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Hi, I'm Trace. I'm a freelance film critic and entertainment writer based in Atlanta with bylines at Paste Magazine, Awards Watch, /Film, Austin Chronicle, Dread Central, and more. I've covered festivals such as SXSW, Fantastic Fest, and London Film Festival, and reported on breaking news stories in the entertainment industry.
Let me write for you.
tracesauveur@gmail.com
When the last three movies in a franchise each earned over $1 billion at the box office, it's no shock to see a regularly scheduled sequel come down the pipe a couple of years later. What is a little disconcerting is the apparent attempt by Jurassic World: Rebirth to hit the hard reset button just...
There was a solid 30- to 45-minute period during the first half of 28 Years Later when I was convinced I was watching one of my favorite movies of the year. Writer/director Danny Boyle and co-writer Alex Garland's return to their landmark zombie franchise-which sparked a resurgence within the genre that endured throughout most of...
Of all the types of directorial projects to get pigeonholed into based on the achievement of previous work, action movies centered around the highly technical, precision-based feat of operating a specialized machine of brawny engineering seem like one of the more agreeable ones. That's where director Joseph Kosinski finds himself with F1 (amusingly known as...
Christopher Nolan is one of the most respected directors in Hollywood, and his filmography easily proves why. Here are all of Christopher Nolan's movies ranked.
When does an animated classic have a reasonable justification for being remade in live action? Is it when a fresh set of eyes brings a unique angle to the material, rejuvenating it for a new generation of audiences? Or is it when the new format genuinely adds something that wasn't present in the original?
If the title From the World of John Wick: Ballerina didn't clue you into what cinematic universe the film in question is set in (for real, that's the full title of the movie), it wouldn't take you long to figure it out. A bracingly new perspective on the franchise, this is not-Ballerina is happy to...
Hollywood's outlook toward adapting the "gameplay" of videogame adaptations has continued to evolve through A Minecraft Movie and beyond.
As soon as I got the email about the Until Dawn all-nighter contest, I knew I had to do it. I'm a sucker for a good stunt marketing scheme, and this iteration was just stupid enough to convince me ...
It's often remarked how the rise of the superhero industrial complex over the past 15 years has robbed audiences of more varied roles from some of our most prominent movie stars, who've found themselves too tied up traveling through multiverses and assembling super-teams to fight galactic villains during their prime years.
The troubled relationship between cinema and video games-namely, the former's filmic interpretations of the latter-can often be distilled down to an attempt to translate an interactive medium to a purely immersive one. Every video game adaptation is working from a foundation of a property that gives players some semblance of agency, even if they're ultimately...
Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk are nearly half as old as the first Friday the 13th movie, making them promising candidates to overhaul the iconic 80s horror franchise template for a Gen-Z audience. The pair's co-directed summer camp slasher send-up-cum-homage Hell of a Summer (the feature directorial debut for each) takes the masked-killer-in-the-woods set-up and...
It's all too easy to say that Friendship, the debut film from writer-director Andrew DeYoung starring Tim Robinson, plays like a feature-length version of I Think You Should Leave-possibly to the point of redundancy. But the film invites the comparison, not only through Robinson's love-it-or-hate-it brand of weirdo abrasiveness but also via its depiction of...
You'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a post-apocalyptic film that doesn't feel cobbled together from a storied history of derivative parts. Stories of loners, families, or factions surviving a world gone uncivilized-searching for any vestiges of life while avoiding hostile survivors and being forced into acts of vicious violence-evoke dozens of familiar properties that define...
The Baltimorons is Jay Duplass' first original feature film in 14 years. One half of the American independent cinema duo heavyweights of the aughts and 2010s, The Duplass Brothers-completed by Mark Duplass-the last we heard from Jay in terms of a proper narrative film was 2011's Jeff Who Lives at Home, co-directed with his brother....
Death of a Unicorn's social critique is increasingly familiar, but it's still hard to deny the pleasure if its impale-the-rich gonzo action.
A move to Italy gives Another Simple Favor a helpful change of scenery, but it's still little more than a solid cinematic beach read.
Todd Solondz has long embraced his persona as a cinematic agitator and provocateur. He seems to follow a pattern: as critics and audiences recoil from the objectionable material in his latest project, he doubles down, delving even deeper into the inner lives of characters who range from exasperating to outright execrable.
