Figure skating news

Skate America 2024 returns to Dallas area, home of U.S. champ Amber Glenn

Amber Glenn, figure skating, Skate America

Plano native Amber Glenn is the reining U.S. women's champion.

Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

For the second straight year, some of the world's top figure skaters and ice dancers will kick off their season in Allen, at Skate America. And it could be an even hotter ticket than it was in 2023 if Plano native and reigning U.S. women's champion Amber Glenn is in the lineup.

The first event in the six-stop ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series, Skate America 2024 will take place at Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, October 18-20. The event will encompass women's and men's singles, pairs, and ice dancing competitions. Contestants will include past Olympic medalists, as well as up-and-comers in the mix for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortino, Italy.

While the Skate America competitors typically aren't announced until mid-summer, it's hard to imagine Glenn won't be a headliner.

The 24-year-old skater, who grew up in Dallas-Fort Worth and has trained in McKinney, Frisco, and Euless, thrilled a home crowd inside the Allen arena at Skate America 2023 when she landed a triple Axel successfully for the first time. She became just the fourth American woman to land the notoriously difficult jump in international competition.

While Glenn didn't medal at Skate America, she went on to win the 2024 U.S. Championships a few months later.

Other big American headliners for Skate America could be recently crowned world champs Ilia Malinin (aka "Quad God"), ice dance world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, and world silver medalist Isabeau Levito. All competed at 2023 Skate America.

figure skating, Ilia Malinin Will Ilia Malinin and his signature Quad Axel come to Skate America 2024? Facebook/ISU

More big events in the U.S.
U.S. Figure Skating unveiled its calendar of domestically held international events Tuesday, April 23.

The pinnacle event of the season, 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships, will take place in Wichita, Kansas, January 20-26, 2025, in what should amount to a preview of the names to watch for the American team headed to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy.

The U.S. also will host the 2025 World Championships from March 23-30 at TD Garden in Boston. The full U.S. qualifying season and domestically held international events calendar can be found here.

U.S. figure skaters topped the medal table with two golds and a bronze at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and they could do even better at the next Winter Games. Malinin recently won his first world title with a record-setting free skate, Chock and Bates won a second straight ice dance gold, and Levito took a historic silver in the women’s event.

“U.S. Figure Skating is very excited about each of our top-tier events, both at the national and international stages, for the 2024-25 season,” U.S. Figure Skating chief executive Tracy Marek says in a release. “These events span our nation to provide amazing opportunities for skaters at all levels — from our juveniles to adults — as well as our fans and the skating community."

According to the release, tickets for 2024 Skate America and the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships will go on sale on the following dates:

Skate America:

Thursday, June 6: All-session tickets
Thursday, Aug. 1: Single-session tickets

U.S. Championships:

Thursday, May 16: All-session tickets and hotel packages
Thursday, July 11: Weekend tickets
Thursday, Sept. 19: Championship single-session tickets
Thursday, Dec. 5: Junior single-session tickets

Skate America typically is streamed on Peacock, with highlights broadcast on NBC.

amber glenn celebrities figure skaters ice dancers isu grand prix skate america sports

Movie Review

Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney go off in trashy film The Housemaid

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney in The Housemaid.

Both Amanda Seyfried (the upcoming The Testament of Ann Lee) and Sydney Sweeney (Christy) are starring in movies with Oscar ambitions this year. By sheer coincidence, the two actors are also co-starring in The Housemaid, a thriller coming out within weeks of their more ambitious works, one that is likely to be seen by many more people than those prestige plays.

Sweeney is given top billing as Millie, a down-on-her-luck ex-convict looking to land any type of job so as not to break her parole. She finds a too-good-to-be-true lifeboat with Nina (Seyfried), who hires her to be a housemaid for her large house on Long Island, where she lives with her husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and daughter, Cecilia (Indiana Elle).

After a warm interview, Nina almost immediately becomes highly erratic, whipping back-and-forth between happy-go-lucky and rageful. It seems clear that Nina is suffering from mental health issues, as she’ll often accuse Millie of misplacing or stealing items that she didn’t take. Andrew, apparently used to Nina’s tirades, tries to protect Millie from the worst, something that grows increasingly difficult as Nina ups the ante.

Directed by Paul Feig (A Simple Favor) and adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from the bestselling book by Freida McFadden, the film is likely the trashiest mainstream movie to come out in 2025. The first half of the movie relies not on story but on moments as Nina embodies the word “hysterical” to an unbelievable extent. The resigned acceptance of the abuse by Millie, as well as the saintly patience of Andrew, make almost every scene laughable, as nobody seems to be acting anywhere close to how a person would normally react to such extreme situations.

The scenes and the performance of Seyfried are so over-the-top, in fact, that it’s clear that the filmmakers are in on the joke. It’s next to impossible not to have a little bit of fun while watching the actors react to outrageous incidents as if nothing is out of the ordinary. The worse Nina acts, the more Millie and Andrew retreat into their chosen roles, and the funnier the film becomes.

Fans of the book will know that the story changes course, eventually turning into a more stereotypical thriller that also has some relatively gnarly visuals to offer. But the trashiness continues, with Sweeney’s, um, assets repeatedly on display in both clothed and unclothed ways. The sex appeal of the R-rated movie makes it an outlier, as recent studio films have shied away from asking their big stars to disrobe completely.

Both Seyfried and Sweeney are far from their Oscar hopeful roles here. Seyfried is given free rein to act as brazenly as she pleases, and she takes full advantage of that ability. Sweeney seems to have been told to be much more reserved, and unfortunately that results in too many wooden line readings. Sklenar continues his breakout streak (It Ends with Us, Drop) with a role that allows him to show more range than either Seyfried or Sweeney.

The Housemaid is an unusual type of movie to be released at a time of year when most films are either those aiming for awards or more family-friendly fare. Despite its many flaws, it’s still an enjoyable watch that features a variety of crazy scenarios not typically seen in movies nowadays.

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The Housemaid is now playing in theaters.

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