Jeff Pfeiffer, Author at StayTuned Magazine

“LIVE! With Kelly” presents a “Home for the Holidays” special

December 14, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

The Dec. 20 episode of LIVE! With Kelly (syndicated, check local listings) will feature a festive holiday show hosted by Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos. The LIVE! set will be transformed into a colorful seasonal backdrop for an hour of musical performances and holiday cheer, with Scarlett Johansson leading the lineup of guests to talk about her new film, We Bought a Zoo. The special will also feature performances by the Radio City Rockettes, straight from their Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and the a cappella group Voca People will offer a unique take on the traditional holiday medley. […]

18th Annual SAG Award nominees (Television categories)

December 14, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Jeff Pfeiffer Nominees for the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards were announced this morning. The ceremony will be simulcast live on TNT and TBS Jan. 29 at 8pm ET (5pm PT). Here are the nominees in certain Television categories: OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION MOVIE OR MINISERIES LAURENCE FISHBURNE/Thurgood Marshall — Thurgood (HBO) PAUL GIAMATTI/Ben Bernanke — Too Big to Fail (HBO) GREG KINNEAR/Jack Kennedy — The Kennedys (ReelzChannel) GUY PEARCE/Monty Beragon — Mildred Pierce (HBO) JAMES WOODS/Richard Fuld — Too Big to Fail (HBO)

“Toddlers & Tiaras” returns with a Merry ‘Glitzmas’

December 6, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Beverly Foster Seinberg Let’s get one thing straight: Child beauty pageants, the stock-in-trade of TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, are not about dressing up little girls like miniature call girls. OK, there was that one 3-year-old last season who wore an outfit modeled on Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but most pageant outfits — including that one — are less revealing than what a little girl might wear for gymnastics or dance. That said, there is plenty in the kiddie “glitz” pageant culture to make you go, “Huh?” The fake teeth, hair, nails and tans. The expense. The omnipresent Pixy […]

“Pretty Little Liars” leads Twitter’s 2011 list of Hot Television Topics

December 6, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

As part of its Year in Review, Twitter has compiled a list of 2011’s hottest topics as determined by user mentions on the microblogging site over the past year, divided into various categories. In the television category, ABC Family’s hit series Pretty Little Liars was named the hottest topic on Twitter this year. This is probably no surprise, given how expertly the network and the show’s creative team have used Twitter as a marketing tool for the series. As an ABC Family release pointed out in relation to this news – “Twitter is a staple of the Pretty Little Liars […]

VOD Spotlight: Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain team to collect on “The Debt”

December 6, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

In the dramatic thriller The Debt, Oscar winner Helen Mirren plays Rachel Singer, a former Mossad agent who discovers that a notorious Nazi war criminal she had helped hunt down and kill 30 years earlier may still be alive. Needing to know the truth, she returns to Eastern Europe to relive her past. The film features flashbacks to the original 1966 mission, with costar Jessica Chastain (who’s had a breakout year in 2011, also starring in Coriolanus, The Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter) playing Rachel in these scenes. While the producers wanted to find the best actress […]

VOD Spotlight: Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in the genre-blending “Cowboys & Aliens”

December 6, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

Classic Westerns are filled with familiar situations and characters — ironhanded sheriffs and outlaws, and clannish townsfolk who fear the Indians and distrust outsiders. Cowboys & Aliens, based on a graphic novel series, has all of these, and more. As the title of the film suggests, the Southwest town of Absolution ain’t seen nothing yet! Producer Ron Howard was sold on making the film from the comic’s cover art, showing a cowboy on horseback fleeing from a spaceship hovering above him. “It was everything I hoped for: the coolest version of the West meeting some badass aliens,” Howard says of […]

VOD Spotlight: “The Hangover Part II” headliner Bradley Cooper is officially a box-office star

December 6, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA Bradley Cooper seems to have taken a page from the George Clooney playbook — cloak your matinee-idol looks in such an easygoing everyman charm that ladies will happily sit through man-centric films and their guys won’t question the reason they’re there. Still, it took 10 years and a pair of irresistibly goofball buddy films to make Bradley Cooper a Clooney-class star (and People‘s Sexiest Man Alive for 2011). Sure, plenty of folks loved him as Sydney Bristow’s sidekick Will Tippin on the ABC spy series Alias. And as egotistical Hearts ’n Scalpels doctor Aidan Stone […]

VOD Spotlight: “Answers to Nothing” gets simultaneous VOD and theatrical release

December 2, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

The indie film Answers to Nothing, directed by Matthew Leutwyler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Gillian Vigman, will be released in theaters nationwide Dec. 2, but will also be available on Video On Demand if it is not available theatrically in your area. The dramatic mystery film features a notable cast, including Dane Cook, Elizabeth Mitchell, Julie Benz, Zach Gilford and Barbara Hershey. The film screened this fall at the Woodstock Film Festival, and the Hollywood Film Festival. In the film, intertwining stories explore the bad in the best of us, and the good in the worst of us. Against […]

VOD Spotlight: Can Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake capture Hepburn and Tracy magic in “Friends With Benefits”?

December 2, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) certainly aren’t in a settling-down frame of mind. When New York-based executive recruiter Jamie trains her headhunting skills on luring hotshot LA-based art director Dylan to take a dream job in the Big Apple, they quickly realize what kindred spirits they are. They’ve each been through so many failed relationships that they’re both ready to give up on love and focus on having fun. So when Dylan relocates to New York and the pair start hanging out regularly, they share plenty of laughs over a twin belief that love is a myth propagated […]

TNT releases new extended “Dallas” trailer

December 1, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

TNT has released a new extended trailer for its updated Dallas series, which premieres next summer and continues the exploits of the Ewing family of Southfork, the oil dynasty first made famous in the classic primetime soap of the 1980s. In addition to scenes from the new series, the trailer includes some thoughts from cast members (including returning favorites like Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy). It’s also nice to see, at least for the purposes of the trailer, that some of the original series’ classic title theme music has been retained.