Death looms like a specter in nearly all of Osgood Perkins' films. Consider the chilly threat of the beyond in The Blackcoat's Daughter, the dark fairy-tale whimsy of Gretel & Hansel, or the satanic fatalism of his 2024 viral breakout hit Longlegs, released just seven months ago.
It's an accepted fact that at this point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lifecycle, keeping up with the extended lore and returning characters means slogging through a mountain of homework. The cruel joke of Captain America: Brave New World is that you need to study multiple MCU projects that no one has any business remembering....
As Robert Eggers' harrowing take lumbers into theaters, it's worth looking at an adaptation that took some liberties.
It's funny what a series of competent, agreeable family movies have done for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Following a prolonged down period for the speedy hedgehog in the gaming world, subject to a litany of poorly received video games throughout the 2000s and 2010s, 2020's CGI/live-action-hybrid film Sonic the Hedgehog has given the blue...
On December 5, 2024, film critic Matt Zoller Seitz published a profile feature for Vulture entitled "Moonlight in the Lion's Den." It traces filmmaker Barry Jenkins' decision to pivot from his intimate, adult dramas like Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk to his next project for Disney: a multi-million dollar follow-up to 2019's "live-action"...
It's hard to ask for a more routinely workmanlike filmmaker than James Mangold. Whether working in the realm of mental health drama (Girl, Interrupted), big IP franchises (The Wolverine, Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), or ultimate TNT Dad-movie mode (Ford v Ferrari), his even-handed approach assures an experience that's technically accomplished but...
Santa Claus is one of the most frequently depicted characters in film history, but these are some of his truly weirdest outings.
Election fraud. A migrant crime wave. Immigrants eating pets. FEMA exploiting hurricane survivors. The Democrats controlling the weather. These are just a few of the widely circulated conspiracy theories that have fueled right-wing discourse surrounding the 2024 election cycle-entirely fabricated narratives that all but assuredly played a hand in the American people welcoming Donald Trump...
On November 9, 1984, Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street was released to critical and commercial acclaim, praised for how it leveraged the slasher formula to create a horror film that reached newly surreal and terrifying heights, while also introducing a new horror icon in Freddy Krueger and laying the foundation for a long-running...
Smile 2, the sequel to 2022's horror franchise breakout, opens with one of the boldest sequences you'll find in mainstream cinema this year. We're re-introduced to Joel (Kyle Gallner), the co-protagonist in Smile whose fate was sealed as being doomed with the curse of the malignant, grinning entity from whom the series receives its namesake....
Welcome to a new episode of The Film Stage Show! Brian Roan and Robyn Bahr are joined by Trace Sauveur to discuss Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, now in theaters. Enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.
Hand-crafted, unpolished disorder with a kitschy, nasty sense of humor gets Tim Burton back in his groove. Our Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review:
Boyhood was an artifact of the previous dozen years when it arrived. A decade later, and it's an ever-evolving looking glass of memories.
To call Blink Twice an updated, feminist version of Get Out carries a lot of implications all at once-it's a bit obvious, somewhat reductive, and potentially a good selling point, but most of all, it's fundamentally true and hard to ignore. Following a long line of similar thriller-adjacent properties that have done the same since...
It was only a matter of time before author du jour Colleen Hoover received the film adaptation treatment of one of her novels. Hoover made a name for herself, mostly among an audience of young girls and women, after her self-published works exploded across BookTok, the literary fandom corner of TikTok that features many content...
A blend of real-life prisoners, pro actors, and a story about where those lines blur, this drama heals through art. Our Sing Sing review:
Let this review serve as a warning to you, your friends, and your family: Despicable Me 4 is out, and the Minions have returned to theater screens around the world. The blobby, yellow, gibberish-talking and havoc-wreaking little helpers of reformed villain with a heart of gold Gru (Steve Carell) have sustained a healthy 14-year career...
The A Quiet Place franchise is the poster child for enjoyably competent yet unremarkable studio horror. With the first two films spearheaded by John Krasinski, who served double duty in front of and behind the camera, it was the perfect example of a series pulling from its blockbuster thriller influences while recognizing its limitations so...
They Came Together is one of the funniest spoof movies ever made. You can say that again! They Came Together is one of the funniest...
