Slamdance Film Festival

True to its tagline, Slamdance is a film festival organized and managed exclusively by filmmakers, for filmmakers. In 1995, a group of independent artists established Slamdance in order to provide a venue for first-time writers and directors to showcase their creative works.

The festival has featured and helped more than 50 indie films find theatrical distribution, including “The King of Kong,” “Mad Hot Ballroom” and “End of the Century.” It has also served as a launchpad for cinematic luminaries such as Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan and Marc Forster.

Slamdance also supports new and emerging talent through its website, writing competitions for features, shorts, teleplays and horror scripts and short film competitions.

This year’s festival runs from January 15 – 23 in Park City, UT.

For more information, visit Slamdance’s website.

Foreign Films

Like many American independent films, there are countless foreign
films that deserve greater attention. Most of them do not follow the Hollywood method of casting beautiful people who have perfectly applied makeup in all scenes. Instead, the actors may look as real or flawed as the characters they play.

Some films tell extraordinary stories, such as “Pan’s Labyrinth” or “Volver” or are told in an exceptional
way, like “Run Lola Run” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” And many of the best films about the Holocaust like “Life is Beautiful,” “Downfall” and “Counterfeiters” are foreign films.

If you’re not excited about reading subtitles, there are also fantastic movies from the UK, Australia and other English speaking countries. “Trainspotting,” “Secrets and Lies,” “Muriel’s Wedding,” and “Lantana” use familiar language, but have distinctive tones and humor that highlight cultural differences.

Try mixing up your DVD queue with some foreign films. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

“La Fin,” “Das Ende,” “El Final,” “The End.”

Vegetarian Vampires

You don’t have to be a fan of vampires to enjoy Stephenie Meyer’s first novel “Twilight.” The story centers on a budding romance between two teenagers, Bella and Edward. Unlike typical storylines of this genre, the heroine Bella, is a clumsy human who doesn't make friends easily. Edward and his family are vampires who have chosen not to kill humans, but rather feed on wild animals. We won’t go into details, but Meyer does a fantastic job developing characters and adding unexpected twists.

The production stayed true to the NW setting by filming mostly in Oregon and Washington. There are also a couple of local actors, including Billy Burke, who plays Bella’s father and Cam Gigandet, who plays an evil vampire. We’re excited to see the movie and hopeful that it captures the essence of the book.

Movie Mojo

For those of you interested in the success of movies, check out Box Office Mojo. This website contains production budget totals, theater and DVD sales and release schedules. It breaks out domestic and international grosses. For example, the production budget for “Troy” was $175 million. It only grossed $133 million in the U.S., but made an additional $364 million worldwide.

It also has an “All Time Box Office” section that lists the top grossing movies, including a list adjusted for inflation. You may be surprised that the number one box office movie isn’t “Titanic” or “Dark Knight.” A hint: it’s a classic that was released in 1939.

The site is rich with film-related articles and trailers. It also has a game section where you can predict movie grosses for the week. When you sign up for a free membership, you can customize how you would like to view movie showtimes, create a favorite list of theaters, rate movies and subscribe to an email alert that gives an overview of the weekend’s movies. Box Office Mojo earns an IndieShares nod!

The Great Wall

Our recent trip to Beijing was nothing but spectacular. We hit all of the major attractions—Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. They were all worthwhile, but the one sight that exceeded expectations was the Great Wall.

We headed to Mutianyu—just 56 miles outside of Beijing—where we practically had the Wall to ourselves. Built mainly with granite, the Wall in this area is 23 – 26 feet high and the top is 13 – 16 feet wide. The mountains and forests make a perfect setting. Fortunately, there was a gondola to take us to the top of the mountain, so we could spend most of our energy on hiking on the Great Wall.

Other than a good pair of walking shoes, we brought a tour guide, camera, and our top negotiation skills. We learned about the history, took countless photos and bought beer from an outgoing vendor—who respected a good haggler. And the trek would not have been complete without our IndieShares t-shirts, which just so happened to be the best looking shirts around.

The Internet Movie Database

Have you ever forgotten a movie title? Or wanted to know what other movies an actor has been in? IMDb not only gives you a filmography for almost any actor, director or producer, but can also tell you fun factoids. Impress your friends with trivia like the fact that Diablo Cody (the director) used her hamburger phone in “Juno;” Matt Damon was Christopher Nolan’s first choice for Harvey Dent; and Ryan Gosling’s first break was the Mickey Mouse Club.

It also includes movies currently in production or ones that have just been announced: Amy Adams is currently on location for her role in “Night at the Museum 2;” “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is in post-production; and Johnny Depp is rumored to be in “Sin City 3”.

You can also watch trailers, view photos, and make your own movie lists. It’s so useful, we wouldn’t be surprised if “I’ll IMDb it” becomes a household phrase.

For the Love of Water

Did you know that the U.S. uses approximately 17,000,000 barrels of oil per year for bottling, transporting, disposing of, and recycling bottled water containers? That's enough oil to power more than one million U.S. cars and is responsible for more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere.

Did you know that nearly one quarter of the earth's citizens lack access to clean drinking water? Or that over 116,000 human-made chemicals are finding their way into public water supply systems worldwide? “FLOW: For Love of Water”, shown at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, is Irena Salina's award-winning documentary that brings awareness to these issues.

FLOW is an excellent film that will open your eyes to one of the greatest threats of our time–the global water crisis. Using brilliant detail and stunning photography, the film chronicles myriad problems with the world's water supply and appetite for water. Unlike many documentaries, it spends a fair amount of time discussing ways we can address this problem individually and on a larger scale.

FLOW hits theaters nationwide on Sept. 12. For more information visit www.flowthefilm.com.