Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles: Christina Ricci returns with a vengeance in campy new Lifetime series

March 21, 2015 Lori Acken

Lifetime’s new limited series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles premieres Sunday, April 5 at 10/9CT. In January 2014, Lifetime took a proverbial whack at bringing the sordid tale of Lizzie Borden to a new generation of horror fans with its original film Lizzie Borden Took an Ax. Starring Christina Ricci as the parent-dispatching Lizzie and Argo’s Clea DuVall as her obedient sister Emma, Lizzie was a bloody good time and a ratings killer, luring 4.4 million viewers on its way to becoming cable’s second-most-watched original film of the year. A few months later, the network approached Ricci with another idea — reuniting with […]

We talk Lifetime’s If There Be Thorns with Heather Graham!

March 19, 2015 Lori Acken

If you were among the nearly 10 million total viewers who tuned in last year for Lifetime’s film adaptations of the V.C. Andrews cult classic novels Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind, prepare yourself for an April shower of Dollanganger goodness. Or Dollanganger badness — which is really what makes the films such escapist fun. The network will debut the next two installments, If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday, on back-to-back Sundays this month. Heather Graham reprises her role as family matriarch Corrine Dollanganger Foxworth Winslow in Thorns; otherwise the films feature new casts fleshing out the […]

Big Time In Hollywood FL: Ben Stiller brings a bawdy buddy laugher To Comedy Central

March 19, 2015 Lori Acken

A few years back, Alex Anfanger and Dan Schimpf — NYU buddies with big filmmaking aspirations — wrote a TV pilot about a pair of hapless brothers with big filmmaking aspirations. Then they shelved it in favor of something more instantly doable — a web series called Next Time on Lonny, starring the doe-eyed Anfanger as an aspiring reality star with a knack for over-the-top trouble. It paid off. Ben Stiller discovered Lonny, then Anfanger and Schimpf. Lonny got a big-time backer in Stiller’s Red Hour Films — and those fictional filmmaking brothers, er, conceived in Anfanger’s parents’ basement got […]

Dance Moms Season 5 episode 11 recap: All For One and None For All!

March 17, 2015 Lori Acken

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Dance Moms nation. If you’re not out there getting your corned beef and cabbage on, grab a green beer and let’s talk about what happened tonight. We start in the Dancers’ Den where everyone is pretty cheery about beating the Candy Apples and what it might mean for pyramid. OK, almost everyone. Let’s get her mind off her troubles and ask Jo Jo what she thought of Cathy, which should be entertaining. Jo Jo was expecting a little crazy, but she got THIS crazy instead. Huh. It doesn’t appear to be the answer Melissa was expecting. Or maybe […]

The Our Little Family finale premieres tonight on TLC. Watch the adorable preview!

March 17, 2015 Lori Acken

On tonight’s Our Little Family finale (boo!), it’s Christmastime in Annapolis and the Hamill family decides to make it even more memorable with a holiday vacation to the Pocono Mountains. There, Jack discovers he’s a big fan of sledding, despite its inherent perils (“I’m so going to wipe out!”), and Cate and CeCe declare the snow just way too cold! • RELATED: Meet Dan and Michelle Hamill of TLC’s Our Little Family! Back home, Michelle decides to continue the festivities with a holiday party for the family’s friends — and the whole gang joins in on building a gingerbread house. Who else […]

Recap: Better Call Saul Episode 7 “Bingo”

March 16, 2015 Lori Acken

The further we get into Season 1 of AMC’s Better Call Saul!, the harder it’s becoming for me to accept the inevitable: That Jimmy McGill will become Saul Goodman, that everything won’t turn out just fine for our intrepid hero and his damaged brother, that Jimmy won’t get the girl and the corner office. He’ll get a visor, a name tag, a complex and a handful of dough in Nebraska. Jimmy is no Walter White in Matlock’s clothing, i.e., a good guy in a terrible spot driven to do awful things for a very good reason — who discovers that “bad” […]

The Dovekeepers — Cote De Pablo returns to TV in Roma Downey, Mark Burnett mini

March 15, 2015 Lori Acken

The Dovekeepers — the newest TV event from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett under their LightWorkers Media banner — is based on a bloody chapter of human history. But, says Downey, the tale’s true foundation is love and the resilience of the human spirit. “We’re most interested in telling stories that find light in the darkness,” she explained at a recent press event. “Dovekeepers is really a love story … a love story in the face of this incredible tragedy.” Inspired by Alice Hoffman’s heralded 2011 bestseller, The Dovekeepers tells the intertwined tales of mistreated beauty Yael (Rachel Brosnahan), mystical Shirah (Cote […]

ABC’s 20/20 to air Sound of Music special March 18

March 12, 2015 Lori Acken

Diane Sawyer and Julie Andrews travel to Salzburg to explore the family and the story behind the beloved, Oscar-winning musical The Sound of Music. ABC’s 20/20 will present a special hour celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music on Wednesday March 18, at 10pm ET/PT. Diane Sawyer travels to Austria with the film’s star Dame Julie Andrews to explore the real story behind the beloved, Oscar-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and retrace the steps of the real-life von Trapp family, including the house where Maria von Trapp lived and the train station where the family made its final escape from the Nazis. Mother Abbess […]

David Foster’s daughters are “Barely Famous” on VH1

March 12, 2015 Lori Acken

Erin and Sara Foster, stars of VH1’s new “docu-comedy” Barely Famous, might not be uber famous themselves, but as the daughters of Grammy-magnet music producer David Foster, they understand the drill. And while the pair resisted appearing with their dad, former stepmother Linda Thompson and step brothers Brody and Brandon Jenner on the ill-fated 2005 Fox reality series Princes of Malibu, they’ve found a creative — and self-effacing — way to take part in a television genre they admit they love. “We have pretty much taken a stance of not doing any reality TV and navigating around some of those shows and not putting ourselves on […]

Dance Moms Season 5 episode 10 recap: Upsettin’ the Apple cart and robbin’ the cradle

March 10, 2015 Lori Acken

First of all, Dance Moms nation, I’m sorry for botching the blog post six ways from Sunday last week. Bad case of the donna-mos, I guess. I’m back on track, I swear. We open with Gia at the front desk greeting dancers and mothers, including Ashlee and Brynn. Yay! Ashlee’s back! Ain’t that right, Jill? Right. Everyone’s in shades of green as we gather for pyramid and Abby’s bangs are in fine form…because I know you’d want to know. Bottom of the bottom is Nia, because her dance was dumb and Abby’s knows it and that wasn’t Nia’s fault. Then […]