Country music party of the year

Ultimate Dallas-Fort Worth viewers' guide to the ACM Awards in Frisco

Keith Urban rehearses for the ACM Awards on stage in the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco.

Photo courtesy of ACM Awards

After months of anticipation, the "country music party of the year" is finally here - the 58th Academy of Country Music Awards are happening tonight, Thursday, May 11, at the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco.

All the stars have arrived, rehearsed, and some even started celebrating early with fans. Having a little FOMO already? There are actually tickets left, starting around $400 via SeatGeek.

Whether you're heading to Frisco to attend the big show in person or cracking a beer and watching from your own couch, here's a complete guide to the event. Cheers, y'all!

Where and when: The ACM Awards will take place at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, the practice facility for the Dallas Cowboys (address: 9 Cowboys Way, Frisco). The 2023 edition will mark a return to Texas for the first time since the landmark 50th ACM Awards, which took place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington in 2015.

Official festivities (those being broadcast on air) start at 6 pm with a Red Carpet. The Awards Show itself gets started at 7 pm.

Don't miss the chance to shop at the Dolly Parton pop-up store, which disappears after this week.

Getting there: No matter where you're coming from, allow plenty of time to get there. WFAA published this handy guide to traffic, rideshares, drop-off spots, and parking. One big tip, they report: "The City of Frisco is already warning about traffic. Officials said to avoid the area around The Star and Hall Park because of road closures in the area all day." Here are some preferred routes to take to The Star.

Watching live and watching later: The ACM Awards will be free to stream live exclusively on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch (it'll also stream for free the next day on Amazon Freevee). Amazon explains how to find and watch the show here. More tips on tuning in via Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, and more streaming services here.)

For those more inclined to join via social media, you can follow the Academy of Country Music on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, join the conversation with #ACMawards.

Who's hosting the show: Country music icon Dolly Parton will grace the stage for the third time as host of the American Country Music Awards, and she's bringing along a newcomer: Garth Brooks. It's his first time to host and awards show. Although Parton will be closing the show with a performance of a song from her new rock album, Brooks is not expected to perform.

Who is performing: The show is as much concert as it is awards presentation. The star-studded lineup of performers includes: Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Jo Dee Messina, Ashley McBryde, Dolly Parton, Jelly Roll, Cole Swindell, Keith Urban, The War And Treaty, Lainey Wilson, and Bailey Zimmerman.

Special collaborations include Carly Pearce and Trisha Yearwood; Ashley McBryde featuring Brandy Clark, Caylee Hammack, Pillbox Patti, and John Osborne; Cole Swindell and Jo Dee Messina; and solo performances by this year’s top nominee HARDY and ACM Male Artist of the Year nominee Jordan Davis.

English pop superstar Ed Sheeran also will make his ACMs debut onstage.

Who's not performing: Country music "bad boy" and reigning ACM Album of the Year winner Morgan Wallen had to cancel his appearances at the last minute due to illness. On Tuesday, May 9, Wallen posted to social media a video explaining that doctors had put him on vocal rest and he'd be canceling shows for six weeks - including his ACM-related appearances. Wallen had gotten top billing on "ACM Lifting Lives LIVE: Morgan Wallen & Friends," a fundraiser at Topgolf in The Colony on May 10. He had to cancel that performance, and Jason Aldean stepped in. He also will not be performing on the awards show.

Who's nominated: Who isn't nominated? A complete list of nominees is here. The superstars up for the biggest award of the night, Entertainer of the Year, are: Carrie Underwood, Chris Stapleton, Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, and Morgan Wallen. Best of luck to all!

CultureMap will have a recap of all the winners on Friday.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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