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 the way films depict movie-going vs TV-watching: https://vimeo.com/showcase/5148645/video/317138170

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.