4.

While in the USA recently I went to the cinema twice in New York, both times to AMC Loews, and on both occasions my experience was spoilt by people entering the screen 20 minutes from the end and chatting loudly amongst themselves – seemingly oblivious to the fact that some of us were trying to watch the film. In Paranormal Activity there were people regularly coming in to the screen for a few minutes before leaving again, which was distracting and ruined the tension in the film.

I can only assume that these were people who were waiting to see another film, or had just come out of seeing something else. I noticed that these cinemas only had an usher checking tickets just inside the entrance to the building – so once inside people can potentially stay in the cinema as long as they like. This makes no sense whatsoever, and inevitably leads to problems like those I encountered.

It never occured to me that the recession would affect my movie-going experience, but then again, when I saw Where The Wild Things Are there were about 6 members of staff standing with nothing to do at the refreshments kiosk, while the men's toilets were a scene of complete devastation having obviously not been cleaned since the start of the day. Surely when there is no screening about to start some of those staff could do other things, like clean, or check for valid tickets at the doors to the screens?

Where is the common sense at AMC Loews?