In a recent red carpet interview, Sam Raimi was asked about the possibility of Spider-Man 4-that is, a continuation of Raimi's own Spider-Man series with Tobey Maguire in the central role-as well as what shape it could take if it came to fruition. Raimi's answer was typically astute: "I think if we were to make...
The apes are back, with a less dour tone and more blockbuster appeal in this franchise entry. Our Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review:
Jerry Seinfeld came out of billionaire comedy retirement to make a crappy Netflix movie about Pop-Tarts. Our Unfrosted review:
Michael Showalter was a bit of a weirdo comedy maverick during his initial years in entertainment. During his time at NYU, he joined an improv troupe called The New Group, which would later be known as The State and was populated by a bevy of now cult-famous alt comedians which included David Wain, Michael Ian Black, Joe Lo Trugio, Ken Marino, and Thomas Lennon, among others.
Part two of Zack Snyder's space opera is better than the first, but that's not saying much. Our Rebel Moon-Part Two: The Scargiver review:
Within the first fifteen minutes of Crank: High Voltage, Jason Statham's Chev Chelios has graphic forcible open heart surgery, violently guns down some dudes, sodomizes a guy with a shotgun for information, and attaches live jumper cable clamps to his chest and tongue to charge the internal battery on the new artificial heart keeping him...
Clint Eastwood's wondering if you feel lucky enough to read through our ranking of all the Dirty Harry movies.
In 2012, Wally Pfister was on top of the world. The cinematographer had a long career during the 90s shooting cheap, tawdry erotic thrillers like In the Heat of Passion and Animal Instincts, before becoming director Christopher Nolan's longtime partner, working with the director on every one of his films since 2000's Memento.
Jonathan Glazer seemed like one of the more unlikely Oscar frontrunners for the 2023 awards season. Up until now with The Zone of Interest, an unorthodox drama following the commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Höss’s (Christian Friedel) home life living next to the concentration camp, his movies have followed the model of interpreting the pulp of genre film concepts through the lens of pensive arthouse features. His last film, Under the Skin, was released a decade ago to cult acclaim but no...
Supernatural satire shows the hellish price of success
On January 16, 2009, Paul Blart: Mall Cop was released in theaters. A Happy Madison-produced family comedy about a bumbling mall security guard played by Kevin James who must step up and become a hero when organized thieves take over his shopping center, the film was a huge box office success, enjoying two weeks as...
It's no secret that the Oscars are prone to getting it wrong. Since 1929, the annual ceremony has had no shortage of head-scratching decisions as to which film will get handed that venerated little golden statue-from Bohemian Rhapsody winning Best Film Editing, to Rami Malek winning Best Actor, to winning both sound categories, to-okay, okay,...
Classic Hollywood never had another couple like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Here's every Bogart and Bacall movie, ranked:
The art of the rom-com is a delicate thing. Among all the meet-cutes, falling-in-love montages, and temporary breakups before the main characters ultimately decide they're destined to be together, you'll find a tricky tightrope to walk on. Oftentimes writers and filmmakers will look to add some spark and subversion to the routine formula, but you...
Finally, someone gives Daisy Ridley a good role! Her performance elevates this indie drama. Our Sometimes I Think About Dying review:
Though it fits into an apocalyptic subgenre, this Jodie Comer-led tale is too meandering to stand out. Our The End We Start From review:
Alfred Hitchcock, master of suspense, pleased crowds. The 39 Steps - his upbeat, globetrotting blockbuster - presaged North by Northwest.
Sandra Oh and Awkwafina team up for a formulaic yet charming road trip comedy about game shows and sisterhood. Our Quiz Lady review:
The Hell House series goes back to basics in this scary, clown-filled entry. Our Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor review:
The Stephen King story has been mangled into an anonymous supernatural horror movie. Our Pet Sematary: Bloodlines review:
As this planet only gets hotter due to our own actions, we'll have to get comfy watching actors sweat. Here are the best sweaty movies:
When two horror icons squared off in a crossover event, it could've been a shallow gimmick. Instead, Freddy vs. Jason was a solid slasher.
Trapped aboard a ship, this adaptation of a single Dracula chapter fails its premise. Our The Last Voyage of the Demeter review:
Steven Spielberg's Jaws is one of the best movies ever, shaping blockbusters forever. But the sequels? Here is every Jaws movie, ranked:
The lore of the Disney World dark ride provides about as much creativity as this lifeless commercial can hold. Our Haunted Mansion review:
A sci-fi about friendship, loss, growing up, and staying true to yourself, The World's End is the best of Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy.
