Your new favorite Christmas movie
On Tyler Taormina's memory piece and Bread & Salt
My second to last newsletter for 2024. If you’re still looking for gifts, there are some ideas from
’s chaotic asian group chat that I was a part of. Here’s what to watch, or not, in the final days of the year!If you remember from my TIFF dispatch, I absolutely hated BABYGIRL, the second movie of the year in which Nicole Kidman is seduced by a younger man. It runs low on sexual perversions, does not deserve to sit alongside actual erotic thrillers, and with its flaws, in my opinion, does not provide an interesting read into our generation via that genre either. More for paid subscribers next week.
Like most people have said, NOSFERATU falls squarely into the “but why bother when the originals are just fine” category of remakes. But as far as famous Lily’s go: -Rose Depp > Collins > James
UNION, Brett Story andStephen Maing’s boots-on-the-ground documentary about Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, is a necessarily slow and anguishing watch. It chronicles ther fight to organize without any help from national unions. It doesn’t have traditional distribution, but luckily you can rent it until Jan. 5.
For some ✨non-traditional Christmas movie suggestions, here’s last year’s post.
CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER’S POINT
Dir. Tyler Taormina
In theaters and on VOD
Growing up I dreamt about large scale family gatherings. I dream about them even now. A well-loved and stately old house filled with pockets of conversation and people flitting in and out of every room. Except grandpa who stays seated all night on his arm chair. The kids stick to the basement crowding around the one cousin who’s commandeered the video game console and held it hostage until he dies (virtually, which is never). Something delicious gurgles hisses from the oven, the scent wafting through the house and covering every inch of it along with the music set at just the right decibel level. All the warmth and wine of a house party without the social anxiety.
This specific bonhomie is flawlessly bottled in Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, Tyler Taormina’s loving snapshot—actually, snow globe, with Carson Lund’s bleary-dazzling cinematography—that captures one night with the Bolsano’s on Long Island. The memory piece is nostalgic but not sentimental, undercut with a specter of settled regret. At least three generations of the Italian-American family are staged throughout the wood-panelled ancestral home. Siblings, in-laws, cousins, second husbands are so plentiful that you can’t quite tell who’s related to whom. Don’t bother trying to keep track; you’re only there for a moment.
Yet, even in this brief encounter, it’s enough to revel in their presence. Every scene is a mosaic of compelling faces with non-movie star features. The cast consists largely of inconspicuous cast of actors alongside cinematic nepo-baby royalty—Francesca Scorsese and Sawyer Spielberg, in two small roles.
A few loose threads emerge: an uncle is secretly writing a book; the teen girls want to sneak out to see a boy; an older generation of siblings argue about selling the house. There isn’t much of a fight to be had though. It’s a done deal, less sad than it is inevitable. The picture is set sometime in the early 2000s, but feels like it could be older. Christmas classics and oldies like The Ronettes and Sister Act soundtrack play perpetually in the background.
The set dressings and details are astonishingly observed. A comically long corded phone. Socker Boppers. A model cutout posted on a roomba mowing back and forth a la Home Alone. A little girl slides down the stairs, step by step, in her Christmas party dress, black velvet and festive ribbon. I swear I had the exact same one. And then there’s the spread. Thanksgiving redux with Italian flair on porcelain painted with holly-berries. Ham, mashed potatoes, ziti.
The wacky National Lampoon’s energy that announces the film—a careening car ride through the festively decorated neighborhood and title credits sliding onto the screen—is somewhat a fake out. The film slips and falls into the quieter register of home videos, unspectacular but precious. There’s also touch of the surreal. Like Taormina’s previous movie Ham on Rye, the film captures the absurd rites and rituals of youth. When the teens sneak off into a bagel/donut shop, inexplicably teeming with adolescents, and trailed by a pair of otherworldly cops (Michael Cera and Greg Turkington) in what are the film’s most droll moments.
