"No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan...

...has ever had the power that a filmmaker has, the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark. That is a tremendous power, and you have this power as filmmakers. You have the power to say anything you want, so why not say something positive?" - Frank Capra

I love going to see movies in the theater. I used to prefer watching them at home, but the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center changed my mind. There's nothing particularly wonderful about this theater. But after spending every other Saturday morning there for two semesters, I realized that even if I don't want it to be true, movies are meant to be seen in theaters.

Don't get me wrong. I still love watching movies at three in the morning in my pajamas, snuggled up on the squishy couch in my basement with a couple of blankets, or on my computer in bed at school. But, the experience isn't the same.

There's a completely different mindset that you assume when you watch a film in a theater. When you take a trip to the cinema, you drag yourself out of the house in respectable clothes to pay an absurd amount for a bit of shiny, non-recyclable paper, bad popcorn, and corn syrup and water. If you're at an old theater, odds are, the screen quality is lackluster at best and the seats are tight and uncomfortable.

But, when the lights go down and the obnoxious commercials give way to trailers for a bunch of movies you don't want to see, you're excited. You're there with a purpose--you must really, really want to see this movie, for all that you're enduring. You're ready and willing to be entertained, to fall under the spell of "movie magic." And amazingly enough, so are two hundred and fifty other people.

Your defenses are down when you see a movie in theaters. You're more susceptible to the tricks of the filmmaker--you're more likely to suspend disbelief. You let the movie get away with things that you might not dismiss if you were at home, and you let yourself get caught up in the moment--and you're okay with that. You're one of millions of people who walks into the dark and sits down, prepared to listen to what the filmmakers want to say.

Going to the movies is a community experience, and it's a much better one if you happen to be a member of a good audience. It's one of the reasons I enjoy midnight screenings on opening night: every single person in the audience is there because they want to be, because they're dedicated to seeing and enjoying this movie. There are no annoying people talking about something else in front of you. Everyone is ready to laugh, to cry, to gasp at all the right moments. They're ready to be whisked into another world for two hours.

And that's such a great feeling. It's the experience I want to have when I watch a movie. And when the audience is right, watching a film in a theater, I think, helps you have the best movie experience possible.

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Now playing: Nina Simone - In The Dark