Yesterday, the 65-year-old actor Stanley Kamel died in his Hollywood Hills home of a heart attack. In the hit TV show "Monk," there was an episode where Monk and another patient were competing to show who was the most insanely devoted (and stalkerish) patient to Dr. Charles Kroger played by Kamel. A partular running gag is how Monk is incapable of functioning without Kroger and unfortunately, he will have to do just that -- at......

OK so the Oscars are this weekend. Even though the writers' strike is over, the prediction is that this will be a ho-hum (excuse me?) Oscars. First of all, the majority of the films presented for consideration are real downers, secondly, because of the strike, many potential presenters thought that the awards ceremony would be canceled or drastically cut back so they made other plans and are now not available to present at the show.......

OK so the Oscars a week from Sunday are what we're building up to but as an enthusiastic follower of Dexter on Showtime, I'm intrigued to see how it will translate to its network debut on CBS at 10:00pm this Sunday. At first I was concerned that the end result would be a heavily edited, several minutes shorter, vapid and empty shell of its former glory. Not so according to my Showtime contact. Evidently when......

The Mars Volta, not that I'm some kind of outraged fan, had terrible terrible sound on Letterman last night. I've noticed this over the last few years, yeah I'm slow, that the sound production on the live band performances (not "the CBS Orchestra") is always sub par on Letterman. All the other late night shows have better live sound, Late Night needs to figure this out. In other newsies, I'm hoping that the Colbert vs.......

The Ceremony of Worshiping the Messenger Monk's Ship continues tonight at the Wat Mon Buddhist Temple in Panorama City. The Wat Mon Temple is unique from other Buddhist temples in LA County in that it prescribes Tipitaka (Pali canon) teachings. These scriptures are believed to be the oldest set of teachings of Buddha recorded. Tipitaka, or Pali Canon, is practiced mainly in Sri Lanka and Burma. Most people are familiar with the Wat Thai......