I went to the recent re-screenings of the Lord of the Rings movies -- and maybe 30 minutes into the first film, I realized I'd never actually seen it in a theater before. It was glorious.

There seems to be a lot of gloating in this thread from people who haven't been to a theater in many, many years -- lots of disgust at the idea of a movie ever being a communal, social experience. I get the annoyance of other moviegoers talking or otherwise disturbing the movie, but you have no idea what we're missing when big films don't have big individualized social moments to match.

We can't go two hours without picking up our phones. We don't deserve the great experiences movie theaters once gave us.