in an air fryer that has a basket, it may take two rounds of cooking.

For serving, I highly recommend you make the dipping sauce. Ketchup is a fine alternative, but the barbecue dipping sauce just adds that little something extra. Either way, keep an eye out for okra when you shop; it could be the veggie you didn’t know you love!

Extra-crunchy okra the healthy way
Serves 4

12 ounces okra
1 egg white
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1 cup panko
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Dipping sauce
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
2½ Tablespoons barbecue sauce

Clean okra, and remove stem and tip ends; set on paper towels to dry slightly.
In a shallow bowl, whisk egg white and ½ teaspoon garlic powder.
In a second shallow bowl, combine panko, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, and salt.
Cut okra into 1-inch segments.
Place ¼ of okra into egg white mix.
Use a fork to toss and fully coat okra pieces.
Remove okra from egg white, using the fork, shaking to remove excess egg.
Transfer to panko mixture.
Toss until all pieces of okra are well-coated.
Spray air fryer racks with nonstick cooking spray.
Place coated okra pieces on rack.
Repeat with remaining okra.
Do not crowd the okra on the rack; use multiple racks as needed.
Heat air fryer to 375 degrees.
Place rack(s) in oven and air fry for 6 minutes.
If using more than one rack, rotate positions, and air fry for 6 more minutes.
While okra cooks, combine yogurt and barbecue sauce in a small bowl, stirring well.
Remove okra from air fryer and serve immediately with dipping sauce.

Featured photo: Extra crunchy okra. Photo by Michele Pesula Kuegler.

In the kitchen with Cora Viglione

Cora Viglione of Derry is the kitchen manager of Hare of the Dawg (3 E. Broadway, Derry, 552-3883, hareofthedawgnh.com), a family-friendly downtown bar and grill that opened in early January 2022. Taking over the space that had long been occupied by the C & K Restaurant, Hare of the Dawg features a wide variety of scratch-cooked comfort foods, craft beers and cocktails, and even has a 24-seat custom bar built from the ground up by a local woodworker. A Massachusetts native, Viglione joined the staff of Hare of the Dawg shortly after their opening, after previously working at The Derry Diner for nearly two decades.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

You always have to have a spoon, or tongs. … We use different spoons for different things.

What would you have for your last meal?

Probably fried haddock. … That’s one of my favorite things, and we have very, very good haddock here.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

The Coach [Stop Restaurant & Tavern in Londonderry]. … I’m a really big seafood person, so if any kind of special is seafood, I’ll usually get that.

What celebrity would you like to see eating at Hare of the Dawg?

Oh my goodness. If I had to choose, it would be Robert Urich.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

I would have to say the meat loaf rolls, and probably a pepperoni and onion pizza.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I think it’s the food trucks. There are a lot of food trucks around. … There is a seafood one in town, the One Happy Clam, and the gentleman that runs it used to own Clam Haven. We follow him everywhere. … He’s a nice gentleman and he has good food.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I like to make American chop suey with hot sausage and zucchini, and all kinds of vegetables in it. That’s my favorite. … I want to try it here as a special, because it’s very, very good.

Cora’s American chop suey
From the kitchen of Cora Viglione of Hare of the Dawg in Derry

2 boxes large elbow pasta, boiled
2 packages ground hot sausage
3 to 5 pounds ground beef
1 Vidalia onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 zucchinis, chopped
1 summer squash, chopped
2 Tablespoons crushed hot red peppers
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon garlic
1 jar Ragú sauce

Cook all ingredients together. Salt and pepper to taste.


Featured photo: Cora Viglione, kitchen manager of Hare of the Dawg Bar & Grill in Derry. Courtesy photo.

When life gives you lemons

Fabrizia Spirits to celebrate National Limoncello Day

June 22 is National Limoncello Day, and Salem’s Fabrizia Spirits purveyor of limoncello in the United States, is marking the occasion with a new festival featuring live music, lawn games, giveaways, facility tours and even a lemon-squeezing competition.

“We discovered there was a National Limoncello Day and we said, ‘We have to do something. We can’t just sit on this,’” Fabrizia Spirits co-owner and founder Phil Mastroianni said. “People for years have been asking to visit Fabrizia and if we did tours, and we don’t, but then we said, ‘Well, why don’t we use Limoncello Day as an opportunity to open up our doors?’”

Launched in 2008 with its flagship limoncello, Fabrizia Spirits has since expanded its product line to include a variety of ready-to-drink cocktails, like its Italian margarita and Italian-style lemonade; multiple flavors of vodka sodas, like Sicilian lemon, blood orange and raspberry; and liqueurs, like the Crema di Pistacchio. In November 2020 the Mastroiannis launched the Fabrizia Lemon Baking Co., introducing their own line of limoncello-infused baked goods for the first time, from cookies and whoopie pies to biscotti, blondies, loaves and white chocolate-dipped truffles — each item is produced fresh onsite at Fabrizia’s Salem headquarters.

Many of these products will be available for attendees to sample during the festival. Indoor tours of Fabrizia’s facility, Mastroianni said, are going to be where you can sample the company’s higher-proof spirits, as well as items from a table of baked goods.

“We’re going to be selling additional stuff that people can take home, if they’d like to buy some baked goods while they’re here,” he said.

Ticket-holders will also receive two full-sized canned cocktails and one complimentary item from the Tola-Rose Italian Eats food truck, which will be parked outside the building. Tola-Rose is owned and operated by Goffstown couple Tony and Laurie Lomuscio and is best-known for authentic Italian options like meatball subs, sausage subs with peppers and onions, chicken or eggplant Parmesan and chocolate chip cannolis.

Outdoors is also where the lemon-squeezing competition is set to take place, and all festival ticket-holders are eligible to participate. Up to eight contestants will stand in front of a bottle of Fabrizia’s limoncello and a basket of halved lemons. The bottle will be topped with a funnel and the first person to fill the bottle to a designated line the fastest — by squeezing juice out of the lemons with their bare hands — will be crowned the winner. In the event that more than eight people sign up, Mastroianni said, there will be qualifying rounds with the same rules.

The festival will not take place in the event of rain, although Mastroianni said if all goes well the hope is to make the National Limoncello Day celebration an annual event. Continuing to grow as a company, Fabrizia established its own lemon grove in Sicily, Italy, earlier this year, and has raised more than $129,000 in funding for nonprofits through its “When Life Hands You Lemons” charity initiative.

National Limoncello Day celebration
When: Thursday, June 22, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fabrizia Spirits, 2 Industrial Way, Salem
Cost: $30 per person; includes two drink tickets, one food truck item from Tola-Rose Italian Eats, a gift bag and exclusive tours of the Fabrizia Spirits facility. Attendees can also opt to participate in the lemon-squeezing competition during the checkout process.
Visit: fabriziaspirits.com
In the event of inclement weather, the festival will be canceled and all ticket-holders will be refunded.

Featured photo: Limoncello Day. Courtesy photo.

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