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dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:31:18 -0400

On Sunday, more than 40,000 people walked a 20-mile circuit spanning Boston, Newton, Watertown and Cambridge to raise $3.8 million for the 40th annual Walk for Hunger. By noon, some walkers had already reached the giant balloon arch of the finish line on Boston Common, and were met by volunteers who cheered, clapped and offered them water.

They were also met by a couple protestors. Dan "the Bagel Man" Kontoff, the former Back Bay station bagel vendor and long-time Green Party activist who lost two bids for Allston-Brighton City Councilor, referred to the annual fundraiser as the "Walk for War." The Waltham-based Raytheon Company is one of the fundraiser's major sponsors. It's also one of the largest defense contractors in the country, and has won several billion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon in the past few years.

"The government gives millions to Raytheon for the war in Iraq," says the Bagel Man. "Every dollar we give them is a dollar we could give to hungry people."

Raytheon gave $35,734.67 to the Walk for Hunger, making it the second-highest corporate donor, after Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

Ellen Parker, executive director of Project Bread, says corporate sponsors help with operating costs of the walk and often give pledge donations. "Generally, a certain amount is given to us in corporate gifts and in addition, members of the company walk and raise money together," she says. "I've worked with the people at Raytheon for years. We have an extremely positive relationship with the employees there. They always come down to walk. They're very supportive and enthusiastic. I think it's really out of place to suggest those people don't have a right to be part of the walk."

Parker says Project Bread is $4 million fundraising goal is a $400,000 increase from last year. At last count, they'd reached $3.8 million. "We only fund emergency programs, and the demand has really gone up this year," she says. "The increased cost of transportation, heating and food has put a lot of stress on low income families." The Greater Boston Food Bank reports a 30 percent increase in demand so far this year. Funds raised on the Walk go to 400 emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, food banks and food salvage programs throughout Massachusetts. Among them are the state's four food banks, the Pine Street Inn, the Arlington Street Church program and the Salvation Army.

Nicole and Brandon Heisler walked five miles with ChenEx, a Belmont after-school program where Nicole works. ChenEx raised more than $2,000. Nicole has raised $45 so far, but is hoping to find more sponsors.

"This is my second year doing this," she says. "I think it's the coolest thing that people are coming together to raise money for hungry people. It makes me tingly."

"I'm here to support my wife," quips Brandon. "Plus, I was promised ice cream."

Nicole scoffs at the protest. "I personally don't support the war, but I think it's bunk to protest anyone who gives money to feed hungry people," she says.

Corporate sponsorship is fairly commonplace for mainstream charitable causes. The Jimmy Fund has Burger King, Taco Bell, Blockbuster and Stop & Shop, among others. The AIDS Walk has Macy's, Verizon and, yes, Raytheon. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is also supported by Reebok and Figi Water. McDonald's invented its own cause, the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

"But corporate sponsorship isn't the problem," says the Bagel Man. "It's the sponsorship of a company that's based on violence that bothers me."

NIGHT MARCHERS

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:24:50 -0400

It's been a solid four years since John Reis has been on the road. Reis, currently the guitarist/vocalist of the Night Marchers, has done time as the frontman of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Rocket from the Crypt and the Sultans, but after those projects ran their course he took some time off. I asked Reis if there had been anything he'd forgotten since he last attempted such a tour. "Nah," he said, "I'm a rock & roll professional. It would be really irresponsible of me if I'd forgotten my craft."

It's been even longer, though, since Reis has been on the road with a new project. "I still see a lot of familiar faces and we're playing a lot of places we've been to before," he said. "This is our first time out, with our first record, it's cool having an extended amount of time to jam and develop. That's the most exciting. The newness."

While the Night Marchers' pedigree consists primarily of Hot Snakes and like-minded Montreal group CPC Gangbangs, the band spurns the heavy, fast, sinister garage-punk sound of those bands in favor of something, oddly enough, a bit more mature and restrained. This isn't to say that Reis has gone James Taylor on us, though, it's just that, unlike most other Reis projects, this album makes me want to do things other than setting fire to my own house or crashing my car into a wall.

True to rock & roll-professional form, Reis hasn't given much thought to the Marchers' post-tour future. "This is exciting enough," he says. "We have a bunch of shows lined up between now and the end of the year." Reis adds that the band plans to "come back and write some songs," so there may yet be opportunities for crashing some cars.

Thanks in advance, Mr. Reis.

NIGHTMARCHERS

W/ CPC GANGBANGS &

THE DYNAMITERS

MIDDLE EAST UPSTAIRS

472 MASS AVE.

CENTRAL SQ.

