Dinner and a Movie
Transforming Into a Mexican “Elvis”
Transforming Into a Mexican “Elvis”
By
Steve Herte
Being
on vacation can sometimes be tough (yeah right). For instance, I'm
writing these reviews from my room at the Von Trapp Family Lodge in
Stowe, Vermont. I had a little trouble with the Internet here at
first, but now I'm cooking on all cylinders. After a wonderful day of
touring a coffee factory, Ben and Jerry's headquarters, a winery
and a creamery making Vermont Cheddar, I'm amazed I'm hungry for
dinner but I'll have to make a go of it. The mountains of Vermont are
gorgeous and the weather is lovely. Speaking of lovely, Friday was an
impressive time as well. Enjoy!
Transformers:
Age of Extinction (Paramount/Hasbro, 2014) –
Director: Michael Bay. Writer: Ehren Kruger. Cast: Mark Walhberg,
Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia
Myles, T.J. Miller, Titus Welliver, Bingbing Li, James Bachman, Peter
Cullen (voice), Mark Ryan, John Goodman (voice), Ken Watanbe (voice),
John DiMaggio (voice), & Reno Wilson (Voice). Color and 3D, 165
minutes.
It
is many years after the “Battle of Chicago” (Episode 3) and the
governments of Earth (especially America) are fed up with titanic
robots destroying cities and people while trying to assert dominance.
The fact that Optimus Prime (voiced by Cullen) and his Autobots are
the good guys and Megatron and his Decepticons are the bad doesn’t
matter. There are pieces of transformers littering the planet and one
man, Joshua Joyce (Tucci) and his company is gathering them up to
hopefully gain the technology behind them and is using the captured
Brains (Wilson), the smallest Autobot to assist in the process. Not
only that, he has the backing of Harold Attinger (Grammer) a high
government official, who is highly prejudiced against all giant alien
beings.
The
movie begins with an Arctic exploration led by Darcy Tirrel (Myles)
who makes the discovery of a strange new T-Rex-like fossil made of
some strange metal. The scene changes to a bucolic dust-bowl area of
rural America where Cade Yeager (Wahlberg) and his daughter Tessa
(Peltz) are just barely scraping out an existence. He is an inventor
trying to create the next best thing (he even has a comical robot dog
to guard their front porch) and she’s a blossoming young woman who
would rather have fun with her friends, meet boys and stop her father
from spending every last penny on hauling “junk” back to their
barn. Cade enlists the service (and cash) of Lucas Flannery (Miller)
to tow a broken-down big-rig tractor to his home.
After
some tinkering and the removal of several mortar shells he attaches a
battery to it and hears the message of Optimus Prime calling out to
all Autobots about the need to go underground and concludes he indeed
has a transformer. With a few jury-rigged parts the fixed Optimus
Prime roars back to life and Cade carefully has to explain that
they’re not the enemy. Lucas knows about the $25,000 reward for
turning in any transformer and notifies the authorities without
Cade's knowledge. This brings a train of black FBI vans onto the
property and the ruthless leader James Savoy (Welliver) threatens to
kill Tessa to find Optimus Prime – who explodes from the barn with
guns blazing. It looks like he has the upper hand until Attinger’s
back-up, another transformer named Lockdown (Ryan) appears and sends
Cade, Tessa and her boyfriend Shane Dyson (Reynor) fleeing in Optimus
Prime’s cab (in his truck form). Lucas is torched in the
cross-fire.
The
other Autobots, Hound (Goodman), Drift (Watanabe), Crosshairs
(DiMaggio) and Bumblebee (who doesn’t get to talk in this episode)
are holed-up in Monument Valley waiting for Optimus Prime. At Joshua
Joyce’s laboratory they are building a new transformer they call
Galvatron but what they are unwittingly doing is refurbishing
Megatron because Brains is downloading all of Megatron’s memory
into the new robot and Joshua is shocked when, not only can the new
robot talk (Frank Welker) but he has very little control of him. His
scientist, Gill Wembley (Bachman) has analyzed the “metal”
composing the living robots and wants to patent it as “transformium”
because it can assume any shape you can think of and, using this
knowledge, they have created a whole group of transformers from this
material, not knowing that Galvatron/Megatron can and will use them
to further his own agenda, the extermination of the human race.
Conflict
all around: Cade has to convince the Autobots that mankind is worth
saving and protecting and at the same time he has the immense task of
getting used to the fact that his daughter is growing up and has a
racecar-driving boyfriend (whose expertise comes in very handy a
couple of times). Attinger has made a deal with Lockdown to obtain
the “Seed” – a particularly nasty bomb accredited in the
beginning of the movie with extermination of the dinosaurs (and the
creation of several dinobots), which he intends to use to create
unlimited transformium for his army of robots intended to combat all
alien robots. However, Joshua has managed to swipe it from him and
he’s trying hard just to stay alive. Optimus Prime is kidnapped by
Lockdown but is rescued by his Autobots and unleashes the Dinobots in
the final battle against Attinger's and Lockdown's forces.
As
with the three previous movies there is an immense amount of action,
things blowing up and subtle humor thrown in for relief. Wahlberg
seems to be channeling Robert Downey Jr. and doing pretty well at it.
