Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

This week on TLC’s All About Sex: Color your Valentine’s Day Fifty Shades of Grey

February 13, 2015 Lori Acken

On this week’s All About Sex, TLC’s late night, love-centric talk show, the hosts — Margaret Cho, Heather McDonald, Marissa Jaret Winokur and Dr. Tiffanie Davis Henry — tell you how pull off some Fifty Shades of Grey-style excitement on a fifty-shades-of-broke budget. Just in time to spice up the waning hours of the most romantic day of the year — Valentine’s Day — the “Reinventing Romance” episode also features author Shannon Boodram discussing the 20-something perspective on sex and offering tips for taking the perfect sexting photo (kids, do not try this at home). Plus, the hosts tackle viewer questions about the more practical (and problematic) side of sex including the best […]

‘Kobe Bryant’s Muse’ — The NBA star gets personal in Showtime documentary

February 12, 2015 Lori Acken

Despite a recent pair of major injuries, 36-year-old NBA legend Kobe Bryant is still among the league’s top scorers this season — but he knows his storied time on the court is limited. And he knows he has plenty of people to thank for his good fortune. Brainstorming a new Nike ad campaign with his wife Vanessa during the 2013 NBA season, the pair happened upon the idea of muses — spotlighting the people and experiences that shaped and championed Bryant’s will to succeed, both on and off the court. Realizing that he had much to say on the topic […]

Dance Moms Season 5 Episode 6 recap: You’re Not Psycho Enough

February 10, 2015 Lori Acken

Or maybe I should’ve called this one “Carrie On.” Decisions, decisions. Anyway, welcome back, Dance Moms nation. Everyone got their Big Gulp and their Sour Patch Kids ready for another hour of nothing to do with dancing? Good. Because we start out a mere three days to the next competition and in search of our newest new home till the mythical ALDC LA comes to fruition. Which, today, would be 3rd Street Dance. Once again, Jojo’s in tow, even though she’s not supposed to be a part of the team. Jessalyn is Team Abby, so there’s that. Speaking of Abby, […]

Better Call Saul episode 2 recap: Crunch time!

February 9, 2015 Lori Acken

The first lesson of Better Call Saul! episode 2, “Mijo,” is that you do not call Tuco Salamanca’s grandma a “biznatch.” You do not. You can call the cops. You can demand dinero. But you do not. Call. Grandma. Biznatch. For Breaking Bad fans, this goes without saying. For those of you new to Tuco and his business methods, this episode is all about where it lands you. We backtrack a few moments from the conclusion of last night’s series premiere. With the twins towering behind her and everyone looking hard at Tuco, Abuelita whimpers with worry. Tuco sends her up to watch […]

Better Call Saul! premiere recap: Did you ground yourself?

February 8, 2015 Lori Acken

Turns out Breaking Bad’s fallen jurist Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) wasn’t just a’kiddin’ when he offered this assessment of his future before climbing into Ed the Extractor’s van in the series’ penultimate episode: “Best case scenario, I’m managing a Cinnabon in Omaha.” In the black-and-white opening moments of Better Call Saul!, Odenkirk’s new AMC series from Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, we discover that that is just exactly where Goodman ended up — massaging giant wads of dough into sticky, high-cal treats and looking entirely unconvinced that his wire rims, hefty mustache and expanding bald spot can mask his identity from whatever […]

The Walking Dead returns Sunday: Can the group regroup in the wake of new losses?

February 4, 2015 Lori Acken

Quick catch-up, Walking Dead fans. When Season 5 reached its wrenching midseason finale in November, we’d lost Bob and Beth, the safety of the church and all hope for a cure in Washington, D.C., to assorted bad decision-making — and discovered we hadn’t lost Morgan (Lennie James) after all. So what does that mean for the Grimes crew moving forward — especially poor Maggie (Lauren Cohan), who has watched every last member of her family die horribly? “We’re going to see Maggie in a way that we’ve never seen her and, I think, fighting a dark side that she’s always […]

‘The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst’ on HBO — The infamous eccentric breaks his silence in six-part docuseries

February 4, 2015 Lori Acken

As a son of prominent New York real estate mogul Seymour Durst, Robert Durst was born into a life of privilege and endless opportunity. But it didn’t shelter him from tragedy. When he was 7, Durst witnessed his mother’s death, leaving him permanently psychologically scarred — and eventually passed over when his father passed down the family business. In fact, for much of his life, Durst has been at the epicenter of a storm of bizarre events, including the still-unexplained disappearance of his wife Kathie in 1982, the killing of a close friend who believed Durst was responsible for Kathie’s […]

Dance Moms Season 5 episode 5 recap: Putting the “abby” in “crabby”

February 3, 2015 Lori Acken

Well, Dance Moms nation, after more than a year of yammering about it to varying degrees, we are finally in L.A. You know, where people go to become stars. After revisiting why Holly and Jill might be leery of making this move, we head for a strip mall containing a studio that, it turns out, is not Abby Lee’s. ALDC-LA is, it seems, still a work in progress. Turns out the rent-a-studio is also home to The Rage Dance Company, whose bubbly, bottle-blond coach, Tiffany, sounds a lot like Yvette “You gotta risk it for the biscuit!” Walts. Lots and […]

Fresh Off the Boat on ABC: Restaurateur writer Eddie Huang brings his preteen life to TV

January 29, 2015 Lori Acken

All Fresh Off the Boat’s sixth-grade hero Eddie Huang (Hudson Yang) wants is to be as smooth as the hip-hop artists and pro athletes he worships. Well, and also some Lunchables. And maybe a pair of Air Jordans. Such is the plight of an 11-year-old Taiwanese-Chinese-American whose family has moved from Washington, D.C.’s, Chinatown to the lily-white suburbs of Orlando so his immigrant dad, Louis (Randall Park, The Interview‘s own Kim Jong-un), can take a bite out of the all-American steakhouse business. With his little brothers acclimating effortlessly, and his equally flummoxed mother Jessica (Constance Wu) newly recruited as the token […]

Dance Moms recap Season 5 Episode 4: What’s My Age Again?

January 27, 2015 Lori Acken

Déjà vu all over again, Dance Moms faithful. Jojo’s back. Kalani’s back. I’m back. We’re going back to Woodbridge, VA. Anybody else besides me starting to tick off how fast the years are going by not by our own birthdays but by how quickly we return to Virginia? And New Jersey. And Ohio. Oh please let us return to Ohio. If I have to come back to this, so do you, Cathy Nesbitt-Stein. We start out with Abby sporting some serious Something About Mary bangs … …and then with some pretty tough news. Nia’s Grandpa Frazier is on borrowed time […]