Our Most Memorable 2024 Film Experiences 🎥
Fake filthy subtitles, communal groaning at TIFF ads, a life-changing beverage from the concession stand, and more—plus, our 2025 subscription launch!
In The Mood Magazine’s 2024 Wrap-Up
Our team and contributors share their stand-out film moments of the past year.
Gabrielle Marceau, editor-in-chief: “There was a heatwave and I was meeting my boyfriend at the Carlton to see Longlegs, but city-wide flooding that morning had delayed the streetcars. I ran into a friend at the Ossington stop and I called an Uber. Traffic slowed to a crawl as we passed the campus, there was black smoke billowing out of subway grates and manholes (a fire underground). We arrived to a call that screenings were sold out and we should walk to Varsity Cinema. But a few blocks up Yonge after running into another friend, we got a text that Varsity was sold out too, and we should head to Scotiabank. We walked down into the subway stop near the fires, emerged on Queen and made it in time to see a winter-set horror movie that none of us liked.”
Cason Sharpe, columnist: “My most memorable movie experiences this year were all about being part of an audience. I think about the squeals during the last twenty minutes of The Substance, the collective groan after the Rolex ad that plays during screenings at TIFF, or the twink behind me crying during the final number in Wicked. These are moments I remember more than any particular scene or breakout performance.”
Anders Gatten, contributor: “Over the summer I had the great pleasure of destroying my engine road-tripping from Toronto to Vancouver, stopping at as many iconic Canadian theatres as I could along the way. A particular standout was catching The Day of the Beast at the Dave Barber Cinematheque, giving me a taste of Winnipeg’s thriving scene of movie lovers. That said, the moment I’ll remember best came once I made it to Vancouver. Turns out there are few things better than watching Trap with an old friend you don’t see enough and a couple beers you snuck into the International Village Cineplex.”
Ryan Akler-Bishop, contributor: “I lied and told a friend that, when Gamal Abdel Nasser became President of Egypt in 1956, he implemented new censorship laws on the country's film industry; any on-screen erotic image (even a remote innuendo) became a criminal charge. However, this new law forgot to codify any stipulations about sexual dialogue. I told my friend that a wave of filmmakers rebelled against this censorship by making movies with no lurid images, but filled them line-by-line with filthy dialogue. After photoshopping some articles to corroborate my claim, I’ve been inviting him over for regular screenings of 1950s movies by Salah Abu Seif and Fatin Abdel Wahab and re-writing the subtitle files to make each film a non-stop avalanche of obscene exchanges.”
Adrian Murray, columnist: “Boiling my brain by watching, in a single sitting, Independence Day on tape, a stream of White House Down, and a pirated copy of Civil War.”
Sennah Yee, managing editor: “Watching my childhood VHS copy of My Neighbor Totoro brought back from my parents’ living room on my husband's childhood tube TV brought back from his parents’ attic. We threw it on at the end of the night as an unexpected double bill/palette cleanser following a first viewing of Hellraiser, not expecting to finish it, but ended up watching it the whole way through. That specific high-pitched frequency of the TV zapping on, the clack and whir of pushing in the VHS tape, and thinking about the bonds and burdens between family had me misty-eyed.”
Kathryn Margaret Rose, contributor: “I’m not proud of it, but the Cherry Coke at IFC Center in Greenwich Village singlehandedly reignited my love for soda after something like 15 years. My boyfriend works there and gave me and my friend tickets to see a special screening of the 2003 Gina Gershon vehicle Prey for Rock & Roll—plus free popcorn and soda. That movie is so good, and as a musician and former bar rat it really spoke to my soul. But the Cherry Coke? That was f*ckin’ life-changing. I’m sober now, so I let myself have this. It’s about as rock & roll as I get.”
Alexander Mooney, columnist: “This year I was lucky enough to introduce my boyfriend to some of my favourite movies, but the ones we discovered and discussed together (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Matt and Mara, The Flower of My Secret) made 2024 feel that much more romantic and exciting.”
Nirris Nagendrarajah, contributor: “The chiropractor, who’d read Ferrante but didn’t get the hype, asked me, as she felt around my skull, to name a great film I’d recently seen. I told her how, before a 4K restoration screening of Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, we were fighting, but that by the end of the film, when Pu Yi reaches behind his former throne and unearths the case inside of which the cricket that had been gifted to him back when he was a royal brat—unaware of how the times would so cruelly come to vanquish him—was revealed to still be alive, we turned to each other gobsmacked by its return: the enchantment produced by the film melted the layer of ice our egos had temporarily encased our hearts in, and we set aside our uncinematic resentments. At that point we’d seen hundreds of films together, but this was the first great one. “I should re-watch it one day to confirm if it really is a masterpiece,” I said to the chiropractor. “No,” she curtly replied, adjusting my neck with one swift twist that emitted a satisfying crack: “Don’t ruin the memory.””
Cynthia Cepeda, field placement student: “My dear friend, Esteban, hosts vampire-themed double features month-to-month, and I was able to attend one this past November. After arriving halfway through the third Twilight installment, I didn’t know that what came on next would affect me for what is probably the rest of my life (or at least the rest of my 20s). Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is absolutely the best film I have seen all year, and I’m not sure that any needle-drop in cinema will ever affect me the way this did upon a first watch.”
Kay Evans-Stocks, creative director: “Leave the World Behind started out extremely promising—despite watching it in the safety of afternoon daylight, it had some of the most eerie scenes I’ve seen. But the way it concluded has now left me so frustrated that I find myself tense and sighing aloud when passing it on Netflix.”
New year, new newsletter: 2025 subscription launch ✨
In the new year, our newsletter posts will be exclusive to paid subscribers—and we’re kicking off with a discount until end of January 💅
All paid subscriptions will go to contributor honorariums and operating costs for our magazine, which is all volunteer-run. You’ll get unfiltered reviews from our team, seasonal recs, and more goodies to your inbox, once a month:
And if you’re still feelin’ the holiday spirit, you can also gift your friend/family/lover/hater a subscription 😘
Oh, and we’ll still share our magazine launch/call for submissions announcements publicly! Which speaking of…
Submission deadline EXTENDED for Issue 12 🔮
We’ve extended the submission deadline for Issue 12: THE FUTURE until January 8th, 2025. Check out our submission guidelines here:
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