And that’s a good thing.
After a devastating pair of knee injuries crushed Smithtown West Class of 2013 graduate Calogero Carucci’s college football playing aspirations, bedridden he turned to the “rabbit hole of cinema.” Now, his dreams know no bounds.
The New York Italian-American grew up on the same steady diet all of us self-respecting Long Islanders did: The Godfather, GoodFellas and the whole family telling stories at the dinner table over macaroni and sauce. But Carucci had long-ignored a vast sea of untapped movie excellence until he, due to the curtails of his recovery from injury, had no choice but to play “investigative journalist.”
“I discovered there was more than what I was introduced to as a kid. I realized somebody must be making these movies; ‘Who did ‘GoodFellas?’ Scorsese.’ ‘Who was he inspired by? [John] Cassavetes.’ And then you watch all of their films, and their heroes’ films and so forth…” said Carucci.
The 26-year-old’s Brooklyn relocation and corporate day jobs – a Bloomberg tenure here, a Ramp run there – haven’t removed one iota of the reel Long Islander pouring out of him every time his work is compared to The Safdie Brothers’, or when he’s called the Paul Thomas Anderson (“PTA”) of the hyperlocal Sports Plus generation. Once an athlete, movies are now Carucci’s inherent vice.
“You’re trying to find a particular well of information and material until, eventually, you’re inspired to make your own,” he added. Carucci vowed to cut his love for storytelling with the capacity to turn grief deniers into trauma survivors, and thus far he’s done just that. After churning out the obligatory rounds of aesthetic-forming shorts, he is currently plugging the second of two feature-length outings on the festival circuit.
The thoroughly-scripted documentarian delight, Long Island Gus – described as a commentary on American healthcare doubling as a vessel for his real-life best friend to work up the courage to connect with the father he never knew – screened at the Sarasota Film Festival in April. There, Carucci successfully beach-side proposed to his long-term girlfriend-turned-fiancé, Savannah.
With Long Island Gus rendered a good luck charm upon arrival and in retrospect as a result, there’s no telling where Carucci’s career trajectory is headed; after all, he has no shortage of pitches for upcoming pictures while he further hones his stupendously polished already craft.
Meanwhile, for his pre-Covid efforts, Carucci completed what Chase, his non-actor brother by day, breakout leading man by the middle of a grueling film shoot-filled night, called his (Calogero’s) “baby.”
Moving in 2008 was released on Amazon Prime Video in 2021, is currently available to purchase on the platform for $2.99, and rentable for $1.99. So why haven’t you watched it yet?
Written in Baruch College dorm rooms between cramming for business finance finals, the film scores some good-old-fashioned Long Island languish with the same jazzy melancholy that made the class clown cry his heart out when Hey Arnold! hit a little too deep at the playdate. It’s also the type of autobiographically brave creative expedition an established name-brand doesn’t acquire the gall to set a course for until they’ve reached middle-aged studio malcontent.
But Carucci made his Roma, his Chef, his Steven Spielberg’s upcoming The Fabelmans, explicitly in the red and on it, out the bloody gate. First-generation artist he’d become, Carucci somehow knew to absorb his boyhood tribulations – relocating from home to home with his recession-ravaged family – to then repurpose later for cathartic reflection. What exists today, for the stick-to-itiveness embodied by the Caruccis and their LaManna screen counterparts, is the movie’s will and testament: reaching other families out there who can stand to be reminded of the courage it takes to turn poorly dealt hands into fuhgeddaboudit fists of glory.
“I truly am so proud of him. He’s the reason why I’m pursuing my own dreams because he’s shown me that it’s okay to pursue your dreams even if you fail,” said Chase, now 20, an aspiring sports journalist currently enrolled at Stony Brook University.
