“I remember the very first day of shooting. Ty gathered all of us to make a small announcement to the cast and crew in which he discussed why we make independent cinema. And his response was that making movies was like a love letter to God."
After Sunday night’s 97th Academy Awards, fans of “Anora” rejoiced. The rightful Oscar frontrunner since it netted the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival went 5-for-6 on the night, cue: "SportsCenter" highlight music.
“Reagan” champions were reviled by its DEI disqualification. Sigh.
Conan-heads are still galavanting with glee, as they should be. Yippee.
All the while, some local artists with one whopping life experience to recount are just proud that, in an industry rife with concerns, the select few lent platforms within the epicenter of movie prestige have vowed not to renounce their love for all things small-budgeted.
Shortly after ranking Smithtown native Tyler Taormina’s “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” his number-two film of 2024, The New Yorker’s Richard Brody doubled down on the all-hangout, no-hallmark holiday joint. He wrote that a Best Picture nomination was deserved, along with a director nomination for Taormina and an actress nomination for Maria Dizzia.
The 2006ish-set dramedy from Omnes Films and IFC is as calculatedly timeless as the late David Lynch’s many eras all-at-once “Blue Velvet”—as was the shared experience of its lesser-known, but plenty talented players who earned the chance to share scenes with Dizzia and Ben Shenkman, and billing with Michael Cera and Elsie Fisher.
“Reflecting back now two years later, I still feel the same way now as I did then—that making it was nothing short of a dream,” said Brittany Hughes, Kings Park High School Class of 2009.
In the film, Hughes plays “Suzie Q," daughter of Matty (John Trischetti)—one of four siblings at war over the Balsano matriarch, Grandma Antonia’s (Mary Reistetter) estate.
Brendan “Crash” Burt, also plugging the men’s league baseball-set “Eephus” for Omnes Films this spring, stars as “In-Law Eric”—an anthro lover (don’t Google that, just go with it) first introduced banging piano keys directly across from Reistetter—who, yes, is also my real-life grandma... but I digress.
The East Meadow resident first collaborated with the indie collective after a self-tape submission landed him a seat at the table of Taormina’s ultra-experimental, COVID-shot “Happer’s Comet.” Two films into their director-actor partnership, Crash felt like he was operating with a cheat code. “He’s [Taormina] genuine in a way that almost makes me uncomfortable.”
“I’m not one that intimidates easily, but there was some real talent in there. It was straight weaponized,” said Crash. “From the young kids to the teens to the ‘adults’ to the elders... everybody shined in a way I haven’t seen before. I am afraid to call out one person by name because everybody rose to the occasion—and then above it.”
Praising her for the work she did as his “on-screen sweetheart" all the same, Crash agrees that fourth-generation SAG actor Laura Robards wields one of the film’s more memorable moments: a monologue that ties together the film’s two halves in a cacophonous collision of thematic significance.
In conversation with The South Shore Press, Robards revealed she auditioned for the “Joanne” role with this scene: her foolheartedly, then full-heartedly reading excerpts from a devastated, then levitated relative’s manuscript.
While rehearsing the scene on the day of shooting, she was asked to improvise what she classifies as “rich text” off-book, something Taormina deduced would bring an authentic freshness to the important verbiage.
“Joanne's monologue is really a turning point in the film, where the tone shifts from gleeful nostalgia to much more melancholic,” said Robards. “...[it’s] the tension that we, many of us often experience at the holidays.”
Robards feels her character—reeling from the childhood exclusions that still hold her back—is emblematic of reality. Sometimes, we’re not OK. We don’t always feel aligned with our family. We don’t always feel aligned with ourselves.
Despite Joanne’s uncertainties, Robards and her fellow Miller’s Point alums felt assured from day one.
“On the first rehearsal, Ty talked about how this is a film that is about family legacy and we happen to have several members of our cast who are part of filmmaking legacy—myself included,” alluding to Francesca Scorsese, daughter of Martin, and Sawyer Spielberg, son of Steven, as Michelle and Splint, respectively. “We are all united by a shared love and passion of storytelling and I think, you know, the excavation of the human experience.”
From her family, Robards feels she inherited kernels of wisdom such as exuding humility, respect, kindness and professionalism.
Her favorite adage of her late grandfather, famed character actor and longtime husband to Lauren Bacall, Jason Robards, is his only acting advice—something she accesses to avoid a process that is too cerebreal or intellectual: "Know your lines, don't talk when the other actor is talking, and don't run into the furniture.”
Robards found the outpouring of community support in and around Smithtown—from the locally sourced props, born-and-bred extras and overall ambiance—extraordinary. For this reason, she is not surprised by the critical response.
“I think the imagery, the tone and the soundtrack all will really stand the test of time and that the film will have a place in the lexicon of American Christmas films,” she said, adding that artistic excellence—and not necessarily accolades—is a paramount pursuit.
“I love what Pamela Anderson said… ‘the win is in the work.’”
On the rest of her crew, Robards knows “those involved in making this film have a fertile ground from which to draw inspiration for their next etude.”
“There are a lot of names in those credits I definitely expect to see [and] hear again, and several more times.”
“I’ve often thought one of the most remarkable things about ‘Christmas Eve in Millers Point’ is how such a large cast connected so quickly,” said Steve Alleva, a retired fireman currently enmeshed in the local stand-up scene.
“Christmas Eve” was an ensemble he felt fit like a glove, nay, the oven-mitts his culinary “Uncle Ron” adorns to remove a dinner-time turkey in a unique shot of surely complicated proportions.
“...we were a ready-made family; there was no pressure, it just happened,” Alleva noted. “Then, stepping into a beautifully designed set, with an incredible director and fantastic crew, we were well on our way.”
“The experience truly changed me so much as a person for the better,” Hughes adds, “and not to mention has given me a whole new beautiful group of people that are now in my life. We became a family on that set, a family that has extended far beyond the Christmas Eve dinner table, and for that and so much more I am infinitely grateful.”
Alleva once showed a friend a picture of the dinner table scene that became the film’s first promotional still. "Their reaction," he recalls, "...really said something."
That something: a hand-made film fully baked to remind audiences of their holiday traditions, warts and all; and countless others of the holiday-time family gatherings they may have been denied, but always wished they had been annually supplied.
Fear not, for “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is available to stream—on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and AMC+—not just this year, but every year after that as well.
QB1 Taormina's huddle-set, top-of-the-shoot battle cry—that moviemaking was akin to penning the almighty—resonated with Robards "very deeply."
"I think that all art is an offering of some kind," she said. "And at that moment I knew this was going to be a really special filming experience.”
Ditto.