Somewhere in the middle of the movie is neighborhood parade, a big event, the fire trucks whooshing down the streets that can feel insignificant compared to the Bolsano’s anticipation of it. It’s a lot like Christmas, which ends as soon as it the 24th approaches. The movie’s greatest achievement is how it captures the holiday and its unique status as celebration and mourning, it’s over too quickly. Taormina envisions this not as a grand farewell but a sleepy march into the night—cozy, mysterious, and melancholy.
Related viewing
Ham on Rye (Taormina, 2019)
The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose, 2021)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)
Eephus (Carson Lund, 2025)
On Italian-American cookie trays and superior biscuits
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point highlights the joy and inherent cheesiness in keeping traditions. Everyone gets cherry affogatos for at the end of the night, and one of the uncles is beholden to his salami sticks, which find the meat wrapped around grissini. To me, nothing embodies holiday traditions quite like cookies—specifically, the Italian-American kind. Those delicate, crumbly treats often end up in a bland mess and have always carried a hint of sadness. No one rushes to scoop them up at parties and save them for later. But still, it doesn’t feel like Christmas without them. (In the Mid-Hudson valley where I grew up there was not a small remnant of Italian Americans so these were always staple.)
Traditional Italian cookies have largely resisted efforts to elevate them. Few bakeries have dared to transform these purposefully dry biscuits into something "more palatable." Rainbow cookies are a notable exception, and while places like Archestratus and Ciao Gloria have improved them with superior ingredients, I still cherish even the waxy versions.
The others, mostly variations of butter cookies, seem indifferent to their lowly status, whether sandwiched with jam, dipped in chocolate, shaped like flowers, or thumb printed with a cherry or chocolate chip. No one ever clamors for the biscotti treats either, like reginelle coated in sesame seeds or pignoli covered in pine nuts, or anything made with anise or fennel. The divisive licorice flavors might be another reason they haven’t taken off. Or that they truly necessitate a coffee or amaro accompaniment.
I have found superior cookies of all kinds though, at where else but Bread & Salt, the destination bakery in Jersey City that prepares and sells mostly Italian things. They are open only three days a week, post no menu and do not offer delivery; you just have to show up and hope for the best. And, it is the best. Rick Easton is some gluten sorcerer who has perfected the laborious art of baking bread. He knows it’s hard indeed and thinks you all who do it at home are positively out of your minds, echoing my personal mantra that there are some things I’ll never bother making at home when I can buy better ones just as easily (when I have the means to.)
I’m getting off topic though. During the month of December, Bread & Salt falls in line with holidays and conjure up Italian Christmas specialities like struffoli (nuts and cracker-balls bound together with honey and sprinkles), bocconotto (buttery little tartlets filled with jam or chocolate, if you’re lucky), and susamielle, redolent of honey. I only tasted them for the first time last week. It is a surprise to bite into the hard S-shaped cookie and find that it does not crumble at all. Extremely pliant, rather than break, they fold—like taffy. I’m addicted to the texture. Bread & Salt has breathed new life into these cookies for me, and I think I’ve found a new tradition.
The Italian-American pastry case, a ranking
Cannoli
Pastaciotto
Cartoccio
Chiacchiere, but only if you can get it with a side of cannolli filling, which is what for some reason we were able to get from our local bakery. It was like chips and dip on sucrose steroids
Rainbow cookies
Baci di dama (mini hazelnut sandwich cookies)
Chocolate-dipped jam sandwich butter cookies
Biscotti and cantucci
Torta caprese
Brutti ma buoni (“ugly but good” nut meringue cookies)
Cassatina, this one varies by mood
Taralli
Reginelle
Amaretti
Pizzelle
Sfogliatelle, but if done right, this could be the third best
Butter cookie with cherry
Butter cookies filled with a mysterious non-jam substance
Cuccidati (fig-filled) or mostaccioli aren’t on here because I still haven’t had them.
Tell me your favorites.
Perhaps fittingly, I don’t know the name of my two favorites: lemon ricotta with rainbow nonpareils & marzipan rolled in toasted almonds. We get these from the local Italian bakery in Baltimore which sees no need to name them.
No maritozzi???