Not just the “movie palaces” of old — most of which, if they still stand, have been renovated into performance halls (like Salt Lake City’s Capitol Theatre) — but any place where movies are projected onto a screen for an audience to watch, laugh at, cry with and otherwise bond as a community.
People make memories in movie theaters and mark important milestones there. Some people get married in them. (My wife and I did, at the Tower Theatre, 20 years ago this month.)
We get protective of these spaces. They are a place to escape into someone else’s story for a couple of hours, to take refuge from the ills of the outside world.