Posts with tag richard belzer
Posted Feb 19th 2008 9:07AM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Law and Order, Celebrities, The Wire
So who saw this past Sunday's episode of The Wire? If you did, then you probably saw the quick little cameo by Richard Belzer as a bar patron near the end of the episode. After I watched it, one question came to mind: was he playing John Munch? According to this NPR article, he was. However, the basis for the logic was subtle and only a serious TV buff would have picked up on it. Not even I caught it and I'm a huge Wire and Homicide fan.
At one point during his conversation with the bartender (as Clark Johnson's character Gus Haynes walked by) Munch mentioned that he owned a bar once. Now if you recall, in the later seasons of Homicide, Munch did own a bar. Here's where it gets interesting though. Do you remember who he owned the bar with? Detective Meldrick Lewis... played by Clark Johnson. Crazy, huh?
Anyway, here's the real point of this post. With this appearance on The Wire, Belzer has now played Munch on eight different programs. That's insane! The only other characters to come close to that are Norm and Cliff (George Wendt and John Ratzenberger) from Cheers with seven distinct appearances each. Read on for more...
Continue reading John Munch strikes again!
Posted Jun 26th 2007 1:03PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Law and Order, Celebrities
Except for the occasional one-liner, Richard Belzer doesn't get a whole lot of face time on
Law & Order: SVU. That leaves him with some time to spend on other projects, like
these comedy videos and--now--he's
writing two books. Belzer, 62, has signed with Simon & Schuster to write two mysteries where he's the star. In the stories, he'll get "caught up in his own plot."
While the books are being billed as mysteries, you know they're going to be chock full of comedy because that's what Belzer really is: a comedian. In fact, he released a great statement about his new venture, "A potent mix of Dashiell Hammett, Oscar Wilde, Lenny Bruce and Robert Altman seasoned by the Belzerian vision of life, as the wry and raucous, raunchy worlds of make-believe and reality converge, this is the first 'reality novel' of the new millennium that explores a unique universe that poses the question, 'What is reality?'"
I'm sure we can expect many more long-winded sentences from Belzer when his first book, "I Am Not a Cop", comes out in fall 2008.
Posted May 23rd 2007 12:31PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: OpEd, Law and Order, Episode Reviews
(
S08E22) Was it me, or was there just too much happening in this episode? "Screwed" was a culmination of not just this entire season, but of the entire series. And we're left, once again, to wonder whether the SVU squad is going to be disseminated.
The episode starred Ludacris, reprising his role as Det. Tutuola's stepson, Darius, from a
March 2006 episode. But, despite the stellar acting job from Ludacris, it wasn't about him at all. In fact, his alleged crime wasn't even the center of the story (I stopped trying to remember the Ludacris episode when I realized that it didn't matter). Instead, Ludacris was the tool the writers used to pick apart all the mistakes the SVU detectives have made over the years and leave us hanging about their fate. The detectives were the ones on trial.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Screwed (season finale)
Posted May 16th 2007 11:37AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: OpEd, Law and Order, Episode Reviews
(
S08E21) I hate it when the promos ruin an episode. It's hard to tell whether this episode of
SVU was a good one because I knew from the promos that the girlfriend was a "black widow". It took a really, really long time for the story to unfold and I felt impatient because I wanted to see the evil side of this girl.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Pretend
Posted May 9th 2007 1:14PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: OpEd, Law and Order, Episode Reviews
(
S08E20) Usually I would say that if Elliot Stabler gets naked, it's gonna be a great episode. I wouldn't call it "great", but it was "good". It's surprising, really, because the topic was incredibly emotional. A man killed his wife and children because his lies were getting out of hand. It's a believable premise because we've seen it played out too many times in the news media (even though L&O didn't promote this one as "ripped from the headlines").
The episode was Elliot-centric, which usually means his family is somehow involved. It was. He saw a man who was bored with his life in Staten Island, so he started making up a new life for himself complete with a fiance who thought he was a CIA agent. Of course, it imploded and, as Dr. Wong said, family killers are so narcissistic that they can't live with the shame of being caught in their lies.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Annihilated
Posted May 2nd 2007 12:04PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Law and Order, Episode Reviews
(
S08E19) This was the best episode this season, hands down. Det. Olivia Benson's entire world came crashing down around her. Her entire motivation for being an SVU detective was brought into question. There was an awful lot revealed in this episode about Benson's past.
The writers and Mariska Hargitay did a spectacular job convincing me that she had completely lost her mind. Det. Benson appeared to be blindly helping her brother evade the law because she couldn't believe that he was a rapist, just like their father. After the last episode with Simon, I fully believed that he was guilty and I thought she did too.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Florida
Posted Apr 4th 2007 10:19AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Law and Order, Episode Reviews
(S08E18) Okay, I loved the dog owners in this episode. Their priorities were completely skewed. They found a dead teen-ager in their bed, but they were more disturbed by the fact that their dog hadn't been walked while they were on vacation.
This episode was about a subject they love over at
SVU: drunk, rich kids. This time, though, the kids aren't the worst of the worst. The real bad guy is a young mother who wants teen-age boys to think she's hot and for her daughter to be popular with her classmates. She buys the kids alcohol and medicates her daughter's problems with alcohol.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Responsible
Posted Mar 28th 2007 6:39PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, OpEd, Law and Order
(S08E17) The writers of this episode were out to stick it to the right-wing Evangelicals, weren't they? They wrote an emotional script about the subject that gets so many people riled up: homosexuality!
Tim Daly seemed a little detached from his central role in this episode, playing Jeb Curtis, a reverend at New Souls Church in Long Island. I think his character was based on real-life Evangelical minister Ted Haggard, who admitted to doing meth and having affairs with men. Of course, Haggard never killed anyone to cover up his sins (at least not that we know of).
