"Monk" regular Ted Levine says Tony Shalhoub and the show's producers have been very gracious about letting the show's supporting players do other gigs. "I've been able to get away and do a few things," says the actor, who plays Captain Stottlemeyer in the USA Network comedy returning for the last half of its fifth season Jan. 19.

He plays Sheriff James Timberlake, who tries to hunt down Jesse James, in Brad Pitt's forthcoming "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Ridley Scott directs, and "Sam Shepard plays Frank James, Mary Louise Parker plays Jesse's wife, and Sam Rockwell is in it," notes Ted. "It's based on the book of the same title, and Casey Affleck plays the coward who shot Jesse James."

We are sorry for the interruption, folks, but Meme has been carted off by those pesky men in white coats carrying butterfly nets. She was muttering incoherently..something about "The eyebrow"..and needing a raincoat and drool bucket. I'm sure that after we medicate her with every type of tranquilizer we can find, she'll return to normal. (Or are all of you afraid of that happening??)
Sunnyside Rest Home For The Constantly Salivating, Excited Easily, Palpitating, Exclaiming Levine Lovers

There are so many perfect things in this film, large and small: The train robbery at the beginning... the sight of Jesse James toying with serpents in his back yard... the glimpse of fish beneath the ice... Dick Liddell seducing his friend's stepmother... the horrific forced laughter after Jesse pretends he's going to slit Bob Ford's throat... the moment of Jesse's murder, which is just as much a suicide...

And everyone involved has done an astonishing job. No slack. Every actor (including Sam Shepherd as Frank James, Paul Schneider as Dick Liddell, Sam Rockwell as Charley Ford, and Ted Levine--Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, amusingly enough--as a lawman) has got it exactly. Even James Carville. Dominik must be a directing genius to have gotten performances this uniformly excellent out of his cast. And Roger Deakins' cinematography is otherworldly; I've never seen another movie that looked like this. And Warren Ellis and Nick Cave's score got into me like heroin.