Lori Acken, Author at StayTuned Magazine

TCA: critics indict mishandling of breaking news at ABC News panel

July 26, 2012 Lori Acken

While there were a few gracious questions for Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts regarding her health and who might fill in when she undergoes a bone marrow transplant for myelodysplastic syndrome (Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Kelly Ripa, and the cast of The View have all reportedly volunteered), Thursday morning’s ABC News panel was largely an indictment of how news outlets handle breaking news. At the forefront of the discussion — with ABC News President Ben Sherwood on hand in person and the GMA crew looking on via satellite — was correspondent Brian Ross’ confusing a Tea Party supporter named James Holmes with […]

“Dance Moms” recap: Jill Is Going To Cost Me A Lot Of Money In Therapy

July 24, 2012 Lori Acken

Boy howdy, do things get rolling quickly on this little crankfest! I haven’t even come close to maxing out my admiration for the drama mama’s fashion choices when the studio door opens and evil strolls in. I mean, Jill. Sporting Linda Evans’ Dallas hairdo. And another pon-shirt. And approximately half her body weight in eye makeup. The Ladies of the Loft are appalled! See? Appalled! Jill is undaunted. She wants back in at the ALDC and she doesn’t care what she has to do to get there. Including barging in on Pyramid time, causing the Abster to declare her officially […]

A Woman’s Place: Qatar, Brunei and Saudi Arabia send female athletes to the London games.

July 23, 2012 Lori Acken

It’s hard to imagine the Olympics without the ladies. In fact, for lots of us — especially us fellow females — our first, or best, Olympic memory is entirely girly. Nadia Comaneci. Mary Lou Retton. Dorothy Hamill. Kristi Yamaguchi. Flo-Jo. Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Bonnie Blair. Your favorite here. The fairer sex first found its way from the spectator seats into the competitive field at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, when women’s lawn tennis and golf got the official nod. Figure skating has been coed since it debuted in 1908; women’s gymnastics and track and field were added 20 years later. […]

Gary Cole is “An Officer and a Murderer” in Lifetime’s harrowing true-crime film

July 20, 2012 Lori Acken

I got my first — and terrifyingly memorable — look at Gary Cole in 1984, when I was a college girl living in a ramshackle house with a bunch of other college girls, and he starred in Fatal Vision, the chilling NBC miniseries about the case of Capt. Jeffrey MacDonald, a real-life doctor and Green Beret convicted of killing his family. The telefilm was a smash and Cole went on to have one of the most varied and prolific film and television careers in the business, including standout roles in The West Wing, Entourage, Talladega Nights … and, of course, […]

“Toddlers & Tiaras’” Honey Boo Boo Child Alana Thompson gets her own show!

July 20, 2012 Lori Acken

Say what you will about the kiddie pageant industry, TLC’s jaw-dropper reality hit Toddlers & Tiaras has still produced some of the most amusing tots on TV — few more so than 6-year-old rural Georgia resident Alana Thompson, a highly quotable, Kewpie-faced cutup who famously renamed herself Honey Boo Boo Child in one of the show’s most talked about episodes. Thompson’s antics — combined with the plain-spoken parenting style of her mother June Shannon — made her an overnight YouTube sensation. And now Honey Boo Boo’s coming back to TV in her own TLC docuseries, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. […]

“Dance Moms”: Here’s Brooke’s missing “Paint The Pictures” solo

July 19, 2012 Lori Acken

Dance Moms fans, by now you’ve heard the rumblings that the show’s producers took a few liberties with how the results of the teen solo division actually played out at Tuesday’s episode’s Starbound competition. Namely, that they kinda left out the fact that Brooke performed a solo at all, not to mention that it was she who won second place, while Payton actually came in 7th. Perhaps to assuage the testy masses, Lifetime posted this video of a truly breathtaking Brooke performing the “Paint The Pictures” solo that we should supposedly have seen first at Energy Dance in Chicago, had Kelly […]

Olympics: New IOC guidelines allow beach volleyball players to cover up

July 18, 2012 Lori Acken

Remember the ensuing hoopla when American soccer player Brandi Chastain whipped off her jersey to reveal a relatively modest black sports bra when her penalty-shootout kick bested China in the 1999 Women’s World Cup? Just in time for the 2012 London games, the International Olympic Committee and the International Volleyball Federation sparked a very different body-conscious conversation — this one a sort of “reverse-Chastain” — when they announced that female beach volleyball athletes could choose more modest alternatives to the customary bikini. The move is intended to court participation from nations whose cultural and religious beliefs prevent women from donning […]

“Dance Moms” recap: Drop Dead, Diva!

July 18, 2012 Lori Acken

So what’s the bets for tonight, Dance Moms Nation? Will Paige be at the bottom of the pyramid for performing her mother’s choreography over Abby Lee’s? Will Jill and Kendall reappear at ALDC? Perhaps with another piece of furniture for Abby’s lobby as an olive branch? Will Abby Lee be wearing a necklace with even more crap on it than last time? We should really find out. * UPDATE: Find out more about Abby Lee’s new series Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition and see a first pic from her Aug. 12 Drop Dead Diva appearance! Abby’s in awfully good spirits for pyramid time, […]

Lifetime announces new docu-series “Prom Queens”

July 12, 2012 Lori Acken

Girlie-reality lovers, what’s better than a Tuesday night with Lifetime’s Dance Moms? A Tuesday night with Lifetime’s Dance Moms and Prom Queens! The network is planning to follow its dance-and-drama docuseries smash with the brand-new true-life series about teen girls from eight American high schools vying to become the queen of their respective proms. The show will document the extreme lengths to which these ladies — and often their equally hell-bent mothers — will go to achieve the pinnacle of high-school social superstardom. Prom Queens is created by the folks who brought you The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Beverly […]

HBO examines the 2011 Japan earthquake and its aftermath in “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom”

July 12, 2012 Lori Acken

In the mid-afternoon of March 11, 2011, a small contingent stood on a Japanese hillside, watching in increasing despair as monstrous waves swept away every vestige of their city, turning everything before them into a brackish stew and washing away fellow residents before their eyes. The footage they shot makes up the chilling opening scenes of The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, the Oscar-nominated documentary from Lucy Walker that chronicles the Great East Japan Earthquake and makes its television debut Monday, July 16 on HBO. With a magnitude of 9.0 that triggered 133-foot waves, the quake was the most powerful ever […]