Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

TCA: We talk with the cast of All About Sex on TLC!

January 9, 2015 Lori Acken

Remember when Dr. Ruth and Dr. Sue Johansen made talking about what happens in the bedroom (and sometimes other places … and the stuff we need to know to make it all go well) matter-of-fact, must-see TV? TLC is bringing sex-talk television back to TV with its new late-night talk show, All About Sex, airing Saturdays at 11pm ET/PT, beginning Jan. 10. Starring actresses Margaret Cho (Drop Dead Diva) and Marissa Jaret Winokur (Hairspray, Melissa & Joey), sex therapist Dr. Tiffanie Davis Henry and Chelsea Lately’s Heather McDonald, each half-hour episode features a loose format that will encompass everything from viewer call-ins to […]

“Some people have it all figured out. These are not those people.” HBO’s Togetherness

January 8, 2015 Lori Acken

Fans of Mark and Jay Duplass’ quirky indie favorites Cyrus, The Puffy Chair and Jeff, Who Lives at Home understand just how well the brothers know their way around a family-centric, struggling-suburbanite tale. So it’s no surprise that the trailer for the pair’s first ever TV series, Togetherness (premiering Sunday, Jan. 11, at 9:30pm ET/PT on HBO), features two simple lines of text: “Some people have it all figured out. These are not those people.” If your immediate reaction is “Amen, brother, er, brothers!” — and if it isn’t, who ARE you? — well, that’s the foundation on which this […]

Dance Moms Season 5 premiere recap: The (freak) show must go on …

January 7, 2015 Lori Acken

Yeeeeesssss, Dance Moms faithful, I’m back, lured by the prospect of Christi and Kelly’s revenge … and the fact that your new Dance Moms recap mommy Katy LaFond will take over next week. We begin Season 5 on a hyper perky note with the girls super squealy about returning to the ALDC and a super squealy Abby Lee. Who, it appears, is down a good 40 pounds. Maybe more. I’m bad at that sort of thing. How ever many pounds it is, Jill says it’s too many and we have to fatten our fearsome leader back up. Nobody likes a skinny Santa … er, […]

Dance Moms Season 5 preview: Check out these seek peek videos from Tuesday’s premiere!

January 5, 2015 Lori Acken

So many questions, Dance Moms nation, as Season 5 premieres tomorrow night at 9/8CT. Is Abby moving to L.A.? Is everyone moving to L.A.? Is the Select team still part of the picture in any incarnation? Are Chloe and Christi really gone from the ALDC this time? I mean really really? Contracts-be-damned really? And what is the current headcount on the folks who are suing Abby? You could wait for the premiere for answers — or you could check out these clips from Dance Moms Season 5 episode 1, “99 Problems But a Mom Ain’t One.” If you’re still wondering if Abby truly […]

Girlfriends Guide to Divorce recap: “Leave Childishness to the Children”

December 31, 2014 Lori Acken

In last night’s episode of Bravo’s Girlfriends Guide to Divorce — “Rule #21, Leave Childishness to the Children” — we learn that older isn’t always wiser, three can indeed be crowd and every mama keeps at least a couple secrets to herself. As she deals with belligerent teen daughter Lilly and a mouthy literary rival named Cleo, Abby (Lisa Edelstein) does manage to score one in the win column. While racing through her neighborhood mini mart for a tube of sunscreen, she runs into the studly roadblock that is Will (Warren Christie), her dance club manager hookup from episode 1. She once again rebuffs him, but he insists […]

Rob Lowe gets “Beautiful And Twisted” On Lifetime

December 30, 2014 Lori Acken

Full disclosure: I love me a juicy Lifetime original movie. If it’s based on the kind of salacious true-crime tale that launched several salacious true-crime TV networks, so much the better. If it features Rob Lowe behind the wheel of the Batmobile, and arguing with his onscreen wife while sporting only a pair of Batman briefs … color me sold with a capital S. “Here’s the thing — if you want me to say yes to a part, if I get to wear Batman underpants, it’s a safe assumption that I’m gonna say yes,” jokes the famously self-deprecating Lowe (see […]

Lifetime’s Whitney: Angela Bassett on telling Houston’s love story in her directorial debut

December 29, 2014 Lori Acken

Celebrated actress Angela Bassett was dining with her pal and Betty & Coretta producer Larry Sanitsky when the prolific filmmaker mentioned his struggle to find the right director for his newest project — a biographical film about the late pop superstar Whitney Houston. Bassett, who bonded with Houston when they filmed 1995’s Waiting to Exhale and hoped to spread her wings in the entertainment industry, wondered if fate had come calling. “To be at the helm of this, you go in knowing that she’s so beloved and she’s so magnificent that there are going to be some who are not going […]

Dance Moms Season 5 premieres with two-hour event

December 29, 2014 Lori Acken

Could it be the revenge of Kelly and Christi is finally upon us? In the preview clip for the Jan. 6 season 5 premiere of Lifetime’s once-mighty Dance Moms, just four of the series’ original dancers — Maddie and Mackenzie Ziegler, Nia Frazier and Kendall Vertes — appear in the studio, and Kendall’s mom Jill forewarns of former Dance Moms Christi Lukasiak and Kelly Hyland’s plan to “destroy the ALDC.” Even the splashy graphics announce that ABBY’S EMPIRE IS FALLING APART! But first, let’s have a little Girl Talk. Part Two. Before the Season 5 premiere episode — pointedly titled “99 Problems But A […]

ABC presents “Happy New Year, Charlie Brown” “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” Dec. 29

December 27, 2014 Lori Acken

To get you primed to ring in 2015, ABC will present two animated New Year’s favorites (and a bonus Charlie Brown special) back-to-back on Dec. 29. First in the lineup is the 1986 Peanuts special Happy New Year, Charlie Brown in which our intrepid, yellow-shirted hero wonders if he should forgo the gang’s New Year’s Eve festivities to finish Tolstoy’s War and Peace before school resumes. Toting the tome with him from Lucy’s pre-party dance class to Marcie’s and Peppermint Patty’s New Year’s Eve bash in hopes of combining business and pleasure, Charlie finds himself distracted by dreams of welcoming […]

Girlfriends Guide to Divorce Recap: “Rule 426: Fantasyland: A Great Place to Visit”

December 23, 2014 Lori Acken

Before I get started on this week’s Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce recap, I want to pose a few questions, based both on reactions to the show around the office and around the web. How many of you never-divorced folks are still tuning in? If not, why not? And how many of you (especially you ladies) who have been through the uncoupling ringer recognize every emotional gut-punch Marti Noxon puts in her scripts — regardless of these women’s income, lifestyle and social standing — and find the show refreshingly honest and cathartic for it? And, given that, how odd is it […]