Rating: 
Summary: This was an entertaining movie that makes you hungry !!!
Review: It is a superb movie that lets you emotions ride up and down with the main characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: A fantastic movie, with superb acting and a wonderful soundtrack
Rating:
Summary: Great movie!
Review: As "Like Water For Chocolate" defines the Mexican experience, "Big Night" does the same for the Italian immigrant. A touching film about two brothers and their struggles both with each other and the new world. The eldest brother, Primo, played by Tony Shaloub, shows a true passion for his food that elicits laughter, admiration, and empathy. And the food!! He cooks up a veritable feast, culminating in a Timpani that will have you salivating like a padlocked dog.Stanley Tucci plays the younger brother Secundo, who worries about more practical matters, like paying the bills. He and Primo go 15 rounds over the menu, produce, and every other little detail. If the crescendo of the movie is the all night feast scene, its denoumont is the next morning. The love exhibited between the two brothers is obvious and moving. The film features a soundtrack starring jazz great Louis Prima. Wonderful stuff that will inspire you to buy the soundtrack as well.
Rating:
Summary: Great Little Story of Italians, Food, and how they relate.
Review: `Big Night' is co-writer / co-director Stanley Tucci's contribution to the select collection of `food films'. The leading members of this very gourmet list of films is the Japanese `Tampopo' and the French `Babette's Feast'. If you look at it cross-eyed, you may even add Peter Greenway's `The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover'. `Tampopo' is hands down the most interesting of these, but `Big Night' can hold its own in this crowd of culinary celluloid.
Like Siskel and Ebert, you will like this movie a lot if you like movies by Fellini and Renoir. I sensed more than a few little echos here and there of Fellini's `La Dolce Vita', although I confess Tucci simply does not have the great touch of the Fredrico Fellini / Marcello Mastroianni team. But that bar is so high, Tucci Company still manage to come in with a remarkable little film.
For fans of some of the players in this film such as Minnie Driver, Isabella Rosselini, Tony Shalhoub, and `C. J. Craig', Allison Janney, you may be disappointed at the rather thin part each of these actors receives, although all but Miss West Wing carry their roles off with great skill. While on the surface the main drama seems to be between Tucci and Shalhoub, the two immigrant Italian brothers who own and run a small high quality restaurant in 1957 New Jersey, the best tension is between Tucci's character and Ian Holm (later to famously appear in the role of Bilbo Baggins in `Lord of the Rings'). Holm plays a competing restaurateur whose very successful establishment is just down the block from the brothers' weakly performing `Restorante'.
The setup for understanding the difficulties the brothers face is what we see on a typically light night when a typical 1950's American woman is served a seafood risotto and simply cannot understand the dish, as she was expecting spaghetti with the rice and sees no seafood on the dish. This sets up the culinary interest to the foodies in the audience who are fully aware of the difference between classic Italian fare and the `Italian-American' cuisine being sold down the street at Holm's restaurant. Of course chef and older brother Shalhoub is totally unsympathetic to these uneducated tastes and balks at simply making a side dish of spaghetti to go along with the rice.
This movie was made before 2001 and Shalhoub shows absolutely no trace of his Emmy award winning Adrian Monk persona. Behind his great Groucho mustache, one can almost not even recognize him, as even the quality of his voice seems changed to fit the part.
The driving force behind the story is the fact that the bank will no longer extend the deadline on the loan for their restaurant, so the brothers need to come up with much more money than they currently take in over the course of a week. Holm offers the suggestion that part of the success of his restaurant lies in the interest he generates with celebrities who come to eat at his place and leave lots of autographed photographs behind. So, Holm suggests that he will attract Louie Prima to come to the brothers' restaurant to eat on a particular `Big Night'
Preparation of the food for this event brings culinary interest back to the forefront when we see Shalhoub and his assistant hand make pasta which is then assembled into that most elaborate dish an `Il Timpano', a great upside down casserole filled with pasta, sauce, sausage, and all sorts of other good things to eat.
A secondary plot is the relation of Tucci with girlfriend Minnie Driver complicated with an affair with Holm's wife, played by Isabella Rosselini. The end of the movie leaves many of these relationships in disarray, most especially the one between the brothers.
It is totally proper that almost all the music is from recordings of performances by Louie Prima and wife Keely Smith. The feeling of being filmed in the mid-1950's is almost perfect except for the to me dreadful coloring which may work on `The Matrix' but which does not work on northern New Jersey. Everything looks red and green. The movie would have been much better served by having been filmed in black and white a la Woody Allen of `Manhatten' or in a lush 1950's Technicolor where the colors are more real than in real life.
