Ellen Burstyn in Law & Order: SVU
Cheers to Ellen Burstyn for her Emmy-worthy guest turn on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The Oscar-winner brought heart-wrenching life to the role of Bernadette Stabler, Eliot's bipolar mom. Her extended scene with her estranged son (the always-excellent Chris Meloni) was ...
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Ellen Burstyn by Rosemary Goldhar/WireImage.com
A possible side effect of Tim Robbins' new series? It's got Ellen Burstyn on its roster.According to Variety, the Oscar-winning actress has joined the upcoming Showtime drama, Possible Side Effects, that explores the inner workings of a family-owned pharmaceutical company.Burstyn will play the matriarch of the Hunt clan, which presumably includes already-announced stars Josh Lucas and Tim Blake Nelson.Robbins is writing, directing and executive producing the project, along with Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Daniel Thomas. Now how about we get Susan Sarandon on board too? — Joyce Eng
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Ellen Burstyn by George Pimentel/WireImage.com
Stabler's mom has got it going on. Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn has been cast as Detective Stabler's bipolar mother on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, TVGuide.com has exclusively learned. My SVU moles hint that Burstyn's visit to the series will be "explosive" (they actually used that word), and with this kind of acting firepower on board, I say bring on the conflagration. Burstyn will appear in only one episode.Playing complicated matriarchs is nothing new to Burstyn. She won a Best Actress Oscar for playing a young widow and mother in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and has been nominated five other times, including for playing Jared Leto's pill-popping Coney Island ma in Requiem for a Dream. More recently, the actress had a memorable turn on Big Love last season as Barb's loving, dignified, though ultimately disapproving parent. What do you think of this casting? Can't you just picture Burstyn making Chris Meloni take out the trash? "But, maaa…." — Mickey O'Connor...
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James Cromwell will play President George Herbert Walker Bush and Ellen Burstyn will play Barbara Bush in W Oliver Stones biopic about the current President Bushs formative years according to Variety Cromwell and Burstyn join Josh Brolin in the title role and Elizabeth Banks as First Lady Laura BushProducers hope to fast-track the film into theaters before the November presidential elections Mickey OConnor
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Michael Imperioli, For One More Day
Former TV gangster Michael Imperioli will find some redemption this Sunday, Dec. 9, at 9 pm/ET on ABC, in the Oprah-produced tear-jerker For One More Day.
Imperioli has played a hard-nosed detective (Law & Order), a pervy telephone caller (Girl 6), a gangster wannabe (Goodfellas) and, unforgettably, a mobster junkie (The Sopranos). So who would have guessed that one of his biggest acting challenges would come in an Oprah Winfrey-produced TV-movie that requires him to… throw a baseball?
"I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a good ballplayer, certainly not a natural one," says Imperioli, 41, a Mount Vernon, New York, native who grew up rooting for the Yankees. "I spent some time trying to pick the brain of [Yankees catcher] Jorge Posada and I worked with a trainer, but
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Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale in High School Musical 2 by Adam Larkey/Disney Channel
The ridiculous (in a good way) ratings for Disney Channel's multiple record-breaking weekend launch of High School Musical 2 was just the most spectacular reminder of what a great TV summer this has been — if you have cable.Not even a big hit like TNT's The Closer can match HSM2's numbers, and some of the best series, like AMC's mesmerizing Mad Men, are only doing so-so. But that's only to be expected given the glut of programming on many nights — including Thursdays, when Mad Men goes head-to-head with USA Network's latest clever breakout caper, Burn Notice. I thought my DVRs would get a break this summer. Didn't happen.Just look at the options we’ve had over the last few nights, including terrific new episodes of Burn Notice and Mad Men on Thursday. I’m really enjoying Burn now that ex-spy Michael Weston is getting closer to the truth about how he was set up to be fired. And what can I say about Mad Men besides the word I used to start my initial review of th...
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Michael Imperioli by Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com
Emmy winner Michael Imperioli is set to star alongside Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn in the ABC TV-movie Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day, about a despondent former baseball star who is magically granted a 24-hour reunion with his deceased ma.... A&E's Ridley and Tony Scott-produced four-hour adaptation of The Andromeda Strain now counts Ricky Schroder, Eric McCormack, Andre Braugher and Benjamin Bratt among its cast, says Variety.... Charles S. Dutton will direct and star with Elizabeth Peña in Racing for Time, a Lifetime pic inspired by the true story of Noel Chestnut, a prison guard who created a sports program for hard-core female juvies.
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A raft of rulebook tweaks aim to remedy a "problem" or two brought to light by last year's Primetime Emmy Awards. I'll boil it down best I can:The Write StuffProducers and performers may submit an essay (of 250 words or less) offering context for the episodes they submit in the best-series and lead-actor races. This is to help shows such as Lost, which is believed to have been hamstrung last year by bewildered voters who don't have the Fuselage bookmarked.Short Ain't SweetA so-called "Ellen Burstyn rule" calls for long-form supporting-actor nominees to have appeared in at least five percent of the program.Popularity ContestPerhaps the most controversial "fix" has the nominees in key acting and series categories being determined by a 50/50 mix of judging-panel ballots and the "popular vote" of Academy members. (Last year, the blue-ribbon panelists who actually screen submitted reels alone compiled the short list.) The intent, says an Academy rep, is to combine "the wisdom of the mass...
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Per the Hollywood Reporter, Lindsay Lohan is set to star in a big-screen adaptation of The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, Tennessee Williams' long-forgotten story of a disliked 1920s debutante (Lohan) with a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her. Chris Evans is Lo's love interest, David Strathairn her alcoholic pop, and Ellen Burstyn her mom.... Kim Basinger will star in While She Was Out, a real-time thriller about a housewife accosted by four hooligans while running a Christmas Eve errand. (And you thought those overzealous storefront bell ringers were a nuisance.)
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Question: Who cares about the Lost snub and Ellen Burstyn? The Emmys got a big one right this year: Leslie Jordan has made me howl in everything he's done, from Murphy Brown to Dharma & Greg. Kudos to the Academy for awarding him for his guest role on Will & Grace. To me, this makes up for nominating Kevin James.
Answer: To me, Kevin James' clowning falls under the same heading as Leslie Jordan's broad and often very funny shtick. Be that as it may, I have no gripe with Jordan winning the guest-performer Emmy. The only one of those guest-actor wins that made my jaw drop was Christian Clemenson (a fine actor in an over-the-top role) beating Michael J. Fox for Boston Legal ...
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