For all its time inversion and complicated plot, Tenet is actually a simple vibe movie about two guys who are best friends.
Never mind the plot: Tom Cruise is back in life-risking action
A real-time account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, shown in gripping, necessary, unfiltered footage. Our 20 Days in Mariupol review:
Not many new horror movies debut iconic bad guys. But the first Insidious saw the Lipstick-Face Demon make his spooky, absurd mark.
“We should have ordered lunch.” “Oh, maybe we can find a dog and give you a pile of dog shit and you can eat that you piece of fucking shit.” This exchange is from the recent 400th episode of Doughboys, the self-described “podcast about chain restaurants.” It’s between the two hosts—the regret over a missed lunch from the eccentric and geeky comedian/writer Nick Wiger (Earth to Ned, Comedy Bang! Bang!), and the suggestion that he eat dog feces from the more rugged and combative...
Last week, in-theater photos and videos from the climax of The Flash, one of the last vestiges of the DCEU, leaked. The plot of the film is mostly convoluted superhero nonsense but, in essence, the scene in question involves multiple versions of the speedy hero watching awestruck as their actions start causing the different worlds of the DC multiverse to clash and collapse into each other. We are treated to displays of the recognizable faces that inhabit these worlds—specifically, digital...
Let’s get this out of the way quickly: George Romero’s Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead are not very good films. The final two entries in the zombie auteur’s decades-spanning, intermittent franchise documenting the rise and aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, within distinct contexts and characters from film to film, have largely been disregarded as inferior entries in a once-great series. That’s hard to argue against—Diary and Survival are by and large shoddy, tedious films that lack...
While watching Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much it felt like an apology. Within its flat blockbuster sheen, its seemingly benign but incessant Marvel-type quipping, and its flavorless sequences of CG action, all I could see was a product thought up by a room of suits that saw the criticisms lobbed at the previous mainline Transformers entries—all helmed by Michael Bay in his bad-taste maximalist machismo—and decided they had to have a big realignment....
Past Lives begins in a bar, with an unseen couple playing a game where they attempt to figure out the relationships of their fellow drinkers. Right now, they’re probing the connections between three people: Nora (Lee), who is nestled between Hae Sung (Yoo) and Arthur (Magaro). Are the Korean Nora and Hae Sung together? Are they tourists here with their white tour guide? Or are Nora and Arthur actually the ones together? Nora looks into the camera knowingly, as if to communicate what the...
Comparing anything to David Lynch is immediately a bit loaded. But Barry's strange, surreal, and emotional final episodes truly paid homage.
LeBron James' autobiographical origin story gets the inspirational sports drama treatment, but misses wide. Our Shooting Stars review:
Rain Johnson brings back Benoit Blanc for a deliciously tart sequel
After exploring the jungles of the Amazon in The Lost City of Z and the furthest reaches of outer space in Ad Astra, James Gray was beat. "I was anxious to try and rediscover what it is I loved about cinema, why I even wanted to make a film in the first place," Gray said. "I wanted to make something logistically simple. But that doesn't mean it's simple. I wanted to make something emotional." True to his desire, Gray's new film, Armageddon Time (which screened at Austin Film Festival ahead...
Eerie migrant drama is an intriguing addition to Black horror
The In Bruges team reunites for a genius tale of friendship gone awry
Simon Rex gets under the skin of this year's most fascinating scumbag
Joaquin Phoenix's avuncular turn avoids cloying family clichés
Claustrophobic Broadway adaptation is horrifyingly astute
Fourth entry is a return-to-form for the found footage franchise
Jim Cummings goes for Hollywood's throat in this scathing satire
A24's Icelandic fable revels in its heartfelt absurdity
Everything changed for documentarian John Spottswood Moore when he learned about The Ol' Bitty Show. Originally from North Carolina but now resident in Austin, Moore was astonished hearing a pair of Austin-native co-workers reminisce that, in the Nineties, they would leave parties specifically to go home and turn on Austin Public Access. "When I was in North Carolina, public access was like church television," Moore explained. "I had no idea that you could actually do something...