Best Movie Theater '98

Best Movie Theater

The Loft Cinema
3233 E. Speedway Blvd.

READERS' PICK: The Loft is as art-house as local cinema gets, and it's been a godsend for moviegoers who don't want to subject themselves to a single minute of Jean-Claude Van Damme-age. Not only does the Loft bring the best of the festival and independent film circuits to our fair burg, but it does so in a cavernous, wide-aisled movie palace that puts all those cookie-cutter multiplexes to shame. To hell with mind-numbing THX--the films at the Loft have the soothing feel of vintage vinyl; the kind you want to play again and again.

READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: ...Then there's Foothills Cinema, 7401 N. La Cholla Blvd. This is the place (an Odeon theater recently purchased by Ventana-Loews) where you'll want to catch the latest blockbuster. A little farther up the road--in the Foothills Mall, to be exact--it has a few things its fellow 'plexes don't: a cool, pomo architectural skin; a darkened, spacious entry that feels like the entrance to a funhouse; and an actual state-of-the-art video arcade right next door. After you watch all that on-screen violence and mayhem, you can be the hero of your own adventure there for only a few quarters.

HOT TIP: Where would we be without The Loft? Watching the usual Hollywood dreck at the multiplex, or maybe just staying home. The Loft offers the foreign and independent films you can't see anywhere else; the downstairs screen is among the biggest in town; and the theater is staffed by people who are very nice. Without the Loft, I might move. --Chris Dashiell

1997 Winner: The Loft Cinema
1996 Winner: The Loft Cinema
1995 Winner: The Loft Cinema