Everyone's so down on "the theater experience", and I guess I just have a different perspective. Sure, going to the cinema is not the same as watching a DVD in your hermetically-sealed entertainment bubble at home, but that's kind of the point. People are sometimes loud and noisy in the big world out there. I like this.

Seeing "Bowling for Columbine" wouldn't have been at all the same if I'd waited forever for it to come out on DVD and watched it while nestled at home. The audience at my showing was about as vocal as a southern Baptist church, with gasping and laughing and clapping galore. Different sections of the audience gasped and laughed and clapped at different moments, and I found that fascinating, too.

But lest you think I'm limiting this to art house movies, I just came back from the Friday matinee showing of the latest Harry Potter. And you know, there were a lot of kids there! And some of 'em were kinda noisy, and some of 'em spilled popcorn on the floor. But I liked hearing their excited whispers about Harry. "I hear, I hear J.K. Rowling already has the new book finished, only she can't release it yet, because they won't let her," said one boy 2 rows in front of me. He had an elaborate explanation of why they wouldn't let her release it which these margins are too small to contain, but at any rate, I thought it was worth the price of admission.

The advertising, of course, sucks. It saddens me that the practice of booing it is disappearing. But overall, I like the theatre experience. Everything else is just TV, and who needs more of that?