“Law & Order” overlord Dick Wolf  had better pay Richard Belzer overtime.

Belzer, who plays Detective John Munch on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” may have been doing some police work at lunch on Friday at Michael’s.

Belzer arrived to join friends including literary agent David Vigliano, mid-way through their neighboring diners’ meal. The occupant of the adjoining table: former New York governor, the quite disgraced Elliot Spitzer. Spitzer was lunching with noted flack Lisa Linden, who’s been seen in Michael’s previously dining with Spitzer’s beleaguered wife, Silda. Linden is bi-partisan, too: she donated $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani’s 2007 presidential bid. Go figure.

But I digress.

Belzer brought a date, his dog, a cute, sort of white poodlish mix named Bebe. The dog goes everywhere with Belzer. He carried it into the restaurant and placed it on a square white linen napkin that had been laid out on the carpet between his chair and Spitzer’s. Of course, Bebe knows that working for Dick Wolf is a full time job. The dog immediatetly started investigating Spitzer, sniffing his pants leg and circling his chair. This happened not once but several times, as Belzer would scoop up Bebe, then place him down again and the dog returned to Spitzer.

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It’s an amazing story with a happy ending: Martin Scorsese is on track to have his biggest hit ever with “Shutter Island.”

The Hitchockian like saga should finish this weekend with $106 million in domestic box office receipts. Scorsese’s Oscar winning “The Departed” made a total of $132 million in the US.  Right now, “Shutter Island” is Scorsese’s second biggest hit ever in his long and illustrious career.

Everyone scoffed when “Shutter Island” was held out by Paramount from its fall 2009 release. But now the decision seems very wise. Some of the reasoning for the wait was to give Leonardo DiCaprio a chance at a Best Actor nomination and win. For this past season, with Jeff Bridges in the lead and George Clooney very hot in “Up in the Air,” DiCaprio would have struggled. But now he’s got a clear path and an early start.

Ditto Scorsese and the movie. They will wind up in the Winner’s Circle next fall, most definitely.

And no, “Shutter Island” isn’t in 3D, and no one is blue. It’s just good old fashioned movie making, with strong characters, a good plot, and a twist that knocks the audience out.

Meanwhile, Tim Burton’s having his biggest hit in a long time. “Alice in Wonderland” is up to $165 million already, with no end in sight. Will it surpass Burton’s “Batman” from 1989, which finished its run at $251 million? We’ll see. I still think the best Tim Burton movies were the ones that made the least money: “Beetlejuice,” “Big Fish,” and “Edward Scissorhands.”

What better way to celebrate the first anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death than with an auction of his things!

And–even things he never saw or touched.

Julien’s Auctions of West Hollywood has just announced a three day auction beginning on June 25th in Las Vegas. Most of the items, they say, are furniture that was commissioned for the house when Jackson was supposed to live outside London while doing his “This Is It” shows at the O2 Arena.

However, Jackson didn’t live long enough to sit on the couches and chairs. So Julien’s will recreate, they say, what might have been. Julien says the furniture was never paid for. Jackson ordered it over the phone. The furniture designer didn’t want to pursue getting its money back from the estate.

There are also 200 other items including gloves, jackets, shoes, outfits, etc that are supposedly from Michael ’s estate. The jury’s still out on that one. Julien’s says two charities will get a percentage of the take. The objects come from friends like Corey Feldman who’ve decided to cash out of trinkets Jackson gave to them over the years.

Last year around this time, Jackson fought a Julien’s auction of his memorabilia and belongings that was set up his erstwhile manager, Tohme R. Tohme. That auction was aborted. Mr. Tohme has not been heard from since last summer, after Jackson died. But a warehouse of Jackson objects was supposedly returned to the Jackson estate by Tohme after his death.

“Everything we have comes from legit sources and has been verified,” says Darren Julien.

More Madonna: the popular entertainer appeared on Jerry Seinfeld’s “The Marriage Ref” last night, with Larry David and Ricky Gervais. The show was a classic, on the level, maybe, of David Susskind’s legendary Mother’s Day special a hundred years ago with Mel Brooks, George Segal and David Steinberg.

For whatever time is left for “The Marriage Ref,” this will be its classic episode.

Madonna revealed that she didn’t have a prenup with Guy Ritchie. That was enough payback for watching the entire episode. She brings it up at around 38 minutes in. And makes a face that gives away the whole story between her and Ritchie. If she’s acting, it’s the best job she’s ever done. But it seems too spontaneous.

