The Brattle Film Podcast

For our epic 50th episode Ian, Ivy, and Ned are joined by the Brattle's head manager Alex Kittle for a deep dive into movies celebrating their 25th, 50th, and 75th anniversaries. 

Ian, Ned, and Ivy are joined by writer/director Jane Schoenbrun to talk about their debut feature, inspirations, and early years falling in love with cinema at the Brattle.

We welcome writer and critic Scott Meslow for a rollicking conversation about one of the most love and most maligned film genres, and we discuss his new book "From Hollywood with Love: The Rise, and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy."

After lamenting the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences latest attempt at making the Oscars more appealing to people who hate the Oscars, we dive deep into many of the nominated movies.  

Ian, Ivy, Ned, and Alissa discuss the wide-ranging Best of 2021's lesser known titles. We touch on over 35 small (and not so small) releases from this strange year that gave us COVID variants, an intensifying "streaming vs theaters" debate, the mixed return of the blockbuster, the embrace of modern Black and White cinematography, and the vast number of terrific directorial debuts (from actors, a p...

We close out the year with a deep dive into the career of Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, and producer Wong Kar-wai. The early films of the arthouse fav are now available in new 4K restorations, which the Brattle is running between Christmas and New Years. We discuss the various waves of Wong's popularity, the Brattle's history of programing his work, and our takes on eight of his films.

On the occasion of the Brattle's 2021 Thanksgiving program of Film Noir and Noir-adjacent movies celebrating their 75th anniversary, we dive deep into the genre most closely associated with The Brattle. We explore the history of Film Noir, what we each think constitutes a true Noir picture, and why there is so much debate about this distinctive style of filmmaking through a number of movies releas...

We're joined by film writer, programmer, producer, founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and now documentarian Kier-La Janisse to talk about her new film  Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, as well as the Oct/Nov Brattle series inspired by it -  Folk Horror Beyond the Wicker Man.

Are silent movies homework? That's the question we wrestle with as we look forward to the first annual National Silent Movie Day on Sept. 29th. We explore our preconceptions about silent films, the barriers that prevent many audiences from embracing silent films, and some of our favorite silent films (as well as a few new discoveries). But first we spend the first 12 minutes looking ahead to this...

We spend the first 20 min of this month's show discussing the Scarlett Johansson vs. Disney lawsuit and its potential ramifications on film exhibition, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the future of movie stars playing fictional characters with pre-existing fanbases. Then we dive deep into a topic Ian, Ivy, Ned and Alissa all agree on—the love of Jim Henson and films he produced, directed, and c...

We kick off Season Three by revisiting the years 1946, 1971, and 1996 on the occasion of their 75th, 50th, and 25th anniversaries. Ian, Ivy, Ned, and Alissa choose one film from each year to discuss along with the three official "Reunion Week" films that were screened as part of the Brattle's first week back open to the public after the long COVID-19 shut down.

We dive deep into the commonalities, tropes, joys, and contrivances in iconic movies about summer jobs.

We announce our plan for reopening the cinema to the public after 14 months of darkness, and then we return to our 20th anniversary celebration by highlighting some of the 400 films the Brattle has premiered during the past 20 years. 

We're joined by Brian Tamm and Nancy Campbell of the IFFBoston to talk about this year's line-up, doing the festival virtually for the first time, and how excited we all are that cinemas are finally reopening.

After lamenting the loss of The ArcLight Cinema chain, Ned, Ivy, Alissa and Ian return to discussing the Oscars, the Brattle's Oscar Party, the nominated shorts of 2020, and the nominated the animation, documentary, and international features.

Ned, Ivy, Alissa, and Ian discuss their individual histories and feelings about the Academy Awards, and dive deep into this year's nominated films and performances. 

We take a look back on the 20 years of our theatre's history as a thriving non-profit institution. Looking at the highs and lows, the film's we premiered, and the decisions Ned and Ivy made when they took on running the Brattle. And we address a listener question about the "cinema as church" analogy we made during our Movies About Going to the Movies episode, and consider the difference between th...

We spend the first part of this week highlighting some titles currently playing or coming soon the the Brattlite, then Ned and Alissa interview DocYard curator Abby Sun about a new year-long virtual festival of 1990's Asian American Film and Video called My Sight is Lined with Visions.

Inspired by Paul Anton Smith's "Have You Seen My Movie," a streaming exclusive currently running in The Brattlite, we're joined by MIT professor Ezra Glenn to talk about our favorite movies about going to the movies and films that take place in cinemas.

In our epic year-end episode, Ian, Ivy, Ned, and Alissa attempt to name check every film we each loved (or at least thought was worth checking out) from a year that was actually a pretty good year for  movies. We hope listeners will not forget these titles, even if we all attempt to erase everything else about 2020.

We kick off Session 2 with special guest Russ Fischer of The Boxoffice Studios who joins to help us assess the state of the cinema industry at the beginning of 2021. And Ned and Ivy share exciting news about the state of our cinema, the Brattle Theatre.

We close out 2020 by casting a wide net for Holiday, Alt-Holiday, and Holiday Adjacent movies from a range of genres before moving on to favorite New Year's Eve pictures from years past.

Since we won't be able to do our annual holiday tradition of screening It's a Wonderful Life in December, we take a look at some terrific but lesser known holiday pictures. 

We spotlight several of the films playing in our virtual cinema at the end of December / Beginning of December. But first we talk Shark Movies after we get a detailed voicemail from a listener.

Part 2 of our discussion about memorable encounters with iconic horror films with a whole lot more stories sent in by our listeners, fellow film programers, writers, and podcasters.