‘Today’s Special’ sure to be a hit of the Fest

BY ED FELEN

Aasif Mandui

Written by and starring Aasif Mandvi (the faux reporter on “The Daily Show”), “Today’s Special” will charm you into believing that all it takes to be a great cook is plenty of soul and a short apprenticeship with an itinerant cab driver. Samir (Mandvi) is an accomplished sous chef, but he is too ambitious to be patient. He quits his job and starts to go to Paris. His father has a heart attack and he is called upon to run the family Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights, the #7 train out of Manhattan. With veteran Bollywood actor, Naseeruddin Shah, as his mentor, Samir learns a lot about cooking and even more about himself.

The plot is predictable but crackling with wit and thoroughly seductive. Great for Date Night. “Today’s Special” shows Friday, April 23, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 24, at 5 p.m. If you haven’t seen enough of Jack Abramoff on “60 Minutes” or “Frontline,” if you haven’t read Thomas Frank’s “The Wrecking Crew,” if you’re not already disgusted with the greed and abuse of power that almost destroyed this country during the Bush years, then you need to see “Casino Jack and the United States of Money.” The movie neatly documents the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff from his college days as head of the College Republicans to being the chief lobbyist for Tom DeLay and the Bush administration. His story is not a tragedy.

A tragic hero needs to fall from great heights because of a tragic flaw that destroys him while at the same time give him strength. In viewing the rise and fall of a tragic hero we experience a catharsis of fear and pity because we see in him parts of our own character. Jack Abramoff doesn’t have a tragic flaw. He set out to game the system and he got caught. His fall doesn’t inspire fear and pity, it inspires contempt. But Jack Abramoff was small fry compared to Bush and Cheney.

When the Bush family bought Halliburton and Dick Cheney in 1998 they got a money machine that would dump billions of dollars into their pockets off of
frontloaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Casino Jack” ends with Tom DeLay dancing to “Wild Thing” on “Dancing with the Stars.” Jack Abramoff is scheduled to be released from federal prison in December of 2010. Bush and Cheney are still free, and Dick’s daughter, Liz Cheney, seems to have inherited the family business of beating the drums of war by attacking Obama for apologizing for America, abandoning our allies and appeasing our enemies.

“Casino Jack and the United States of Money” shows Saturday, April 24, at 4:30 p.m. and Wednesday, April 28, at 6:30 p.m.“Presque Isle” is a Minn-esota film and, sadly, it’s awful. It goes from ponderous to bizarre without being interesting. It will be shown once on Wednesday, April 28, at 9 p.m.
All shows are at St. Anthony Main.