Category: Review

Jojo Rabbit  Taika Waititi (2019) [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 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] In Mel Brooks’ The Producers, as many readers will surely recall, the two protagonists, Broadway producers Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, hit upon a scheme by which they can make more money on… Continue reading Jojo Rabbit

Summerland Michael Chabon (2002) [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 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] I freely admit that it took me way too long to get around to reading Michael Chabon’s brilliant Pulitzer-Prize-winning Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clayand don’t mind declaring myself on the road to being a… Continue reading Summerland

1917 Sam Mendes (2019) [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 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] Just out in wide release this week, Sam Mendes’s new World War I drama 1917 rounded off a triumphant weekend in which it led all rivals in box office receipts by garnering ten Oscar nominations… