What actually happens in my living room during a movie: my wife checks her phone, I check mine, the kid asks for snacks twice, someone pauses to argue about what the actor was in. At the theater, the phones stay away, because the social contract of the dark room still mostly holds. The film gets two unbroken hours of my attention, which is why theater movies hit harder and stay with me longer. People blame the movies for feeling disposable now, but the disposability is in the viewing conditions. Attention is the real premium format, and only the theater enforces it.
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