[av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] RUUD RATING Gone With The Wind 4 SHAKESPEARES [/av_image] This week, Cinemark and Turner Classic Movies began showing the classic film Gone With the Wind on the big screen across the country, in commemoration of the film’s 75th anniversary. The movie premiered in… Continue reading Movie Review: Gone With The Wind by Victor Fleming
Author: Jay Ruud
Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice”
Contest Question for October 1
On this date in 1857, the first installment of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was published. It offended the government of the French Second Empire so much that Flaubert was brought to trial on obscenity charges in January of 1857. He was acquitted, but later that same year, another famous literary text was brought to trial in France, and… Continue reading Contest Question for October 1
Movie Review: A Walk among the Tombstones by Scott Frank
[av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/SusannTennyson.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] RUUD RATING This Is Where I Leave You TWO SUSANNS AND A HALF TENNYSON [/av_image] I’ve never been a big fan of the MPAA rating system, which will give a film an R rating, for instance, because of foul language but turn a… Continue reading Movie Review: A Walk among the Tombstones by Scott Frank
Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”
Contest Question for September 24
DON’T START WITH ME: What famous novel (by what author) begins this way? In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this… Continue reading Contest Question for September 24
Movie Review: This Is Where I Leave You by Shawn Levy
[av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/SusannTennyson.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] RUUD RATING This Is Where I Leave You TWO SUSANNS AND A HALF TENNYSON [/av_image] In his 2009 novel This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper included significant passages of stream of consciousness that involved flashbacks about Judd Foxman’s relationships with his older brother Paul,… Continue reading Movie Review: This Is Where I Leave You by Shawn Levy
William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold”
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Contest Question for September 17
Author Ken Kesey was born on this date in 1935. Though he is best known for his classic novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and the subsequent film with Jack Nicholson’s iconic performance, Kesey’s second novel, Sometimes A Great Notion, was also made into a successful film in 1970. For bragging rights for the… Continue reading Contest Question for September 17
Movie Review: The Drop by Michaël R. Roskam
[av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Tennyson-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’77’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] RUUD RATING Magic In The Moonlight 3 TENNYSONS [/av_image] Lonely and laconic bartender Bob Saginowski’s life seems to take a turn for the better when he finds a wounded puppy in a trash can in the yard of a woman named Nadia. He… Continue reading Movie Review: The Drop by Michaël R. Roskam