Lifetime Archives - Page 27 of 49

Dance Moms cancer special recap: Dance Moms Cares

January 14, 2014 Lori Acken

Yes, I know. I told you I’d be skipping school this week, but it’s the Dance Moms cancer special and I’m a breast cancer survivor, myself, so I can hardly bail out on this one, now can I? Plus, it was actually a feel-good episode, despite its serious subject matter, so let’s celebrate that, too. We start out at Abby’s house, where she is having a chat with her 86-year-old mom Maryen Lorrain Miller, who looks lovely given her serious health issues. Abby tells her that the girls are off to Starbound in Atlantic City because it’s a benefit for […]

Christina Ricci talks Lifetime’s ‘Lizzie Borden Took an Ax’

January 9, 2014 Lori Acken

It’s the grisliest of children’s jump-rope rhymes: “Lizzie Borden took an ax/And gave her mother 40 whacks/When she saw what she had done/She gave her father 41.” In reality, 32-year-old Lizzie Andrew Borden likely wielded a hatchet to deliver 18 deadly whacks to her hated stepmother Abby; her father Andrew took 11 blows a few hours later. And a jury — unable to believe a woman could commit such savagery — quickly acquitted Borden of all charges, rendering the truth of her innocence a matter of public fascination even 121 years later. Now Lifetime takes its own whack at Borden’s […]

Heather Graham plays murderous mom in Lifetime’s “Flowers in the Attic” revamp

January 9, 2014 Lori Acken

Since it first hit bookstores in 1979, V.C. Andrews’ scandalous page-turner Flowers in the Attic has been tucked under the pillows of millions of teenage girls. Except Heather Graham’s. “I never read the book — my hidden book was Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret!!” laughs the Boogie Nights actress, who stars in Lifetime’s film adaptation of the tale of Corrine Dollanganger, a beautiful mother of four who returns to her own troubled childhood home after she’s widowed, unleashing a torrent of family secrets that leave her children imprisoned in their cruel grandmother Olivia’s (Ellen Burstyn) attic. Eschewing a […]

Dance Moms recap Season 4 episode 2: No, YOU shut up!

January 7, 2014 Lori Acken

Welcome back, Dance Moms nation. You all sure had a lot to say about the crab-assery that was the Season 4 premiere! Speaking of which, a very bouffant-y Abby wastes no time in reminding the assembled Pitt Crew that one day they were national champions, the next, third-place nothings. Makes her want to replace the whole team. This week, it will be first place or else. Especially since we’re heading off to the land of the Apples — Columbus, Ohio — to the Believe Talent competition. And she’s sure that Cathy’s been working for weeks on a winning routine. Let’s […]

Dance Moms Season 4 premiere recap: Same old song and dance

January 1, 2014 Lori Acken

Has everyone refreshed their beverages and their munchies and their Advil and their special crying pillowcases and whatever else we might need to get through the next hour New Year’s Day Dance-Moms-a-palooza? Good. Let the Season 4 premiere begin. After a quick highlight reel of all of the ridiculata that went down in Season 3, as promised in the preview, we open with the revelation that everyone is back for Season 4, including Payton and Leslie, despite the street brawl in New Orleans. Thalia and Jennifer, from last hour’s special, are not. Because we have not been beaten about the […]

Dance Moms recap: The Smoke Before The Fire

January 1, 2014 Lori Acken

Welcome back, Dance Moms fans. Did everyone have a nice holiday? A happy New Year’s Eve? A happy New Year’s Day … thus far? One that you’re willing to sacrifice to all the arguing that is surely about to entail? Or maybe you have a raging headache from too much celebrating that you doubt could possibly be made worse by what happens here. You’re about to find out, because here we go. We start with an incredibly lovely group number called “Just Be” which I would love from start to finish except for the part where 3/4 of the way […]

Dance Moms Season 4 premiere first look

December 18, 2013 Lori Acken

It’s still a few weeks before the Dance Moms Season 4 premiere episode “Welcome Back … Now Don’t Get Too Comfy,” but Lifetime has offered up a sneak peek at what it calls the “Top 3 Moments from Season 4.” It’s hard to imagine they are anything remotely close, but just in case — here you go: Perhaps the biggest surprise is that when the competition team members and their mothers reconvene at the ALDC, Payton and Leslie Ackerman are among them — even after Leslie’s and Christi’s New Orleans street brawl in the Season 3 finale. Well, she’s back […]

Dance Moms Christmas Special recap: ’Twas the Fight Before Christmas

December 10, 2013 Lori Acken

Happy holidays, Dance Moms fans. It’s time for the first-ever Dance Moms Christmas Special. And, hence, the first-ever Dance Moms Christmas Special recap. Consider it my special holiday gift to you. We open with the girls placing a star on an artificial tree, plus JC, Executive Producer Superstar, sporting a shorter, darker hairdo, and a glammed-up Abby Lee. Abby says Christmas to her means two weeks off from the dance studio, the moms and all the complaining. A chance to de-stress, if you will. JC wants to plumb the Christmases of Abby’s youth for a spell, so there are photos […]

Bonnie and Clyde: A&E Networks’ miniseries event shows darker vision of outlaw couple

December 2, 2013 StayTuned Staff

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, known much better without their surnames, have become unlikely folk heroes thanks largely to the 1967 Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway film that featured the tagline “They’re young. They’re in love. They kill people.” In that version, and subsequently in the public’s imagination, Bonnie and Clyde pulled off their violent crimes with the zeal of youth, and faced their notorious bullet-riddled deaths with smiles on their faces, the very embodiment of the philosophy of live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse. It’s a tall order to think any retelling could overshadow what seems […]

Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition recap Season 2 finale: McKaylee wins!

November 19, 2013 Lori Acken

When the party’s oooooooverrrrrr!! Yes, it’s finale night, Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition fans, and I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted and ready for my happy ending. And since I very much like all of the dancers who are left in the battle, that’s a given, which is nice. We start with a little recap of the ladies and how they got there, complete with kiddie pictures and home video. Gianna says the money would mean she could afford to go to college in addition to the Joffrey. Cindy says Abby’s rough treatment of her daughter has only made Gianna […]