Today's Special (film)
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Today's Special (film)
''Today's Special'' is a 2009 independent comedy film loosely inspired by Aasif Mandvi's play, ''Sakina's Restaurant''. The film was directed by David Kaplan. The script was adapted by Aasif Mandvi and Jonathan Bines, and stars Mandvi, Madhur Jaffrey, Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah, Jess Weixler, Harish Patel, Kevin Corrigan, Dean Winters, and Ajay Naidu. The film was developed and produced by Nimitt Mankad of Inimitable Pictures, and Lillian LaSalle of Sweet 180. The film premiered at the London Film Festival on October 16, 2009. In the United States, it was the opening film of the MIAAC Film Festival (Mahindra Indo American Arts Festival), at the Paris Theater in New York City. It played at the Mumbai Film Festival. At the Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 15, 2010, it won "Best of the Fest." It was also the Opening Night film at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival on March 11, 2010. Plot Samir (Aasif Mandvi), a sous chef at an upsc ...
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David Kaplan (filmmaker)
David Kaplan is the writer/director of several films based on fairy tales and folklore, including the feature film ''Year of the Fish'' (2008), which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2008. Kaplan has written and directed many short films. Some of his short films include ''Little Suck-a-Thumb'', ''The Frog King (1994 film), The Frog King'' (1995 Sundance Film Festival), ''Little Red Riding Hood (1997 film), Little Red Riding Hood'' (1997), and ''LoveDeath'', commissioned for Lincoln Center's 2003 New York Video Festival. His second feature film is ''Today's Special (film), Today's Special'' (2009), a comedy set in an Indian cuisine, Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, starring Aasif Mandvi (''The Daily Show''), Madhur Jaffrey (''Shakespeare-Wallah'') and legendary Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah (''Monsoon Wedding''). Filmography *Play (2009 short film) - director, co-written with Eric Zimmerman *''Today's Special (film), T ...
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San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and official launch November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate" as it was known at launch was the first large market newspaper ...
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Cooking Films
Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, reflecting local conditions. Types of cooking also depend on the skill levels and training of the cooks. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans. Archeological evidence of cooking fires from at least 300,000 years ago exists, but some estimate that humans started cooking up to 2 million years ago. The expansion of agriculture, commerce, trade, and transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients. New inventions and technologies, such as the invention of pottery for holding and boiling of water, expanded cooking tech ...
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American Independent Films
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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Films Set In New York City
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it. Recording and transmission of film The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects. Before the introduction of digital production, series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitize ...
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Films About Indian Americans
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it. Recording and transmission of film The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects. Before the introduction of digital production, series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitized ...
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American Comedy Films
American comedy films are comedy films produced in the United States. The genre is one of the oldest in American cinema; some of the first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s and 1930s, comedic dialogue rose in prominence in the work of film comedians such as W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers. By the 1950s, the television industry had become serious competition for the movie industry. The 1960s saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies. In the 1970s, black comedies were popular. Leading figures in the 1970s were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film. Another development was the increasing use of " gross-out humour". History 1895–1930 Comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humour of many of ...
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2009 Comedy Films
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the Brahmi numerals, beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a -look-alike. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase ''a''. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an Ascender (typography), ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a desc ...
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2009 Films
The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films. Also in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of that year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five (the first time since the 1943 awards). Evaluation of the year Film critic Philip French of ''The Guardian'' said that 2009 "began with the usual flurry of serious major movies given late December screenings in Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars. They're now forgotten or vaguely regarded as semi-classics: ''The Reader'', '' Che'', ''Slumdog Millionaire'', '' Frost/Nixon'', '' Revolutionary Road'', ''The Wrestler'', ''Gran Torino'', '' The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''. It soon became apparent that horror movies would be the dominant genre once again, with vampires the pre-eminent sub-species, the most profitable inevitably being '' New Moon'', the latest in Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'' saga, the best the ...
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Kumar Pallana
Kumar Valavhadas Pallana (23 December 1918 – 10 October 2013) was an Indian American character actor and vaudevillian. He performed on the Mickey Mouse Club as a plate spinner and juggler. Career Pallana moved to the United States in 1946 and spent 20 years performing around the country before settling down in Texas at his wife's insistence, and started a yoga studio. Pallana was married to Ranjana Jethwa and had two children, son Dipak and daughter Sandhya. His son Dipak created, owned and operated a cafe called the Cosmic Cup (now Cosmic Cafe) in Dallas, where Kumar met director Wes Anderson and actor Owen Wilson. Anderson subsequently cast Pallana in his films '' Bottle Rocket'', '' Rushmore'', ''The Royal Tenenbaums'' and ''The Darjeeling Limited''. Pallana also appeared in the Bollywood movie '' Anjaana Anjaani '' (2010) and the acclaimed independent film ''Another Earth'' (2011). A short documentary, ''KUMAR:MKE'', about Pallana's connection to the Milwaukee film scen ...
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Ranjit Chowdhry
Ranjit Chowdhry (19 September 1955 – 15 April 2020) was an Indian character actor, known for his roles in television, movies, and theatre. He appeared in two episodes of ''The Office'', as Vikram, a telemarketer who worked with Michael, and was briefly hired for The Michael Scott Paper Company. For his role as Rocky in Deepa Mehta's 2002 film ''Bollywood/Hollywood'', he was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role at the 23rd Genie Awards His other most noted role was in '' Last Holiday'' (2006), starring Queen Latifah. Life and career Ranjit was born and raised in Mumbai in a family with a theatre background, where he received his early education at Campion School, Mumbai, and started his acting career. His father is from a Gujjar background, while his mother, Pearl Padamsee, was of partial Jewish descent on her mother's side, but remained Christian during her life. He made his film debut in Basu Chatterjee's ''Khatta Meetha'', following which he pl ...
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Amir Arison
Amir Arison (born March 24, 1978) is an American actor, best known for his work as FBI tech expert Aram Mojtabai on NBC’s ''The Blacklist'' for nine seasons. Early life and education Arison was born in Saint Louis, MO to father Ron Arison, a surgeon, and mother Zipora Arison, a psychiatrist. He has one older sibling. Amir grew up in Fort Lauderdale from the age of 5, where he attended Pine Crest School from kindergarten through his senior year in high school.  With an early penchant for theatre, Arison received the school's Drama Club Award in the 6th grade, as well as the Founder’s Council Fine Arts Award in Acting his Senior year. Amir performed with the Fort Lauderdale-based professional improv group ComedySportz throughout  his junior and senior years. He received his SAG card, debuting in a Sonic Drive-In commercial when he was 16. He attended Columbia University, where he earned a BA in English. Television In addition to his role as Aram Mojtabai on NBC’s ...
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