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Sin
Posted Feb 28th 2007 7:28PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, OpEd, Law and Order
(S08E16) For the most part, I really enjoyed this episode. I liked how the two storylines intertwined- with Liv's search for her brother having an impact on her ability to do her job. What I didn't like was the third storyline of Olivia and Elliot being "too close" and the threat of splitting them up. That's a tired story. They already broke up last season when Mariska Hargitay's pregnancy became too obvious to hide, so Olivia ditched Elliot for after she realized they were too close.
I spent most of this episode being pissed off at Olivia for allowing Elliot to drag himself into her mess. She was way over the line in doing kinship DNA testing in the police database and in stalking her half-brother. Liv had to keep telling lies to cover for her screw ups and Elliot backed her up. Obviously they are "too close" because they're now supporting each other's extra curricular activities.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Philadelphia
Posted Feb 7th 2007 1:38PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, OpEd, Law and Order
(
S01E13) How about that opening sequence? Before the credits, the entire cast gets to take a shot at a
locomotive big guy on PCP. He throws Elliot through a window, knocks out a kid getting off the elevator and even takes a taser shot to the gut from Olivia before Fin takes him out with a chair to the back of the head. Anyway, the entire action sequence was a pretty elaborate way to write Christopher Meloni out of this week's script.
And, how unusual was this episode? The first 40 minutes had us thinking the detectives were investigating their usual child porn case, but then suddenly Olivia passes out?!? That's when the episode takes a turn from child porn to a much headier subject of chemical companies testing their products on humans. Wha? It took me a little while to catch up with the detectives as they spouted out their theories on why people in a low-income apartment building were being gassed. For a while there, I thought the theory was hair-brained and another of Det. Munch's theories. But it just kept going.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Loophole
Posted Jan 25th 2007 1:24PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, Law and Order, Pickups and Renewals
Lead actors Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have both agreed to stick around on
Law & Order: SVU for two more seasons. It seems that money did the talking.
Variety is reporting that both actors received about a $6.5 million raise for each
year season. The publication says Hargitay is going to receive approximately $300,000-$340,000 per episode, pushing her up among the highest-paid female actors on television. Looks like baby August gets to go to private school!
Both actors had a hell of a lot of bargaining power in their contract negotiations. That show delivers consistently strong ratings for NBC and it absolutely would not be the same without Dets. Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler (Think:
The X-Files without Mulder and Scully). Let's hope the network gives an incentive to keep Richard Belzer around, too.
SVU is currently in season 8, which means we're guaranteed seasons 9 and 10, which is exactly how long the sexual tension will last.
Posted Jan 23rd 2007 9:05AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, 24, House, Law and Order, Video, Celebrities
Richard Belzer doesn't seem to be getting much face time on
SVU lately, so he's apparently finding other things to do. And thank goodness! He has his own 'channel', called
Belzervizion, over at this new video website called
Super Deluxe (same place where the
Lost writers parody came from).
Belzervizion is quite funny-- for those of you who don't know, Richard Belzer is a comedian. He just happens to have played a cop on television for years. In the first episode, Belzer talks about how he helps co-star Ice-T with his rap music and Ice-T gives his own take on Belzer's musical skills (try
not looking at Ice-T's wife's gigantic knockers- it's impossible!). It also includes a spoof on
House, in which
SVU co-star Diane Neal plays a role. Episode #2 spoofs 24 and has cameos from Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni. Everything seems to be shot on the
SVU sets when they're not in use. Let's hope we can look forward to more Belzervizion!
Episode one of Belzervizion is after the jump (here's a
link to episode #2):
Continue reading Richard Belzer producing comedy shorts - VIDEO
Posted Jan 10th 2007 2:49PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, Law and Order
(
S08E11) Boy howdy, things sure are tense between Dets. Benson and Stabler. I thought their issues were in the past, but they never really can be, can they? Stabler immediately pushed Benson's buttons in this episode when he suggested that a man who is addicted to drugs and alcohol isn't technically abusive. Of course, Benson grew up with an alcoholic mother and she knows that abuse comes in many forms. Stabler knows that too, dammit, but he feels an obligation to side with the man in a nasty divorce case because his own divorce isn't going too well.
Now to the story: A woman, Valerie (Michael Michele), accuses her soon-to-be ex-husband of raping her. But it all seems fishy because she and her husband, Miles (Blair Underwood), are going through a nasty, nasty divorce. Their daughter, Tessa (Tiffany Evans), is in the middle of it.
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Burned
Posted Jan 3rd 2007 11:33AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, OpEd, Law and Order
(
S08E10) This episode was all about Elliot's concern about growing apart from his daughters. The beginning of the episode shows Elliot in church with his fractured family and his middle child hating him very much. He is tipped off to an investigation from his priest, who heard the confession of a man dying of lung cancer. He won't tell Elliot what the confession was, but he suggests Elliot visits the man, named Judson Tierney (played by Brian Dennehy).
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Scheherezade
Posted Nov 29th 2006 12:01PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, OpEd, Law and Order
(
S08E09) I can't decide what I liked better about this episode-- Bob Saget or the return of Mariska Hargitay. Det. Olivia Benson comfortably slipped back in to being Det. Elliot Stabler's partner without much fanfare. No fanfare, really. She barely got a "Welcome Back" from Elliot. Casey was cold toward her, even though Olivia came back in time to help her get a conviction on a rape case. I think Det. Munch gave her the warmest reception. All these police types: bottling up their emotions! Sheesh!
Continue reading Law & Order SVU: Choreographed
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