Instead, she and her husband took their two youngest boys and paid $6 each to watch five hours of inauguration coverage in a movie theater. Among more than 150 other spectators, they cheered, clapped, and sang the National Anthem as if they were at the ceremony in Washington, D.C., instead of the Majestic Theater in Waukesha.

The inauguration was "a public moment, not a private moment," says Foye, 47, a mother of three. "I wanted to share that historical event with other people."

Thousands of others watched the inauguration the same way Foye did. Thousands are regularly filling movie theaters to watch live simulcasts of New York's Metropolitan Opera. Saturday night, movie theaters will show live coverage of the NBA's All-Star festivities. On Feb. 22 come the Oscars.

The crowds going to these events show how movie theaters are returning to their roles as community centers by simulcasting a growing number of live events, even though the same events are often on everyone's home TV.

For theater owners and content distributors, it's a good way to fill seats at off-peak times. For ticket buyers, it's a step back toward a time when the local movie house was a center of the community, where everyone gathered for entertainment and to follow current events.

Movie theaters are perfectly positioned to be community centers, says Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "For most Americans, the closest thing they've got now to the public space or the public square is the shopping mall

NBA, Oscars on tap

On Saturday, 80 theaters around the nation will show the NBA's annual slam-dunk and three-point shot contests on the eve of basketball's All-Star Game. Like the BCS college football title game, which was simulcast in the same specially-equipped theaters last month, it will be shown in high-definition and 3-D.

So why would you pay $18 and up to buy a theater ticket to watch an event you can watch at home for free, on your big-screen TV, in your underwear, a short trip from your beer-stocked refrigerator?

• Because it's bigger, says Jeremy Devine, marketing vice president for Rave Motion Pictures, a Dallas-based theater chain that will show the All-Star festivities. "It's fun to go to a buddy's house, it's fun to be in your pajamas, and everybody wants to save money now." But, he says, "I don't care how good your buddy's system is, this is a 52-foot screen. And it's in 3-D."

• Because it's more like being there, says Ellen Flacker-Darer. On Feb. 22, she and her husband Jon will get dressed up and go to the Campus Theatre in Lewisburg, Pa., where they'll pay $125 to watch the Oscars — drinks, hors d'oeuvres and red carpet included. They did it last year, too, and loved it.

"We generally are passive viewers, and this is a more active way to be involved in something that's not (taking place) near us but is a lot of fun," says Flacker-Darer, 40, who works in fundraising for Bucknell University. The non-profit movie theater is showing the Oscars as a fundraiser, one of 52 similar fundraisers authorized by the Oscars parent organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The crowd of 250 or so who will watch at the theater is "more than just your friends, it's your community," Flacker-Darer says. "There aren't that many areas of public engagement anymore."

Red carpet treatment

Last year the Campus Theatre hired faux paparazzi to photograph arriving guests and a local theater troupe to play adoring fans lining up along the red carpet. "People are dressed to the nines, they come in, they get that star treatment," says Mary Bannon, the theater's executive director. "People want to be with other people — being able to comment on (the awards) and walk around. And people have a longing to be at the Oscars personally."

• Because viewers are breaking away from the box, says Ann Mack, a trend spotter for ad agency JWT. People now watch TV events on their iPods or iPhones or computer screens — so why not at a movie theater?

• Because you might be watching history — cultural, sports or otherwise. New York's Metropolitan Opera shows "Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD" performances in 500 theaters and draws crowds, even though the Met broadcasts on radio every weekend and shows several operas on PBS stations.

The drama of watching live performances, in which a singer may or may not make that high note, heightens the excitement, says Peter Gelb, the opera's general manager.

"It's more like a transmission of a Monday night football game," Gelb says. "It's the drama of not knowing. That's why opera lovers go back — not to see their favorite performers fail, but to see them triumph."