Rooney Mara Is Stunning As "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

At first glance, the street-wise, leather-jacketed computer-whiz 'Lisbeth Salander', played by Rooney Mara in director David Fincher's English-language adaptation of Swedish author Stieg Larsson's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", appears hostile and unapproachable.

She has a 'Gyro Gearloose' haircut, skanky complexion, goth-lined, chihuahua eyes, shaved eyebrows, facial piercings and an obviously anti-social demeanor.

But when Salander teams up with Daniel Craig's crusading dog-faced journalist 'Mikael Blomkvist' in the search for a missing girl from a prominent family, putting her survival, killer instincts on hold, her rough edges slowly soften into a sensuality as smooth and slick as Fincher's no-nonsense direction, with Rooney Mara's beauty, quite evident in some nicely shot love scenes, endearing the character with the audience.

It is this love that Salander develops for Blomkvist that makes the thriller, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" come alive, complimented by effective performances from Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard and Robin Wright.

"...'Harriet Vanger', a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle (Plummer) continues to seek the truth.

"He hires 'Mikael Blomkvist' (Craig), a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate.

"He is aided by the pierced and tattooed computer prodigy 'Lisbeth Salander' (Mara).

"Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption..."

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" opens in North America, December 21, 2011.

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"Cosmopolis": How Far Can He Go Before He Goes Too Far ?

Sneak Peek the new poster supporting the Toronto-lensed feature "Cosmopolis", directed by David Cronenberg, starring Samantha Morton, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Paul Giamatti and Mathieu Amalric , based on the novella "Cosmopolis" by author Don DeLillo.

The Canadian-France co-production is being produced by Paulo Branco through his Paris-based Alfama Films Production and Martin Katz of Toronto-based Prospero Pictures.

"...'Cosmopolis' is a contemporary thriller about a hedge fund trader who is stalked while his fortune evaporates under the weight of his cynical bets against the survival of the global economy..."

Grégoire Melin's Paris-based Kinology will handle International Sales, Entertainment One will handle distribution in Canada and RAI Cinema SpA will distribute in Italy.

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"Roman Polanski" @ TIFF Bell Lightbox- December 17-25, 2011

The TIFF Bell Lightbox run of director Roman Polanski's "Carnage", opens Friday December 30, 2011.

TIFF will also host a retrospective looking back at specific films during Polanski's career, tracing the recurring themes that have shaped his vision.

"ROMAN POLANSKI" runs December 17 - December 25, 2011, including special screenings of the features "Knife in the Water", "Cul-de-sac", "Chinatown", "Repulsion", "The Tenant", "Rosemary's Baby", and "The Ghost Writer" :

"...In a career spanning more than fifty years, Roman Polanski has firmly established himself as one of the contemporary masters of cinema with his nerve-wrackingly suspenseful and darkly comic portraits of cruelty, violence, claustrophobia and madness.

"Often confining his characters within suffocatingly cloistered locations—a sailboat on a lonely lake, a crumbling castle, an isolated beach house and a succession of ominous apartment houses—Polanski observes with cynical, diabolical glee as the thin pretenses of civilization are quickly stripped away in the face of human vanities, anxieties, pettiness and weakness..."

"Knife in the Water" was shot by Polanski in 1962 using only three performers, marking his debut as a feature-length director. Two of the actors, Jolanta Umecka and Zygmunt Malanowicz had virtually no previous professional acting experience. The film won the 'Golden Wolf' at the 1963 Bucharest Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1963 Academy Awards :

"...A journalist, his wife and a hitchhiker spend a day aboard a sailboat, with the underlying menace of sex and violence in a tense psychological drama..."

"Cul-de-Sac" was shot in 1965 on location on the island of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland, England @ Lindisfarne Castle. The feature was awarded the 1966 'Golden Bear' at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival :

"...gangster 'Dickie' pushes his broken-down car through rising seawater while his companion 'Albie' lies inside, bleeding from a gunshot wound after a bungled robbery. Cut off by the unexpected rising tide, they are on the only road to a bleak and remote tidal island where, in a dark castle on a hilltop, 'George' lives with his young wife 'Teresa'. Dickie then proceeds to hold the two hostage while awaiting rescue by his boss, the mysterious 'Katelbach', even throughout an unexpected visit from one of George's old work colleagues..."



"Chinatown" was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne. In 1991, Chinatown was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The story, set in Los Angeles in 1937, was inspired by the 'California Water Wars', the historical disputes over land and water rights that had raged in southern California during the 1910's and 1920's, in which William Mulholland acted on behalf of Los Angeles interests to secure water rights in the Owens Valley :

"...private detective 'Jake Gittes' finds himself overwhelmed in a scandalous case involving the rich and powerful of Los Angeles where everybody thinks they know what's going on, but really have no idea of what they are getting into..."

"Repulsion", Polanski's first film in English is the first of his "apartment trilogy" (the other two being "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) and "The Tenant" (1976). The film was shot in black and white, increasingly adopting the perspective of its protagonist. At the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965, "Repulsion" won both the 'FIPRESCI' Prize and the 'Silver Berlin Bear-Extraordinary Jury Prize :

"...a young French girl who is repulsed and attracted by sex, is left alone when her sister goes on vacation. Her facade of stability begins to crack, with violent and bizarre results..."



