ACM News

ACM Awards reveals slate of VIP events leading up to big fest in Frisco

The awards show will be hosted by Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton.

Photo by Art Streiber

The Academy of Country Music (ACM) is plotting its takeover of The Star in Frisco with three days of live music, country music events, and celebrations leading up to the 58th ACM Awards, which will take place on Thursday, May 11.

Co-hosted by global superstars Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, the ACM Awards show takes place at 7 pm at Ford Center at The Star and will also livestream on Prime Video.

Dubbed "Country Music’s Party of the Year," the 2023 edition will mark Parton’s second consecutive appearance as host, with Brooks taking the stage to host a major awards show for the first time.

The Awards will be preceded by "ACM Awards Week," an entire slate of prelude parties, as follows:

ACM Country Kickoff at The Star, a two-day music and entertainment festival which is open to the public, free to all fans, and does not require tickets
ACM Songs & Stories Powered by The Bluebird Cafe + NSAI, a private industry celebration of the top songwriters of the past year
Topgolf Tee-Off & Rock On presented by VGT by Aristocrat Gaming, followed by ACM Lifting Lives LIVE: Morgan Wallen & Friends, a live concert on the green at Topgolf The Colony, which is sold out

Limited tickets to the ACM Awards show are still available through SeatGeek.

Academy of Country Music CEO Damon Whiteside says in a statement that they're thrilled to partner with the Dallas Cowboys and the Jones family to bring the Awards back to Texas.

"This world-class venue, shopping and dining district, and luxury area hotels and resorts made the perfect canvas to build our ACM Awards week bigger and better than ever, on behalf of our artists and industry," Whiteside says. "Texas has some of the most passionate Country Music fans in the world, and we can’t wait to bring the party to Frisco!”

Tuesday, May 9-10: ACM Country Kickoff at The Star
The excitement begins on May 9, with the ACM Country Kickoff at Tostitos Championship Plaza at The Star. The complex will host a free two-day festival for fans to get up close and personal with country music stars. Up-and-coming country music artists will perform on the main stage, including several ACM Award nominees.

There'll be a beer garden presented by Coors Light as well as a VIP space presented by Lucas Oil with a prime view of the stage.

The ACM Country Kickoff will also feature food trucks, photo opportunities, ACM Awards show merchandise, and activations by a host of partners, including ACM Lifting Lives, Amazon Music, Ashley HomeStore, Kendra Scott, Lucchese, North Texas Ford, and Visit Frisco.

The ACM Kickoff at The Star will be held from 3-10 pm on both Tuesday, May 9 and Wednesday, May 10. A detailed performance schedule for the performance stage, as well as a map of the full festival footprint, is coming soon.

Wednesday May 10: ACM Songs & Stories Powered by The Bluebird Cafe + NSAI
The Academy will host a private industry celebration of this year's ACM Songwriter and Artist-Songwriter of the Year nominees and the larger country music songwriter community on Wednesday, May 10 at the new Omni PGA Frisco Resort, one week after its grand opening. The event is already sold out. It will be powered by the Bluebird Cafe listening room, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) nonprofit songwriters trade association.

Following brunch, country music acts will take the stage for intimate, acoustic performances of their biggest hits and share the stories behind their songs.

Wednesday May 10: Topgolf Tee-Off & Rock On presented by VGT by Aristocrat Gaming
On the eve of the 2023 ACM Awards, Topgolf in The Colony will host an evening with some of the biggest music stars. It'll begin at 4:15 pm with a tee-off skills tournament, followed by a concert at 7:30 pm presented VGT by Aristocrat Gaming, with proceeds benefiting ACM Lifting Lives, the Academy of Country Music’s philanthropic arm. Acts will include ACM Entertainer of the Year nominee Morgan Wallen; Hardy, the 2023 ACM Awards' most-nominated artist; Lainey Wilson, the 2023 ACM Awards' most-nominated female artist; New Male Artist of the Year nominees Ernest and Bailey Zimmerman, and DJ 13lackbeard. Both the golf tournament and concert on the golf green are sold out.

Thursday May 11: 58th Academy of Country Music Awards
Hosted by Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, the 58th Academy of Country Music Awards at the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco is set to begin at 7 pm, and is back in Texas for the first time since the record-breaking 50th anniversary celebration in 2015. Dallasites are surely lucky to have the event nearby but it will also livestream in more than 240 countries and territories exclusively on Prime Video. Limited tickets remain available on SeatGeek, while the full rebroadcast will stream for free on Friday, May 12 on Freevee.

Founded in Southern California in 1964 as a regional trade organization, the Academy of Country Music (ACM) has grown in its almost 60 years into a leading association for the country music industry, and is now headquartered in Nashville.

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Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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