The Brattle Film Podcast

In this special episodes, Ned, Ivy, and Alissa bring up their report from the 2020 Virtual Toronto International Film Festival.

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.

We check in with six off 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.

This week we resume our discussion of movies that were "key" to forming our personally, 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?

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.

As an addendum to our Boston on Screen 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 programer of the Independent Film Festival of 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.

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.

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.

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.

We catch up with our longest running virtual series; movies for kids, about kids, for families, and about families.