Canadians I Know Make Stuff

My pals Robert and Hamm of the Vancouver musical comedy duo Canned Hamm have just released Sincerely Christmas, their fourth long-playing record and their first holiday effort. Special guests include Neil Hamburger and Hamster Hamm and song titles include "Mistletoe Forever", "Sexy Elf" and "First I Make Love To You (Then I Make Love To Christmas)". What's not to like? I haven't heard the album in full (my copy is on its way), but I'm anticipating much holiday mirth from these festive songbirds.

Meanwhile, out in lovely Regina, Saskatchewan, Karim Hussien is shooting the new genre thriller WALLED IN, starring Mischa Barton and the excellent Deborah Kara Unger. Karim has been making low-budget indie movies on his own in his hometown of Montreal for a while , but for the higher-budgeted WALLED IN, he serves as the cinematographer for director Gilles Paquet-Brenner, making his English-language debut. Karim informs me that the shoot is going well and that this is the film that proves Ms. Mischa Barton as a quality actress, and I can tell you that Karim is no pushover, so I trust his word. Read an incredibly incise, thought-provoking interview (written by some two-bit hack) with Karim about WALLED IN at the Fangoria website here.

And last, but most certainly not least, is my dear friend the lovely Kier-La Janisse, who recently returned to her native Canada to work for the Winnipeg Cinematheque and also to hawk her book A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi, published Harvey Fenton's fantastic FAB Press. Kier-La was recently interviewed by What's On Winnipeg about her book release party, but the link to the story is gone already (apparently you need to subscribe to read it), so I won't be supplying any links. But I happen to own a copy of A Violent Professional and can tell you without hesitation that's it's an awesome book that's well worth buying several copies of for friends and family as holiday gifts.

Thank you and support the Canadian arts!