‘NONNAS’: RATED PG-13 on NETFLIX

The most interesting aspect of the Netflix movie “Nonnas” is that its heartfelt celebration of family, food and culinary delights is based on the true story of Joe Scaravella paying tribute to his beloved mother by gambling on opening an Italian restaurant on Staten Island.

While Vince Vaughn’s Joe grieves the passing of his mother, he recalls his childhood in Brooklyn when his mom and grandmother would cook family dinners. Nostalgia guides his decision to honor their memory with a dining establishment.

Joe’s best friend Bruno (Joe Manganiello) and his wife Stella (Drea de Matteo), worried about his dicey dream, think he should use his inheritance from his mother’s life insurance to do something more practical than buying a restaurant that has seen better days.

Bruno, a contractor, gets pressed into service to refurbish the old place into an inviting location in classic Italian style. He goes so far as to sell his prized vintage automobile to cover escalating costs.

Nothing deters Joe from taking a huge risk with his creation of Enoteca Maria, a restaurant that has grandmother chefs, portrayed by Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, Lorraine Bracco and Susan Sarandon, preparing their delicious family recipes from different regions in Italy.

Nonna is Italian for grandmother, and the four women may bicker and tease with a degree of affection and yet evince an unyielding loyalty to Joe’s vision even when missteps and setbacks threaten to derail the venture.

The opening night goes horribly wrong, due in part to a thunderstorm, with the only guests being Bruno and Stella. After a spell of no business, Joe decides to host a last hurrah dinner for friends and colleagues.

While Joe’s campaign to get restaurant critics to review his establishment falls on deaf ears, a stealth critic manages to sample the fare and a glowing review rescues Joe’s joint, turning it into a thriving business to this day.

“Nonnas” warms the heart with its true-to-life feel-good story of not just triumph over adversity, but mainly for its message that great food with friends and family has an unmistakable healing power.

FOX NETWORK SUMMER PROGRAMS

Ordinarily around this time of year the major television networks start touting the fall season offerings, and while the FOX network is no different, it does use the summer to launch new seasons of current programs.

Beyond new episodes of “Lego Masters, “The Quiz with Balls,” “The 1% Club,” “and “MasterChef,” along with all new episodes of animation favorites that include “Bob’s Burgers,” “Grimsburg,” “Family Guy” and “The Great North,” there are two new unscripted series.

Already out of the gate is “Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service,” where the famed culinary titan trades his signature chef knives for a state-of-the-art surveillance vehicle and cutting-edge spyware that targets the Washington, D.C. Greek restaurant “Parthenon.”

The premise of the new series is that Chef Ramsay will venture into a struggling restaurant under the cover of night, with the help of a secret source on the inside, to gather raw, unfiltered evidence of major issues plaguing the dining establishment.

During the course of the one-hour episode, Ramsay first starts by breaking into the Parthenon after hours to document such horrors as the basement crawling with rats, ovens that haven’t been cleaned in forever, and a filthy band saw harboring excessive amounts of bacteria.

Parthenon is a family-owned business with Pete as the stubborn owner holding the old-school attitude that he’s the boss who knows better and insists nothing is going to change as long as he’s in charge.

Pete’s wife, Susie, acts as hostess, and is worried that the restaurant will shut down because her husband doesn’t listen. She also knows that their son Mikey, acting as manager, is not being given the chance by Pete to step up and take over the business.

You can probably guess that chances are the business will turn around due to Ramsay’s intervention. A lot of the dialogue has the feel of being a bit too convenient for an unfolding drama. And then there is Ramsay getting bleeped fairly often.

Arriving on June 10 is the all-new, wholly-owned “social survival of the fittest” competition series “The Snake,” hosted by comedian Jim Jeffries, that thrives on an unmatched battle of plotting, scheming and strategy.

Fifteen masters of manipulation from various persuasive professions with unique skill sets are assembled to compete in an outrageous array of challenges and twists — all of which help contestants slither toward becoming the week’s Snake.

The top reptile takes the most powerful position in the game and becomes the ultimate decider of who stays and who goes. Each contestant must leverage their unique skills, training and powers of persuasion as they face a multitude of challenges.

“The Snake,” with its chain reaction elimination where it’s not about who wants you gone, but who is willing to save you, seemingly results in a contest that will be best understood when we see how only one contender gets within striking distance of the $100,000 grand prize.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.