BEST MOVIE THEATER

Being a cineaste in Miami means making your peace with malls. Over the past few years most choice indies and foreign flicks have landed at either the eighteen-screen South Beach Regal or one of the area's other multiplexes -- not our hit-and-miss art houses. So getting your celluloid fix has meant braving arena-size crowds and nightmarish parking. Fortunately the new Intracoastal Cinema has stepped into a comfortable middle ground, consistently earmarking several of its six screens for art fare. Even better, Mitchell and Nancy Dreier, the couple who own the Intracoastal (as well as five Broward theaters including the Gateway and the Sunrise), have moved past the usual Miramax suspects to spotlight such fare as the joyously whacked Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, Charlotte Rampling's haunting comeback Under the Sand, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's timely Kandahar. Plenty of free parking just steps from the front door, big screens, cushy seats, and (in stark contrast to most multiplexes) a relaxed air all combine to make moviegoing an experience instead of a trial.