[Italianamerican] is funny and touching. It's richer than a less personal documentary would have been, supplementing well [Scorsese's] hallucinated depiction of the mean streets outside.

In a sense, Italianamerican … is a home movie in reverse, with the grown child turning the camera on parents or parental figures. But Scorsese is fortunate: his progenitors are a delight. Prompted by his jumpy, occasionally bemused, presence at the edge of the frame, they recount their own parents' tales of the old country, show Instamatics … made during a trip back there, and detail their childhoods on the mythic Lower East Side….

The film is interspersed with family photographs and street footage of 50 or 60 years ago, but an equally evocative visual element is the living room where most of the interview takes place….

Scorsese intercuts this "only in America" setting with his mother's running commentary on her special sauce as she prepares it...