CAMBRIDGE

617.864.3278

8:45PM/18+/$13

ADV, $15 DOS.

MIDEASTCLUB.COM

REDBELT

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:22:33 -0400

Screenwriter and director David Mamet has become a distinctive presence looming larger than any actors or plotline he chooses to deploy. This can be a problem. He tends to turn every location into Mamet-land, which is what the inside of John Malkovich's head was like in Being John Malkovich—every character a self-consciously crafted image of its creator. With Redbelt, his signature quirky dialogue and convoluted storytelling has really gotten out of hand, grabbing a choke hold of the film and rendering it a hopeless self-parody.

Things have been going downhill lately for the genius who brought us the mind-blowingly cutthroat Glengarry Glen Ross in 1992. By 2000 he was shitting out garbage like State and Main, an example of how awful Mamet is when he's trying to be funny. His last film was the inexcusable Edmond, which died by its own stagy hysterics. With Redbelt he's trying to address serious questions about the nature of competition and greed, but this film turns out to be hilarious in ways Mamet never intended.

As much as the screenwriter/director attempts to disguise it, the story is at its core just another take on Rocky. It stars the estimable Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mike Terry, a jujitsu instructor who believes that the act of fighting is sacred and should never take place in organized competition. That said, you know from minute one he will eventually end up kicking the crap out of someone in an arena setting. The entire film is a complex Rube Goldberg device leading to that inevitability.

His hot Brazilian wife Sondra (Alice Braga) helps run his martial arts studio while trying to keep her own clothing design business afloat. She has two brothers: one, a famous martial arts fighter from Brazil, and another, who runs a local bar and promotes fights on the side. What happens in the film is like a long run-on sentence: A lawyer named Laura Black (Emily Mortimer) inexplicably stumbles into Terry's studio in a panic, tussles with a cop training there, officer Joe Ryan (Max Martini), causing her to accidentally shoot his gun out the window, forcing Terry to go to his brother-in-law's bar to ask for money, where he beats up some thugs picking on celebrity Chet Frank (Tim Allen—no shit) who thanks Terry by hiring him as a fight instructor and co-producer for a film he's shooting; Frank's sleazy manager (Joe Mantegna) gives Terry an expensive watch that he then passes along to financially struggling officer Ryan, who then tries to pawn the watch and gets suspended because it's hot, leading to ...

You get the idea. Mamet has concocted a busy, complex machine that eats characters up to move forward, promptly forgetting about them (e.g., Terry's wife disappears for half the movie and winds up in the final scene). Meanwhile, they all struggle with his stilted dialogue. Ejiofor looks especially silly as he dutifully stops and starts sentences and mechanically repeats phrases with no change of inflection. The worst offender of all is Ricky Jay, one of the filmmaker's usual suspects, playing a fight promoter who comes off like a huge Mamet muppet, causing untold amounts of unintentional hilarity.

Still, the film is entertaining despite the flaws, and Ejiofor deserves some accolades for getting through it relatively unscathed. Maybe I've got Mamet all wrong. Maybe he really is making fun of himself, and the laughs were all intended. Perhaps he's entered into the realm inhabited by the likes of William Shatner where he realizes he's the biggest joke going. His next writing/directing project is listed as Joan of Bark: The Dog that Saved France. Makes you wonder.

REDBELT

RATED | R

OPENS | 5.9.08

Local Picks

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:17:00 -0400

ELI "PAPERBOY" REED & THE TRUE LOVES | ROLL WITH YOU

An impressive blend of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Sharon Jones (and I do not throw those names around for funsies) Eli Reed and his gravelly horn drenched soul is poised to explode. This Allston-based outfit would be at home at Daptone Records and their song "Doin' The Boom Boom" is solid proof. Just ask Mojo Magazine. elipaperboyreed.com

SOULCLAP | THE GIRAFFE EP

The electronic funk of Soulclap's first vinyl (and the Franco Cinelli Remix B-side) actually reminds me of something that the long-necked animal would get down to. Tribal and percussive touches make this drum laden track one for the collection. The vinyl also has epic artwork showing you how to make your very own origami giraffe. soulclap.us

KAIJU BIG BATTEL

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:13:47 -0400

Remember when you were a teenager, and you'd get high and watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and the monsters would battle over the small cities and destroy the models of buildings? Wasn't that fucked up? See it live Saturday for the next installment of Kaiju Big Battel: The New and Improved Boston Massacre, for the world's "only live monster mayhem spectacle." Dr. Cube and his gang of angry mutants will be turning one of our city's largest indoor venues into a Wrestle-Mania styled arena (but with less white trash, oily, ponytailed men and potentially disastrous pyrotechnics).

