Commentary Archives - Page 3 of 6

Tonight on Lifetime, True Tori: The Reunion

June 3, 2014 Kellie Freeze

I thought that last week was the final episode of True Tori, but no, the universe curses me again!! Tonight, we get another chance for Tori to “find her voice” and tell us “her True sTori” on True Tori The Reunion: All Questions Answered. Bleech! Thankfully, the kids won’t be around to see Tori cry or yell at Dean, but I heartily doubt that many of my questions will be answered, namely, 1)does Dean still use the phrase “the cat’s ass,” 2) do Tori’s friends Jess, Andy and Mehran charge her by the hour for their advice? 3) is Dr. […]

Ballroom Blitz! Tonight on “Dancing With The Stars”: The Switch Up!

April 7, 2014 Kellie Freeze

This week’s episode of Dancing With the Stars promises to shake things up, because every celebrity has swapped professional partners! How will James Maslow dance without sexy siren Peta Murgatroyd? Will Meryl Davis create the same passion with a new partner? I chatted with Anna Trebunskaya, the fiery redhead who danced professionally on DWTS for 10 seasons, for her take on this year’s contestants. Anna had excellent insight into the competition and she also weighed in on who she thinks will win… Charlie White & Sharna and Meryl Davis & Maks are obvious choices to win, but Anna’s also impressed […]

Dance Moms recap Season 4 episode 12: Sisters are doing it for themselves

March 18, 2014 Lori Acken

We’re a dozen episodes into Season 4, Dance Moms nation, and a few themes seem to be emerging. The obvious biggie is that one not-so-fine day, Abby is going to assemble a new competition squad. Unless it’s simply a fresh way to instill terror into her current dancers, while parading a steady stream of other dancers in front of the cameras. Whether or not said new team will truly be assembled and what it might mean to the show and the existing team remains to be seen. But in the meantime, it’s as inescapable as a butt rash. And just […]

Dance Moms Season 4 episode 8 recap: Come On Over For Whine And Cheese

February 18, 2014 Lori Acken

The Face of the Abby Lee Dance Company has changed, Dance Moms nation. Kelly’s, Paige’s and Brooke’s are officially gone by virtue of an “official letter” from Abby’s new deer-in-the-headlights receptionist (well and also, you know, those pesky lawsuits). Kalani’s and Kira’s are here to stay, even though we’re not technically supposed to know that yet … even though Abby said it on The View a month ago. Life was so much easier when I was willful in my ignorance. Kalani is also the top of the pyramid, I’m guessing by virtue of being the only one whose last name […]

So, about those Dance Moms lawsuits …

February 18, 2014 Lori Acken

Yes, Dance Moms nation, now that we’ve all seen the Dance Moms “Battle in the Bronx” on last Tuesday’s episode, Kelly Hyland has done something official about it. In response to the lawsuit filed by Abby Lee Miller following the pair’s November bitey-slappy-hair-pully altercation in New York, Kelly spent Valentine’s Day filing her own $5 million complaint in L.A. Superior Court, alleging non-payment, unlawful working conditions for the children and a litany of other abuses. Both Abby Lee and the show’s parent company Collins Avenue Entertainment are named as respondents. As first reported by TMZ and subsequently fleshed out by […]

The Walking Dead recap Season 4 episode 10 ‘Inmates’: So good to see you again!

February 17, 2014 Lori Acken

After last week’s slow dance with Rick, Carl and Michonne, post prison collapse, the fates of the rest of The Walking Dead prison crew (plus one) were revealed on last night’s shock-and-awe episode, ‘Inmates’. And surprises came equally fast and furious. But I have to say this right out of the gate — in the case of some of the episode’s biggest reveals, a little more show and less tell, perhaps over the span of one additional expository episode, would have made for a much deeper emotional wallop, even if they will be fleshed out in future outings. Show me […]

Boardwalk Empire recap Season 4 Episode 9: ‘Marriage and Hunting’

November 4, 2013 Matthew Grimm

Van Alden (Michael Shannon) began Terence Winter’s epic HBO series Boardwalk Empire as the anti-anti-hero, a stoic, pure-of-heart crusader who didn’t even entertain sexual thoughts in context of his joyless marriage. He was the intrepid T-man out to bring down the illicit empire of Atlantic City kingpin Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), the lily-white cop archetype and then some, up to the point of the fire-eyed evangelical fury in which he strangled his unbeliever (Jewish) partner – and in Shannon’s deft hands he was a seriously scary heel. Credit Winter that he has taken his time to craft Van Alden’s arduous, […]

Boardwalk Empire Season 4 episode 7 recap: ‘William Wilson’

October 21, 2013 Matthew Grimm

Running underneath the surface of Terence Winter’s sprawling HBO series Boardwalk Empire for three and a half seasons has been a distinctly Marxian, heretical and all-too-true appraisal of 1920s America, boiling down to this: everything is a grift. It’s not just booze and its absurd illegality, nor the politics fueled by racketeers’ receipts, nor the graft that stretches all the way to the presidency – even the “proper” job Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) has found after bolting Atlantic City crime boss Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) conscripts her into chicanery. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this milieu yielded the 1929 Crash because […]

Seth MacFarlane + the Oscars might just work

October 1, 2012 StayTuned Staff

It’s probably safe to say that while we were all watching Seth MacFarlane cluelessly begin a speech at the Emmys last week nearly half the stage away from a working mic, not many of us said to ourselves, “Yeah, that guy’s going to be hosting the Oscars next year.” Yet that’s the plan, and the announcement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had to bring a big smile to the faces of James Franco and Anne Hathaway, whose ill-conceived hosting stint two years back immediately took its place among the ceremony’s most infamous misfires. It’s not that MacFarlane […]

“Treme” Season 3 preview

September 21, 2012 Matthew Grimm

Perhaps the most pointed scene in the final episode of Treme’s second season saw Young Turk Texas real estate developer Nelson Hidalgo (Jon Seda) stewing in a bar with his blue-collar cousin Arnie. Hidalgo came to New Orleans because, subscribing to a conspicuously American purview (disaster=opportunity), he sees gold in redevelopment of the Crescent City’s redlining properties and has greased certain cogs in the machine to mine it. But one of those cogs, a city councilman, has turned up under indictment, meaning all connected to him are abruptly out of favor, and all Nelson has done, he ruminates, may be […]