Bryan Adams will play Fort Worth's Dickies Arena in June 2023.
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Canadian singer/songwriter Bryan Adams, who's been entertaining audiences on stage and screen for four decades, is coming to Fort Worth for a show at Dickies Arena - and he's bringing along a very special guest. Adams is teaming up with rock 'n' roll icons Joan Jett and the Blackhearts for his "So Happy It Hurts Tour," stopping in Fort Worth on June 29, 2023.
The U.S. tour kicks off on June 6 in Baltimore, Maryland, and ends August 3 with a show in Seattle. He'll visit just two Texas cities - Fort Worth and Sugar Land, outside Houston, for a show at Smart Financial Centre on June 28.
Adams is touring in support of his 15th studio album, So Happy It Hurts, which was released March 11, 2022 via BMG. The album is nominated for Best Rock Performance at the upcoming 2023 Grammy awards, taking place Sunday, February 5.
Adams also is riding the wave as the lyricist for Pretty Woman – The Musical, the Broadway musical based on the famed Julia Roberts-Richard Gere rom-com. The touring musical currently is on stage at Dallas' Music Hall at Fair Park (through February 5) and is coming to Fort Worth's Bass Hall, February 7-12.
Barrier-breaking rock 'n' roll badass Joan Jett is known for Top 40 hits such as "I Love Rock 'N' Roll," "I Hate Myself For Loving You," and "Crimson and Clover." Joan Jett and the Blackhearts toured last year with Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Poison. Bad Reputation, a 2018 documentary about Jett's life, is now streaming.
Tickets for the "So Happy It Hurts Tour" go on sale at 12 pm Friday, February 3 via ticketmaster.com.
KJ Apa stars as Jimmy Stewart in Jimmy, which will make its world premiere in Fort Worth on November 4.
Actor Jimmy Stewart, thanks to movies such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Shop Around the Corner, and The Philadelphia Story, had the reputation early in his career as the everyman in Hollywood, someone to whom most audiences could relate. That became even more true when Stewart entered the military during World War II, a period that is explored in the new biopic, Jimmy.
The film was co-produced with Fort Worth-based Papaian Studios and received a red-carpet premiere as part of the Lone Star Film Festival on Wednesday, November 4. Stewart had several ties to Fort Worth, which were celebrated at the event.
Stewart (KJ Apa) was riding high in 1941, coming off his first (and only) Oscar win for The Philadelphia Story. As depicted in the film, his life is upended when he receives a military draft notice as the U.S. prepares for war. He’s determined to serve, but people like studio head Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) try to talk him out of it. Already an experienced pilot, he eventually joins the war in Europe, flying the B-24 bomber.
Despite his celebrity status, Stewart requests to be treated the same as any other soldier, which means flying multiple missions over enemy territory. He moves up the ranks, becoming a leader tasked with, among other things, reporting the deaths of service members to their families. He also starts a friendship that develops into a romance with Lady Julia (Kara Killmer), giving him a distraction from the horrors of war.
Directed by Aaron Burns and written by Justin Strawhand, the film has the clear goal of being a hagiography for Stewart, showing all of his good qualities and few of his bad ones. In fact, the character of Stewart is harder on himself than the actual movie is, chastising himself over the deaths of fellow soldiers that he likely could not have prevented. The filmmakers go to great lengths to show how good and well-respected Stewart was, something that may well be true, but doesn’t make for great drama.
The bulk of the film features Stewart at war, following him and others as they fly multiple missions and commiserate over the price of combat. The sequences are fine, but the film’s budget does not appear to be high, and so the CGI needed to recreate the scenes is noticeably subpar. Because Burns and Strawhand usually keep to surface-level storytelling and don’t go deep on any character besides Stewart, his time at war is engaging but slight.
The film is bookended by Stewart and Frank Capra (Max Casella) making It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart’s first film after coming back from war. It’s here where the movie becomes most interesting as Stewart, still affected by his war experience, struggles to bring the character of George Bailey to life. The behind-the-scenes look at the film-within-the-film and the recreations of its iconic scenes are catnip for anyone who knows/loves the Christmas classic.
Apa, best known for starring as Archie on the TV show Riverdale, does extremely well as Stewart. He nails Stewart’s quavering voice and the way he ambles about plays right into the actor’s established persona. Casella and Killmer get the most play in supporting roles, and each does solid work as characters trying to understand Stewart. Alexander, Sarah Drew as Hedda Hopper, and Rob Riggle as a colonel each go a little too big in their respective parts.
Jimmy is probably best watched as an approximation of the man Stewart was in the 1940s, not as something that’s completely true to life. The film elides or stretches the truth on multiple occasions, which is par for the course in biopics. It could have used some stronger storytelling to make Stewart feel like a real person, not merely a replica of the famous actor.