Kaiju, which actually started in Boston as a SMFA project in the mid-'90s, has grown into Kaiju Studios, which has released a series of books, DVDs and touring "Battels" in various cities. Boston will be the first stop on the three-city tour which also includes Philly and NYC. DJ Clashious Clay will be on hand spinning sets between battels. If you haven't experienced a Big Battel before, be prepared for Engrish speaking announcers, caged-in wrestling rings and costumes that make GWAR look like peasants.

KAIJU BIG BATTEL:

NEW AND IMPROVED BOSTON MASSACRE

SAT. 5.10

ROXY

279 TREMONT ST.

BOSTON

617.338.7699

7PM/18+/$20

KAIJU.COM

IRON MAN

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:11:55 -0400

Much like its flamboyant protagonist, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Iron Man is a bright and energetic flirt of a movie, limited by the constraints you're more likely to see in a Chevrolet advertisement.

If there is anything positive to take away from Jon Favreau's stuffy and visually assaulting direction, it's the performance by Robert Downey Jr.—who finds a remarkable balance between effortless charm and obligatory seriousness. His wonderfully rambling and hyperactive Mr. Stark, who begins the film as a weapons dealer and ends it a bleeding heart superhero, helps balance the in-your-face ugliness of the film's abrasively patriotic screenplay. Alongside the blatant evangelical undertones of Superman Returns, Iron Man is perhaps the most obnoxiously capitalistic, pro-American superhero adaptation to hit the big screen; e.g., when Stark is handed a Burger King Whopper, he responds with, "Now that's what I call an American burger!"

The film's only inspired element comes from its sophisticated cast. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges play the cartoonishly over-the-top characters of Pepper Potts and Obadiah Stane with a self-aware sense of irony and wit. Both A-list actors dive into their shallowly constructed roles and appear to have a delightful time hamming up every line they can sink their teeth into. Paltrow and Downey Jr. share a very real chemistry on camera, which adds a small but necessary touch of gravity to Iron Man.

Unfortunately, their finely -tuned performances contrast sharply with the inherently ignorant tone that mars much of Iron Man's good intentions. The hot red, man-made machine, which has a chilling and menacing demeanor, eventually shuts out all of Downey Jr.'s warmth as he becomes an invulnerable fighter in the film's absurdly inaccurate depiction of America's war on terror. In one scene, Iron Man sets an entire terrorist camp on fire, torching one person after the next with a fascistic sense of single-minded glee. With that, it suddenly becomes clear that this supposed "superhero" we are rooting for is more accurately a potent representation of post-9.11 American destruction.

AMC Loews Boston Common, Regal Fenway Stadium, Circle Cinemas, Fresh Pond, Showcase Cinemas Revere

Wonderful Spells

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:09:37 -0400

I'm not normally a fan of generalizations, but it seems pretty self-evident that innovation for innovation's sake is running rampant in the musical underground. As strange as it is to admit it, then, it's a breath of fresh air to hear a band like Wonderful Spells who take traditional pop instruments, write traditional pop songs and doesn't come off like a guy who's trying to hit on your girlfriend and failing miserably. When a group is influenced by McCartney, Bolan, and Nuggets, they may seem oddly out of place in a field of would-be Nations of Ulysses and Gangs of Four.

Although they might be in the stylistic minority, Wonderful Spells see Boston as home and aren't looking to go anywhere anytime soon. "I dig Boston," says drummer Josh Carrasco. "There's a real collective kind of feeling."

"Sometimes I get bummed out," says guitarist/vocalist Bo Moore, "because I think that people see Boston as just a training camp for New York. You want more, sometimes, and New York is just so close. Everyone just kind of goes there."

With the recent departure of rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Nick Moon (that's probably not his real last name, but what can you do?), Wonderful Spells have been soldiering on as a three-piece. "We used to be a four-piece, now we're not, no big deal," says Bo. "We've played a couple shows as a three-piece, but personally, I think we'd all prefer to be a four-piece again. We could carry on, but it's a little more raw, a little more elemental. It's not so much that we're looking for a fourth member as much as we're waiting to bump into someone who feels like the right person."

Aside from a potential new member, the future of Wonderful Spells apparently holds a follow-up to last year's The Prophecy of Smarmulous Rex EP. "We're going to have an album hopefully sometime in 2008," says Bo, "and hopefully a tour, as well."

Wonderful Spells seem like they're sticking around for the time being, remaining a tight, sensible contrast to the music that upsets your parents.

