Virtual Program Highlights:
The Brattle Film Podcast
The official podcast of Boston’s unofficial film school: The Brattle Theatre. Since 1953 the Brattle has been a home for film lovers to gather and share great cinema; showing an eclectic mix of classic, cutting-edge, foreign, cult, and art-house movies on 35mm film, digital projection, and now virtually.
Contact us at [email protected]
1:16:44 • In this special episode, Ned, Ivy, and Alissa bring us their report from the 2020 Virtual Toronto International Film Festival.
1:30:00 • We look back on “the summer of no movies” by talking about all the classic films we finally got around to seeing since we haven’t had any theatrical releases to go to. With endless streaming options available, and our definition of what constitutes a “classic film” ranging from CITIZEN KANE to SPEED, we each screened some great and fun features.
1:26:14 • We check in with six of the films currently running in our virtual cinema, including 4 documentaries, a new arthouse flick from Belgium, and a restored Hungarian work of psychedelic animation.
Programs Discussed: DESERT ONE, GHOST TROPIC, REPRESENT, JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY, SON OF THE WHITE MARE, and MORONI FOR PRESIDENT
1:13:28 • This week we resume our discussion of movies that were “key” to forming our personality, our psychological outlook, our career trajectory, our approach to life, or our love of cinema. For us these films range from John Hughes’s Pretty In Pink to Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus. What films formed your foundation?
1:14:04 • This week we discuss the movies that, regardless of whether or not they are favorite films, were “key” to forming our personally, our psychological outlook, our career trajectory, our approach to life, or our love of cinema. And we encourage our listeners to share their “foundational films” with us.
1:28:31 • As an addendum to our Boston on Film series we’re joined by Adam Roffman for a look behind the scenes of many of the films featured in our three previous episodes. Adam, an on-set dresser, documentarian, and former programmer of Independent Film Festival Boston, shares his stories of working on The Town, Little Women, American Hustle, Patriots Day, The Heat, and countless other Boston productions, as well as what the future of production looks like during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Programs Discussed: Boston on Film
1:26:24 • For our third and final episode looking at the way Boston is depicted in movies we look at the wave of independent pictures that began shooting in the city during the 1990s as well as some of the more outlandish genre pictures that have used (or destroyed) the city.
Programs Discussed: Boston on Film, Part 3
1:31:00 • For this second part of our Boston on Film series, we go beyond the crime movie to focus on how the institutions of Boston – educational, social, scientific, medical, legal, and the press – are depicted on screen. Because the focus of these pictures is not on the underground criminal element, they are more likely to feel like time capsules, giving us a glimpse into a Greater Boston that many of us have never seen.
Programs Discussed: Boston on Film, Part 2
1:28:10 • Inspired by our partnering with the Massachusetts Historical Society for a program focusing on the dichotomy of Boston’s image in Hollywood films, we begin a three part series with a selection of pictures that could be called “The Boston Crime Wave,” or, as Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr calls this subgenera, “Boston Triple Decker Films,” or, as Boston crime novelist Chuck Hogan refers to them, “Boston No-R movies.” We explore what these films get right and what they get wrong in how they depict and use our fair city in geographical, character, and thematic terms.
Programs Discussed: Boston on Film Part 1
1:07:14 • We catch up with our longest running virtual series; movies for kids, about kids, for families, and about families.
Programs Discussed: Y’Know, for the Kids
1:16:02 • We’re joined by Shawn Cotter, director of Wicked Queer, The Boston LGBT Film Festival to talk movies to watch while closing Pride Month – including the three Pioneers of Queer Cinema re-released by Kino Lorber that are featured in the Brattle’s Virtual Cinema.
Programs Discussed: Wicked Queer, Pioneers of Queer Cinema
41:43 • In a special interview episode, we talk with Lisa Simmons of the Roxbury International Film Festival, which had to postpone its 21st season due to COVID-19.
53:46 • We discuss films from our ongoing series that attempt to trick your streaming platforms (and your minds) into helping you discover a more eclectic mix of movies.
Programs Discussed: #BreakYourAlgorithm
59:56 • We discuss five films playing in our virtual cinema: The Ghost of Peter Sellers, Lucky Grandma, Vitalina Varela, Fourteen, and Thousand Pieces of Gold. Plus, we get a surprise visit from the editor of one of those films for an unplanned Q&A.
Programs Discussed: The Ghost of Peter Sellers, Lucky Grandma, Vitalina Varela, Fourteen, and Thousand Pieces of Gold
Podcast – Episode 24: Quarantainment Faves and More
1:27:02 • This week we look at some recent films that take on enhanced significance when watched during a semi-quarantine. Also we explore just a few of the joys found in contemporary low-budget sci-fi pictures, and we discuss the issue of gatekeeping in genre movie production and reviewing.