Shire dines on Dim Sum

Bai Ling (The Crow) and Talia Shire (Rocky) have joined the cast of Anna Chi’s Dim Sum Funeral, a Canadian feature currently shooting here in Vancouver. The story concerns the lives of estranged adult siblings from a Chinese-American family who return home after the death of their mother. Ling plays a free-spirited lesbian, Shire a trusted family adviser.

Famous kidnapping MOW hits town: Director Paul A. Kaufman (7 Things To Do Before I’m 30) will helm Little Girl Lost: The Delimar Vera Story for Lifetime here in Vancouver beginning later this month. The telefilm is based upon the true-life story of Delimar Vera, a young infant, who, in 1997, was sleeping in her family’s two-story row house in north Philadelphia when a fire broke out. The mother thought her baby was incinerated in the fire, until six years later discovering that her daughter had actually been kidnapped, and that the fire had been an intentional ruse to abduct the young girl. Casting is TBA.

Penikett placed in the Dollhouse: Local actor Tahmoh Penikett — best known for his role as Lt. “Helo” Agathon on the Sci Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica — has been cast in Joss Whedon’s upcoming Fox series, Dollhouse. The series stars former Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Eliza Dushku as a woman named Echo, who is part of an elite group of people known as “dolls.” These dolls are humans who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, making them the perfect undercover operatives for dangerous assignments. Penikett’s character, Paul Smith, is described as an FBI agent who becomes obsessed with both the urban myth that is Dollhouse and its most recognizable inhabitant, Echo.