Category: stanley tucci

Maybe Sundays – Blind Date (2007)



Blind Date (2007, dir. Stanley Tucci)
Starring Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson

Navigating the waters of a relationship, especially one that has gone on for decades is a dangerous and fragile thing. It is almost instinctual on many people’s part to use the vulnerabilities of their mates in verbal combat, attempting to make painful digs. External circumstances can also damage both parties in a way that makes their relationship irreparable. This very quiet, simple film examines those moments of conflict by combining emotional realism but aesthetic surreality.

Don (Tucci) works in a bar/theater where he performs an intentionally bad magic act. He will regularly place and respond to singles ads in the newspaper, placed by he and his wife Janna (Clarkson) as part of a strange game they play. They always meet at the theater, where their ads have determined what roles they will play. In a few strange episodes, they play psychiatrist to each other. These meetings are revealed as ritual torture around the half way point when a tragedy is revealed as the reason why they do this back-and-forth routine. The rendezvous typically end in frustration on the part of Janna, unable to forget the pain that birthed this dance.

Despite the complex ideas and concept the film is very rough. The surreality of the setting the repetition, which on one hand is crucial to telling this story, feels tedious and the momentum of the film suffers. The acting is amazing, I wouldn’t expect less from these performers though. The film is part of a series which works to release English language remakes of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh’s work. Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic extremist in 2004 after releasing a film highly critical of the Islamic community’s treatment of women. Despite the flaws in this remake, it does have me interested in seeing the original and the rest of van Gogh’s work.

Film 2010 #19 – Big Night


Big Night (1996, dir. Stanley Tucci, Campbell Scott)

Starring Stanley Tucci, Tony Shaloub, Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, Alison Janney, Marc Antony, Isabella Rosselini, Liev Schrieber, Campbell Scott
The senses of smell and taste are hard ones in the realm of film. To convey them with an absence of any true manipulation of the nose and tongue seems almost impossible. That is why this small independent feature is so impressive. As each course of the traditional Italian meal is presented the aromas and flavors pop off the screen. But as much as Big Night is about food, it is also about film and art in general.
Set in the late 1950s, the film follows Primo (Shaloub), the temperamental chef and his brother Secundo (Tucci), his desperately entrepreneurial brother. Secundo struggles to make their small restaurant Paradise a success, which is not helped by the traditionalist attitudes and unwillingness to budge by Primo. A bit of a boon comes along in the form of their rival Pascal (Holm) telling them he will tell his friend Louie Primo, the popular Italian crooner, to stop at the brothers’ place when he comes to town. This sets Secundo into preparing a massive feast worthy of Prima’s lips. Secundo also balances his relationship with Phyllis (Driver) and his affair with Pascal’s wife (Rosselini).
The origins of this film came when Tucci was working on a film he absolutely hated. On the side, he worked on the script for Big Night with a friend and eventually went to Campbell Scott to help him direct and Oliver Platt to produce. Because of the subject matter and this being a film made by actors, thematically it is addressing the conflict between making profitable films and making artistically honest films. As easy as it would be to say that Primo’s unwavering stance on traditional Italian cuisine is honorable, it can also be flipped and seen as destructive. The film leaves the brothers in a very shaky place, quite aware that they don’t have much longer in their establishment.
The film is also a wonderfully clever comedy. There is a lot of language play with many of the major players being Italian immigrants. One particular exchange occurs between Tucci and Shaloub, when the latter uses the phrase “raining outside” and Tucci jokingly comments that it’s better than it raining outside. This joke is completely lost on the elder brother and very humorous back and forth results. The major feast the film is built around is also full of very funny moments, one customer in tears exclaiming that her “mother was a terrible cook” after partaking in Secundo’s masterpiece of a meal.
Big Night is a great quiet film made by people who truly love what they do. It comes across in every frame that this is a project that they worked hard on but enjoyed every minute of. And if you don’t have a craving for rissoto or the film’s chief dish, timpano at the conclusion than I would be shocked.