Tower Theatre
The Tower is my favorite Sundance venue, bar none. The might be due to the amazing work of Rene Zepeda and his crew, but there is still much to love about the theatre itself.
Is the snack selection great? Nope! They do what they can out of the 5×5 space that serves as the snack bar, box office, video rental counter, and for all I know, place where the bodies are disposed of and tea cozy manufacturing plant.
I have never once gotten flack for bringing in outside food, though. Chow Truck parked there for the latter half of the week during this Sundance and I dragged many a package of root chips and other delicious food in with me. I got the sense that I probably could have taken in a full side of beef and nobody would have minded.
I love the amazing and eclectic films available for rent here. It’s hard to imagine that, given the existence of a quirky or obscure film, Tower doesn’t have a copy for you to borrow.
The seating is the key reason that I love the venue. It looks a little like my junior high school auditorium, but the seats, clearly created during a bygone era, were engineered so that actual human bodies can sit in them comfortably. That may sound like a backhanded compliment, but it’s really just meant to distinguish them from the seats at the Broadway. Maybe even more importantly than the seats themselves is the spacing between rows which is generous.
The slight rake of the auditorium combined with an elevated screen makes for a comfy viewing experience. Sure this place is tattered at the corners, but once the lights go down and the movie starts, do you really care that much about what the walls look like?
