In an editorial on moviefone.com Keanu Reeves goes into detail on what he loves about films.
Movies provide stimulus to sink our teeth into — we go through our tastes emotionally and intellectually. I first saw movies on television, which, I came to learn as a kid, isn’t the same thing as actually going to the movies, although now the experience is more similar as you can get a big tv and a 55 inch tv stand with mount to support it. I discovered you could actually “go to the movies” so, “do you want to go to a movie?” was a sentence and an endeavor I came to say and do more and more as I grew up. You got to travel and see another world.
I often watched movies/television alone, sometimes with family, sometimes with friends — but when you went to the movies, you were in a shared experience with other people. I liked that. Even now, when I go to a matinee by myself, everyone in the audience is sharing that story. Movies often “speak” to the human condition. They entertain and illuminate, which is fundamentally “why I love movies.””
I think this points to a lot of things that I have been feeling as well. While I have joined the masses in embracing streaming video via Netflix or Amazon I still go to the theater a lot. There is something about getting away from your house and the multitude of distractions present there and just enjoying a story with a few strangers. While watching a movie at home I will glance over and see my fellow viewers on their phone or see them otherwise distracted. In the theater though, barring the occasional rude patron, everyone is focused on the screen and the action on it.