Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Emily Couch, and on this episode...

Is looking at you, kid?

Use the false loop.

Rosebud.

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

Yes, it's the Moth at the Movies.

The Oscars have got us thinking all about the magic of cinema, and we've got some stories on the power of film and the hold it has on people.

So whether your favorite movie of this year was I saw the TV Glow, Challenger's, or Substance,

my favorite movie of 2024, get your popcorn out and get ready to watch, well, listen to a story.

First, we have Frank Ortega, who told this at a New York City StorySlam

where the theme was, appropriately enough, movies.

Here's Frank, live at the Moth.

I love movies, and it's hard not to.

I mean, you'd have to say, like, I don't love dreaming. And I grew up watching them, and one of my memories, a few times I was alone with my mom. We had a time together was the Oscars when they went really late. Everyone else would go to bed, and she and I would sit up on the couch and watch it to the end and she would make these special

snacks that she never made at any other time.

And then I got a Super 8 camera and I video camera and I would do this stuff in high school and then

in college.

It was just so exciting.

And so I graduated and then I came to New York.

I was just like itching to make movies.

And it was like hitting a brick wall at 90 miles an hour because it's like it's you need to work, you need rent, you need to.

And so, and my mother, who had always been, both my parents were very sarcastic about that line of work, were, you know, they're like, my mom would

...