"The Tenant" (1976), is a psychological thriller, based on the 1964 novel "Le locataire chimérique" by author Roland Topor. Polanski received no acting credit, despite the fact he plays the lead character. While the main character is clearly paranoid to some extent, the film does not entirely reveal whether everything takes place in his head or if the strange events happening around him exist at least partially :

"...'Trelkovsky' (Polanski) rents an apartment in an old residential building, where his neighbors eye him with suspicious contempt. Upon discovering that the apartment's previous tenant, a beautiful young woman, jumped from the window in a suicide attempt, Trelkovsky begins obsessing over the dead woman. Growing increasingly paranoid, Trelkovsky convinces himself that his neighbors plan to kill him and 'Stella', a woman he has fallen in love with is in on the 'plot'..."

"Rosemary's Baby" (1968), written and directed by Polanski, produced by William Castle, based on the bestselling 1967 novel "Rosemary's Baby" by author Ira Levin, was a massive commercial success during its release, earning over $33 million in the US on a budget of $2.3 million. The film also earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Ruth Gordon, with Polanski nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay :

"...a young woman, innocent and religious, and her husband, ambitious and agnostic, move into a new apartment. Soon the woman is pregnant, but she begins to realize that she has fallen into a coven of 'witches' and 'warlocks' and that they claim the child as the 'antichrist'..."

"The Ghost Writer" (2010) is an adaptation of author Robert Harris' novel, "The Ghost", with the screenplay adapted by both Polanski and Harris. The film has won numerous European film awards including the 'Silver Bear' award for Best Director at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival :

"...a ghostwriter, hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister (Tony Blair) uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy..."



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"13": Spin. Aim. Survive. - December 13, 2011

Director Géla Babluani's gritty thriller "13" THIRTEEN, starring Jason Statham, Michael Shannon, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Alexander Skarsgård and Sam Riley, will be released by VVS Films, in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, Tuesday, December 13, 2011, in both English and French.

The film is a remake of Babluani's French-language 2005 directorial debut "13 Tzameti", winner of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Jury Prize :


"...'Vince' (Riley) has a sick father and the mounting medical bills may ruin his family. 'Jasper' (Statham) is a hard-as-nails gambler who will put anything on the line for the 'big win'. 'Jefferson' (Rourke) is a convicted felon who is trying to reclaim his freedom.

"These three men will collide in a violent underground world of power and greed, where the elite bet on the lives of the desperate, and the only way to win is to survive..."

Bonus features include interviews, behind-the-scenes clips and Featurette : the making of "13".

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"Resident Evil: Retribution" Shoots Up Downtown Toronto

Sneak Peek actress Milla Jovovich, dressed as the action character 'Alice', filming "Resident Evil: Retribution" @ the corner of King and Yonge Street, Sunday November 13, 2011.

The "Resident Evil" movie series is based on Capcom's survival horror video game series "Resident Evil".

The new film is written/directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who first came to the movie series as writer/director of "Resident Evil" (2002). He continued on as writer/producer for "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" (2004) and "Resident Evil: Extinction" (2007), returning as director for the fourth installment, "Resident Evil: Afterlife" (2010), released in 3D.

'The Umbrella Corporation' acts as the main antagonist in the series, a company responsible for a 'zombie apocalypse' as a result of the creation of the 'T-Virus'. 'Alice' (Jovovich), who was once a security operative working for Umbrella is granted super-human abilities after being tested on by Umbrella. Through her battle with the corporation, she eventually meets with the main antagonist, 'Chairman Albert Wesker' (Shawn Roberts).

A number of video game characters also make an appearance in the films, including 'Jill Valentine' (Sienna Guillory), 'Carlos Olivera' (Oded Fehr), 'Claire Redfield' (Ali Larter), 'Chris Redfield' (Wentworth Miller) and 'Leon S. Kennedy' (Johann Urb).

The entire franchise of movies have collectively earned $673 million worldwide on budgets totalling $183 million.

Sony will release the new film, Sept. 14, 2012.

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"TIFF Nexus": Locative Media Innovation Day

Sneak Peek attended the inaugural "TIFF Nexus" conference, Friday, October 28 @ TIFF Bell Lightbox, in Toronto.

The "Locative Media Innovation Day" explored emerging themes and practices in locative and mobile media as well as showcasing results of the 'TIFF Nexus Peripherals Initiative' creative jam.

Locative Media is an emerging field at the intersection of GPS/mapping, augmented reality, mobile devices and content.

As the world moves into a trackable, sensor-rich and location-aware reality – the TIFF Nexus Locative Media Innovation Day looks at what kinds of social practices, entrepreneurial opportunities and artistic endeavors can be unlocked.

Highlights of the conference included Keynote Speaker Bill Buxton, TIFF Nexus Hands-on Hour Presented by Autodesk, 'The Business of Locative Media with Michele Perras, the unveiling of the TIFF Nexus Peripherals Initiative, Spacing Toronto Presents Locative Services and Augmented Reality App Lightning Talks, Future Stories Presents a Hands-on Workshop with SnapDragonAR Augmented Reality Software and a Networking Reception and Technology Demo.

At the evening reception, attendees from the film, gaming and new media sectors had the opportunity to meet and greet on the top floors of the new TIFF Building, enjoying Stella Artois beer, Jackson-Triggs wines, cold sushi and hot hors d'oeuvres.

"...'TIFF Nexus' is a new ongoing initiative designed to equip a new generation of Ontario storytellers with the network, skills and partners that they need to succeed in a rapidly evolving and growing digital media landscape. The series supports Canada’s film, game, digital and new media communities as well as fosters integrations between academics, industry members and enthusiasts..."

Future TIFF Nexus conferences, open to the general public, can be found at tiff.net/nexus.

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