This is a great little movie with the one property that makes buying it on DVD worth while. It will yield additional pleasures on a second and third and fourth viewing, as long as you liked it to begin with. I bought it and I was not disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Sweet and sumptuous...
Review: This sweet little film will make you hungry for a nice big Italian meal. Great performances all around and a fun soundtrack.
The problem with it, ultimately, IS the simplicity of the story. Rather than tell us something important about the relationship between two immigrant brothers, it ends up being little more than a long pilot movie (albeit a very well done one!) for "Big Night---the sitcom."
Even so, it is a fun way to spend 109 minutes...which is all this DVD has to offer.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone.
Review: Crickets and Tumbleweeds. This is our initial introduction to the life and business of two brothers named Secondo and Primo (symbolically named "second" and "first" to make sure that we the viewers can remember which is the older and which is the younger). Together they have come from Italy in hopes of pursuing the American dream, to become popular and wealthy with their trade. Each brother has his own trade. Secondo (played by Tucci) is the business suave brother, he attempts to keep the restaurant afloat by pleading with the bankers, while on the other hand test driving the newest Cadillacs because he believes in the philosophy, "To be successful, you must first look like you are successful". Primo, played perfectly by Tony Shalhoub (best known for the TV series "Monk" and the Men in Black films), is the chef of the family. Although both brothers can cook, Primo prides himself to know food the best. His belief is that the food will bring the customers in through the doors, not due to the booze, women, or music. Together, with the help of some of their friends, they try to keep their heritage alive by trying to save their restaurant.
Alright, before you say, "Well, I don't need to read further, I know what the review is going to be..." Think again. This film was honestly one of the worst independent films that I have seen for some time. Tucci's style of film-making (along with Scott) is almost like we were watching a theater group on the big screen. I understand that is a very common style to use, but it didn't cut it during this film.
While Shalhoub is amazing in his role, it is almost erased by Tucci's role. He overplays his character to the limit. We forget about the two brothers and spend so much time trying to get past Tucci's acting in this film, that we loose sight of the whole picture. I also felt like the timing was off. Several times I glanced at my watch to see how much time was remaining on this picture. Coming fresh off of Mostly Martha, and being a fan of Chocolat, I wanted to see so much Italian food that I would immediately rush out after the film and gorge myself with all the Italian food that Southwest Virginia had to offer. I wanted to salivate every time I saw or even heard Italian food, but unfortunately, Pavlov still had a lot to work to do. Unfortunately, after watching this film, I wanted to immediately purge myself of all Italian food that I had eaten in my lifetime.
Big Night left a horrible taste in my mouth. It was a beautiful ensemble, with some great actors, but Tucci needed to give them something to stand out of the screen with. I felt, and I know the film was about the two brothers, that the other characters didn't mean anything. When the secret from Pascal was announced, I didn't see him as the self-proclaimed villain. He was just a liar, nothing more...but I wanted more. People have raved about this film, but I don't see the big secret. Nothing new, nothing special. Big Night showed that lack of creativity, and without power or money the "American dream" cannot become a reality. It was almost a insult to what America has to offer. To respond to brotherly love, it really didn't seem like the two brothers wanted to work for their money. They just wanted the "American Dream" to appear and be theirs.. What I saw from this film were too lazy brothers that could not create their own business...
They realize that they saw the "American dream" during that "big night", even if it wasn't with all that jazz (pun was intended).
Grade: ** out of *****
Rating:
Summary: What a delight - but eat before you watch it
Review: Eat before you watch this movie; otherwise, you'll end up painfully hungry and go stuff yourself with every bit of Italian food you can lay your hands on. This is a simple story of two brothers struggling to fulfill their dreams - one to be a "success" in America; the other to be a great Italian chef. Realizing the dreams of the first brother hinges on the success of one important meal depends on the skill of the second - and forces outside their control. Tucci, Shaloub, Holm and company all give wonderful performances. There's no showing off by the many successful actors who are in this movie - they all just do a great job. The climax of the movie is the banquet scene, and it's going to make you hungry and want to get up and dance. The final scene which lasts for several minutes with the only dialog being one line - "are you hungry" - wraps up the movie nicely, and shows what a good director and actors can do when both understand the power of subtlety. This is one fun movie - lots of laughs, amazing food, and a great soundtrack.
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