Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

Interview: Sue Aikens of NGC’s Life Below Zero: The Thaw

November 3, 2014 Lori Acken

The next time you complain about the price of milk at your local market — or having to dash there to get it — consider what Life Below Zero star Sue Aikens endures to provide the grocery staple to the hunters, scientists and other outdoor enthusiasts she hosts at her “unique and twisted bed-and-breakfast,” Kavik River Camp, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. “As a business, I have to have everything for the people that stay there be store-bought, brought-in, authorized and cleared foods,” Aikens explains. “So I have to plan for maybe 50 people a day. How much […]

HBO’s The Comeback: Valerie Cherish returns — and this time, she WILL be heard

October 28, 2014 Lori Acken

Call it TV’s comeback of the decade — because 10 years is nearly how long HBO’s rule-breaking series The Comeback has taken to return to the network for its much-discussed second season. In the summer of 2005, former Friends star Lisa Kudrow, her producing partner Dan Bucatinsky and Sex and the City’s Michael Patrick King debuted the 13-episode, dual-camera series, which starred Kudrow as fading actress Valerie Cherish, who allows a reality TV crew to capture her humbling return to the small screen in a hormonal teen sitcom. Critical acclaim — and three Emmy nominations — followed. So did cancellation. […]

Olive Kitteridge: HBO and Frances McDormand bring Elizabeth Strout bestseller to poignant life

October 27, 2014 Lori Acken

Like many readers of Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge, Frances McDormand fell in love with the character-rich examination of small-town secrets and happily shared it with her friends. One longtime pal called her soon after, wondering if McDormand would find a way to play the plainspoken Olive onscreen. McDormand said no, unwilling to dilute the power of Strout’s words. “For me, acting has always been just a social extension of my private reading life,” says the lifelong book collector, “so I was never interested in reading books to consider them as material to develop into other projects.” […]

Fix My Choir: Michelle Williams and Deitrick Haddon prove the healing power of song

October 27, 2014 Lori Acken

Seated side by side on a sofa in a Beverly Hills hotel lounge, former Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams and Preachers of L.A. star Deitrick Haddon are radiating positive energy. The pair has just turned a room full of exhausted TV critics into a sea of smiling faces courtesy of a rousing performance with the Hermosa Beach Gospel Choir — just one example of their costars on Oxygen’s uplifting new series Fix My Choir. Over the course of eight episodes, Haddon and Williams crisscross California — and the country — to turn a variety of struggling vocal groups into united […]

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo cancelled by TLC

October 24, 2014 Lori Acken

It’s a honey boo-hoo day for Honey Boo Boo fans. TLC has cancelled the controversial reality series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo after four seasons amid allegations that Shannon-Thompson family matriarch — and mother of four daughters — June Shannon had resumed a relationship with a registered sex offender following her recent split with Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson. “TLC has cancelled the series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and ended all activities around the series, effective immediately,” TLC said in a statement to a number of media outlets. “Supporting the health and welfare of these remarkable children is our only […]

7 Questions with … Josh McDermitt of The Walking Dead

October 12, 2014 Lori Acken

As those of us who’ve earnestly studied The Walking Dead Season 5 trailer know well, so much depends on a mullet-sporting doctor. At least it sure seems that way. With most of the Grimes Gang — plus Dr. Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) and his faithful security detail Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos) and Sgt. Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) — trapped in a Terminus train car by the possibly people-eating Gareth (Andrew J. West) and his fellow Terminans, Porter’s insistence that a cure awaits in Washington, D.C. appears to be the group’s only salvation. That’s not lost on McDermitt, who along with […]

Richard Blais on Hungry Games: “I’m learning more as a chef!”

October 9, 2014 Lori Acken

It’s October — the burnished gold, bonfire-scented heart of autumn. So odds are pretty good you’re gobbling up anything you can get your hands on that’s all about the apples or labeled “Pumpkin Spice.” Even if, if you ask me, 90 percent of the latter tastes more like drugstore aftershave than anything related to actual pumpkin seasonings. So what is it about the mere mention of fall that makes us crave all things sweetly spicy. What is it that makes us crave anything at all? That’s the heart of the matter of Food Network’s fun and fascinating new series Hungry Games, hosted […]

7 Questions with Emily Kinney of The Walking Dead

October 7, 2014 Lori Acken

Emily Kinney, the 29-year-old songbird who plays Beth Greene on AMC’s The Walking Dead says that while she’s endlessly grateful Beth survived to Season 5, she’s especially happy that the youngest Greene has finally been able to stop minding the children and show the world what she’s made of. “You don’t see Beth a lot in those first couple seasons, so as an actor, I’m filling in those gaps, filling in things that aren’t written with my imagination,” Kinney says of the second half of Season 4 that saw her holding her own (and revealing her innermost thoughts) while on […]

National Geographic Channel reveals Killing Jesus cast

October 6, 2014 Lori Acken

Steven Moyer (True Blood), Kelsey Grammer (Cheers, Boss), Rufus Sewell (Hercules) and Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage) are among the cast of National Geographic Channel’s upcoming television event Killing Jesus, the network announced today. Slated to premiere in 2015, the film is based on the bestselling book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard and will recount the political, social and historical conflicts during the Roman Empire that led to the death of Jesus of Nazarene, whom O’Reilly calls “the most famous human being who ever lived.” Killing Jesus marks the third O’Reilly/Dugard adaptation. Killing Kennedy, a 2014 Best Television Movie Emmy nominee […]

Gypsy Sisters season finale: Will Kayla, er, segue back into married life? (exclusive clip)

October 2, 2014 Lori Acken

It’s been a festive and feisty — albeit short — Season 3 for TLC’s Gypsy Sisters. And on tonight’s season finale, the ladies are gearing up for Kayla to recommit to her’s and Richard’s marriage in a beachside ceremony in Ocean City, MD. • MORE: Channel Guide talks Gypsy Sisters Season 3 with Nettie Stanley and Kayla Williams! But first — in true Gypsy Sisters fashion — a few high jinks must ensue, this time beginning with the two (and in the case of the cautious bride-to-be, four) wheel variety. Predictably, Annie and Mellie take to their new rides like […]