Naturalistic shot-caller Calogero is, tabbing his younger brother as the elder teenaged sibling diagnosed with stage four cancer in the movie was priority number-one on his list of agenda items. Despite having no prior acting training, empath audiences are drawn to the plight of Chase’s character, Michael, in the film. Chase assigns sole responsibility here to his own older brother Calogero’s direction; essentially, Calogero had to communicate to a non-actor how to play: himself, his own real-life older brother/the film’s director, and a terminally ill fictional character all in one fell swoop.
“He [Calogero] has no fear. He has always been such a determined person and such a hard worker. Filming this movie with my big brother will probably be one of the coolest experiences I will have throughout my whole life,” Chase revealed.
“Trying to encapsulate playing a child with cancer was daunting,” Chase added, “because my heart breaks for those kids. I just hope I played the role correctly in that aspect, and knowing that Calogero was happy with my performance truly means the world to me.”
Moving in 2008 blends Birdman juice with a “Manchester by the Sound,” rather than sea, confident sensibility about itself. These characters are unrelenting and passionate. They fight as much as they love, and all within a world that feels truly lived in because it is, having been largely filmed within the Carucci family’s own Smithtown residence. Even on the grandest of “for your consideration” dramatic undertakings, sometimes a Hollywood story can’t help but grow buried beneath the reality these broken faces belong to movie stars, and not your working-class neighbors who, rumor has it, let a bounced check find their way into the hands of their middle schooler’s teacher.
If all goes according to the master plan, hell, beyond even Calogero’s wildest film fantasies, Moving in 2008’s final crescendo will be discussed as an adjectivized staple of his oeuvre when “next gen” rising filmmakers play empirical filmography scavenger hunt with his body of work.
When boiling it down to just one, and there are many original “Caruccian” touches, it’s that the kid from High School West can stick a landing through lighting wizardry with the best of them. Although, unlike Scorsese’s notoriously eleventh hour-edited Taxi Driver shootout, the ex-Wildcat isn’t cutting with a loaded gun on the table; rather, two in-frame: (1) the antidote to all earthly violence (love), and (2) the foremost unbreakable virtue despite the inevitability of death’s door (family).
“I know he wants people to enjoy his stories for what they are independent of any outside inspiration and that’s why he’s going to make it, because he will tell stories people aren’t accustomed to in 2022. He’s so talented, he just needs the right pair of eyes to see his work,” Chase said.
That’s where you come in.
If you’ve experienced any degree of loss in your life, you won’t just enjoy this film; you will adore it. The son of a construction worker father and a hairdresser mother, Carucci wears his blue collar like a badge of honor. Apropos, considering how first-rung prestigious he will be considered by studiers of his heart-worn-on-the-sleeve catalogue years from now.
“If you want to make movies,” Carucci urged, “make them. If you wait, or you wait for other people to help you make the movies, it will never happen. If you wait for the lightning to strike or the right timing, there’s no such thing. You make the timing.”
“Stick to the things you know. Maybe you were never on another planet with aliens. But if you know people, and you know trauma, then you can make a movie today. Don’t be afraid to get emotional. Most people, I think, are very uptight and very afraid to show their emotions. I think if you could just let it out, it helps. Especially when making movies. Because every story is always about your life.”
Moving in 2008 is certainly about his. It may be an indie film, but so was Pulp Fiction. Now, I double-dare the “positive vibes only”-posting, sad movie-protesters of the free world to have an open mind before they shift into great vengeance and furious anger. Because, like Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye,” Calogero Carucci’s career kick-off is a song you can’t stop singing despite what its lyrics may entail.
See it to believe it. Then watch it again when you show your family. Nothing shatters miscommunication walls quite like watching a movie that can serve as a crucial starting point on the path to productive confrontation with the people you love and loathe most, in that order. Most days.
‘Moving in 2008’ played at many Oscar-qualifying film festivals in 2021, and won the Special Jury Prize at the deadCenter Film Festival. ‘Long Island Gus’ won the Independent Visions Jury prize at the Sarasota Film Festival premiere. ‘Moving in 2008’ is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video for $3.99 purchase, and $2.99 via rental.