What else? The Material Mom, now designing clothes with her teenage daughter, fiddled with her $26 red Kabbalah string. But she was also feisty, funny, and sarcastic. It was the most real she’s ever been on TV, and she was just herself. She hated Larry David and told him so. She indicated that she liked the idea of marriage. She doesn’t care for housepets but warned everyone not to be “Pet-Ist.” She conceded that when “you hook up with someone” you show your best side. The bad stuff comes later.

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Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity has a paper trail now that leads it right back to the Kabbalah Center cult in Los Angeles.

Kabbalah Centre is the “religion” that charges on its website $26 for a spiritual red string to be worn on the wrist, and $500 for a “special package” of materials to get started in the sect. Madonna actually wore the red string on Jerry Seinfeld’s “The Marriage Ref” last night. (More on that above.)

I’ve said since Raising Malawi first reared its ugly head that it was merely a front for Philip Berg’s Kabbalah Centre. Berg’s son Michael started it, drafted in Madonna, who then went to Malawi and adopted, with much controversy, two children. Malawi does seem like an odd place to bring Kabbalah since the country is very poor. But it’s also a great way to train thousands of new disciples who can go out in the world and sell more red strings.

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Pink Floyd has won what could be a landmark case today in the British courts. EMI can no longer sell its individual tracks piecemeal to iTunes and other downloading services. Floyd’s lawyers argued that the group’s contracts with EMI meant that albums like “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” were meant to be listened to and sold in their entirety.

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Conan O’Brien’s live tour has been announced officially. I told you about it on March 5.

The tour starts on April 12 — I was asked to say “mid-April” because the dates weren’t all booked — and in Eugene, Ore., of all places. (This column said it would be in Seattle or San Diego. At least we were on the right coast!)

Conan’s tour will be a hot, hot ticket. And the funniest thing about it will be charting the travel arrangements of all the guests who come and go. Some cities, like Eugene, are going to be quite busy rolling out the red carpets. That could be the most hilarious part of the tour!

This is a pretty good week for Sir Elton John.

On Monday night, former “American Idol” producer Nigel Lythgoe told me — when I ran into him at the new Beverly Hills Soho House — that he still thinks Sir Elton is the best choice to replace Simon Cowell. “He’s absolutely it,” said Lythgoe, who also said he thinks Ellen DeGeneres is still warming up and has yet to show her full potential. And he misses Paula Abdul. “She was the glue that held it together, wasn’t she?” he said wistfully.

On Sunday night Sir Elton hosted his annual Oscar dinner and party at the Pacific Design Center. Tons of A listers filled up the tents to hear Grace Jones and rub elbows with stars like Betty White, Jamie Foxx, Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Hudson, Salma Hayek, Will.i.am, Josh Groban, Malin Akerman, Slash, John Waters, the Osbournes, Hayden Panettiere, Victoria Beckham, Heidi Klum, Alan Cumming, Serena Williams, Nick Jonas, Kara DioGuardi, Simon Cowell — who was driven around in a $540,000 Rolls Royce Phantom — Miley Cyrus, and even, as an oddity, Perez Hilton! Grace Jones was wild, outrageous, as good as ever. The party planners created an all red nightclub for her within Elton’s tents. It was quite a treat.

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20th Century Fox has suddenly sent Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” to a Sept. 24 opening instead of its planned April 23th release.

There are two reasons for this: one is that they’ve submitted the film to the Cannes Film Festival and are awaiting word. It’s more than likely that Cannes will take it, especially with Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Josh Brolin, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, and Charlie Sheen in the Oliver Stone cast. What a group for the red carpet !

Second, Fox feels that Sept. 24th is a better bet for Oscar nominations. This may be true, but as long as I’ve been writing about Hollywood, September has been a toss off month. Last year these were the movies released during that week: “Capitalism A Love Story,” “Rage,” “Fame 2009,” “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” “The Boys Are Back,” “Coco Before Chanel,” and “Paranormal Activity.” Only the latter had a pulse, but it was a genre film. No Oscar touted film is released in September. Period.

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All the awards and nominations bestowed on Lee Daniels‘ movie, “Precious,” should shame the already shameful National Board of Review.

The NBR, a fan-based, fee-paying group, snubbed “Precious” this year. It was not named as the one of the group’s Best Films of the year. The only citation it received was a throwaway nod to Gabby Sidibe as Breakthrough Performer. The NBR was pretty much the only group in the world that didn’t give its Best Supporting Actress award to Mo’Nique.

The real and utter embarrassment for the NBR though comes with the Oscar awarded to Geoffrey Fletcher, who adapted Sapphire’s novel “Push.” Fletcher won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was ignored by the NBR after resigning from the group last year. His reasoning? He thought it would be a conflict of interest if he stayed. Of course, Fletcher was a fee paying member. Maybe the NBR didn’t like losing his $600 a year.

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