[Wonderful Spells are playing the Harpoon Summerfest 6.7. Keep up with them at myspace.com/wonderfulspells]

THE HOTTIE & THE NOTTIE

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:04:25 -0400

It was really hard for Paris Hilton to play a hottie who vows to remain celibate until her childhood best friend (the "Nottie," complete with rotten teeth and whiskers) finds a man. Since she would never be friends with ugly people IRL, this role was a real stretch for her, her chance to break out of her preconceived mold. Kind of like Charlize Theron in Monster, except Hilton is pretending to be nice and compassionate, not a murdering prostitute. My real issue with this piece of shit is not that someone who thinks she can get AIDS from a puddle got to be in a feature film, but rather that the almost $30,000 the movie grossed in theaters could've paid my way through one year of college.

GENIUS PRODUCTS

RATED | PG-13

RELEASE DATE | 5.6.08

PRICE | $24.95

SAAWARIYA

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 17:01:27 -0400

With visuals straight out of a Baz Luhrmann wet dream, this song and dance about two star-crossed lovers is an engrossing trip. With the introduction of Ranbir Kapoor, debutante to the Kapoor clan, the film evolves into something of an old-school Disney animated flick—his acting reminiscent to that of an overzealous Prince Charming—which, for the genre, is spot-on. Not an overall success in theaters, this film does mark Sony's first foray into the Hindi film industry. The special features include a short documenting the movie's premiere, and unlike the red carpets in Cali, Saawariya's was more a family affair. Also enlightening was seeing the people behind the vocals behind the pretty faces you see onscreen. Saawariya is a Bollywood feast for the eyes that possesses a lot of heart.

SONY PICTURES

RATED | PG

RELEASE DATE | 5.6.08

PRICE | $26.96

DIZZEE RASCAL

dayvidday — Tue, 6 May 2008 16:58:33 -0400

On my first day at the South by Southwest music conference last March, I got a phone call from Dizzee Rascal's publicist asking permission to push my interview with the British rap behemoth back from 6pm to 9pm. "That's perfectly cool with me," I said, "so long as he doesn't mind me being donkey-wasted when we do the interview." "I'm sure that won't be a problem," she laughed.

I arrived at Dizzee's hotel with enough spare time to freshen up in the lobby bathroom, and after squeezing out some southern barbeque, splashing my face and tonguing more Listerine Breath Strips than recommended, I elevated to his fifth floor room. I didn't mind being drunk, but if I was going to fumble words I at least wanted to tame the dragon and keep beer farts to a minimum.

Until transcribing my interview with Dizzee last week, I didn't realize how embarrassing the experience actually was. In the span of a 10-minute interview I managed to ask him twice if he had previously been to Texas and three times what it felt like to be mainstream back home and fringe stateside. Even worse: In four instances I inquired about why his new album, Maths+English, sounds so different from his old shit.

"Get your drunk ass out of my room," Dizzee said, three-quarters jokingly, at the end of our talk. "Really—you must have got enough answers because you keep asking the same questions."

The interview was doomed about two minutes in. Earlier that day I'd met a gang of British hip-hop writers who prepped me with a question that only someone who's intimate with contemporary British hip-hop and socioeconomic boundaries would ask: "How come at your Shepherds Bush gig the crowd was full of girls from Richmond?" (Translation: How come at your Roxbury gig the crowd was full of girls from Newton?). But instead of calling my bluff or complimenting my worldly knowledge, Dizzee responded matter-of-factly.

"The kids are much younger than me now—they're 16 or 17 or something and I'm the in thing," he said. "I can't do nothing with them backstage as far as groupie action though—I just go straight home after the shows."

About five minutes of my Dizzee interview was useful. We discussed his new sound ("a lot of it is that deep underground drum and bass"); his current stature in the UK ("I'm probably Jay-Z where I come from"); and how it's possible that American critics adore him so when they have but half a clue what he's saying ("there are some similarities that people can relate to, but other than that I just guess they like the banging beat").

Finally, for my last question, I broke out a scripted masterpiece so remarkably researched and deep in background that I was sure it would leave a lasting impression about the type of reporter that I am: "How come at your Shepherds Bush gig the crowd was full of girls from Richmond?"

DIZZEE RASCAL

W/ EL-P, DJ MR. DIBBS

THE MIGHTY QUINN,

DJ AARON LACRATE

AND BUSDRIVER

SUN 5.11

MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTAIRS

480 MASS AVE.,

CENTRAL SQ.

CAMBRIDGE

617.864.3278.

9PM/18+/$22

MIDEASTCLUB.COM