In general, the cast is doing a good job but Grammer does a sterling
performance, making you hate him for his brutality and relentless
bigotry (probably something he learned from playing the part of
“Beast” in X-Men). It’s a great action movie for kids
older than toddlers who can understand what’s happening. The
vulgarity is kept to a minimum and the violence is obvious but not
overplayed. My only problem with the film is this – if the new
transformers can de-materialize and reform at will, why are they
stopped completely when a head is removed or the body is crunched by
the T-Rex? Hey, it’s two hours and 45 minutes of genuine science
fiction and fantasy mixed together. Just sit back and enjoy.
Rating:
4 out of 5 Martini glasses.
El
Vez New York
259
Vesey Street, New York
In
my several trips to Philadelphia, I’ve had the opportunity to visit
many of Stephen Starr’s excellent and varied restaurants. When I
heard that he opened a second one in New York I knew I had to try it
(the first was Iron Chef Morimoto’s restaurant in the Meat Packing
District). Each trip to Philly I make it a point to visit El Vez, a
kitchy modern Mexican named after a character who dresses up and
sings like a Mexican version of Elvis (hence the name of the place
and the reason why it doesn’t translate into English well).
El
Vez New York is not only three times the size of the original but it
is located around the corner from the movie theater in a spot
formerly occupied by Chevy’s Mexican, and as soon as New Yorkers
knew that, it was appropriately packed on a Friday night – but I
had a reservation while others had a 45-minute wait. The same
designer was called in to work his magic on El Vez New York, made
obvious by the presence of the flaming red Texaco Pegasus on one wall
and various Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) motifs
here and there and one window covered by a giant macramé shade.
My
server Brenton and I struck up a great relationship when he learned
how familiar I am with El Vez and when I learned he’s a native
Philadelphian. He brought me my water, the menu and
wine/cocktail/beer list and took my drink order. I chose the Mescal
Martini – Fidencio Unico (a Mescal made from the agave plant),
Dolin Blanc (a dry Vermouth) and grapefruit bitters. It was as close
as a Mexican recipe can come to a very good martini and I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
The
menu is larger than the one in Philly and is divided into two main
categories: El Aperitivo (with subtitles of Salsa Y Guacamole,
Ceviches, Antojitos, Nachos Y Fundidos, Sopas Y Ensaladas) and El
Plato Principal (Tacos & Enchiladas, Especialidades, Tacos al
Carbon for 2, and Adicionales–sides). To get an idea of how large
the portions were I gave Brenton a small list of the dishes that
interested me and he helped me construct a three-course dinner. The
wine selection by the glass was quite impressive and inspired me to
do my own wine pairing with each dish.
I
started with the Snapper Aquachile (which means “water of Chile,”
a sauce made from chilies, herbs and cucumber as a ceviche marinade)
– ginger, toasted morita (a smoked and dried
jalapeno – chipotle) chili, and cucumber – tender marinated
filets of pale pink fish neatly arranged on a long plate just hinting
of the flavors it was prepared in. Lovely! I paired it with the 2011
Garnacha Las Rocas from Calatayud – a medium-bodied red that
enhanced without interfering with the flavor of the ceviche.
Second
was a dish I’ve had repeatedly at the original, the Tortilla Soup 6
– chicken, avocado, crunchy tortilla strips, crema
fresca and queso fresco (fresh cheese)
along with the 2009 Tempranillo Rioja Vega from Rioja, Spain. The two
made love to each other as they combined to play Mariachi serenades
in my mouth.
The
best was yet to come. I ordered this dish partially because of its
outlandish name. The Holy Molé – a tasting of molés
(chocolate/chili sauces) – negro with lamb, poblano (a
mild chili pepper) with chicken and pipian rojo (pumpkin
seed sauce) with pork – a trio of tantalizing flavors in varying
degrees of spiciness and chocolaty sweetness with tender chunks of
meat, served in a four-sectioned terra-cotta plate with a central
handle (the fourth space was occupied by the Spanish rice) proved
itself to be a Mexican tour-de-force! I was ‘Ooh-ing’ and
‘Ah-ing’ to the last bite. The 2011 Malbec Catena from Vista
Flores vineyards in Mendoza, Argentina held its own against all three
in a wonderful dance.
One
would think that after all this (and I did finish every dish) there
would be no room for dessert, but you should know me by now. The
Chocolate Taco 6 (any chocolate lover can tell you that you cannot
have too much chocolate) was a crispy waffle taco stuffed with Dulce
de Leche ice cream and finished off with a crust of dark chocolate
fudge studded with peanuts – Heaven! I asked Brenton if they had
Tia Maria as an after-dinner drink but that was not to be. He
suggested a dessert coffee and I suggested making it with espresso
instead of regular coffee. He agreed and the next thing I knew the
bartender visited my table congratulating me on creating her new
favorite drink.
I
had a spectacular time at El Vez New York; the same as I always had
at the original in Philadelphia. Someday I have to meet this Stephen
Starr. I’ll put it on my “bucket list.”
No comments:
Post a Comment