The annual ritual of television networks announcing their prime-time line-ups reminds me of drafting my fantasy baseball team. There are many similarities: roundtable discussions, heated bidding wars, and most importantly, the smug grins everyone wears upon the completion of it all. Read more...

Shoveling horse manure in Los Feliz does not typically serve as a gateway into movie stardom, unless your name is Tab Hunter, the Warner Bros.’ strategically devised heartthrob of the 1950s. Read more...

During the opening credits of Ron Howard’s by-the-book adaptation of “The Da Vinci Code,” words appear on the screen in a very simple manner. Instead of materializing the cryptic subject matter of Dan Brown’s thriller into an opening sequence that has words and numbers flashing everywhere to eventually reveal their hidden meanings, Howard simply offers the necessary information and crisply moves on. Read more...

They’re back. They’re in black. But they’re not about to rock. In fact, the music the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will play this weekend is quite a bit more sophisticated than that of AC/DC. Read more...

“The show must go on” is a common motto underlying any kind of performance art, and that saying is especially true this year for the seventh annual Lotus Steps, a production by the UCLA Chinese Cultural Dance Club. Read more...

I try not to make predictions, as they’re inevitably wrong. The last three predictions I made were that “The Aviator” would beat “Million Dollar Baby” for Best Picture, that John Kerry would beat George W. Read more...

By the age of seven, Jennifer Middleton already had an agent. But with appearances on the television shows “Full House” and “NYPD Blue,” commercials for Mattel and Subway and dozens of stage plays under her belt before she entered high school, she decided to take a break from an early career in acting to pursue the life of a “normal” teenager instead. Read more...