We go to the movies to celebrate and escape, to share our ineffable love for something with hundreds of strangers in close quarters. We feel safe there and exhilarated at the same time. James Holmes can’t take that away from us, and neither can crass reporters or opportunistic politicians. This is what we do. We buy our tickets months in advance and we stand in line for hours without growing tired or cranky because we’re propelled by the shared elation of everyone standing in line with us. We have our preferred seats and our favorite snacks and we make sure we go to the bathroom early so we don’t miss the trailers. We stay until the end of the credits and then we stand in the lobby for half an hour and talk about what we just saw with our friends. And then we get on Facebook and Twitter and blogs and share our impressions with the world. We save our ticket stubs and we remember for the rest of our lives the first time we saw our favorite movies on the big screen. This is what we do, and it means something to us. So we should keep doing it.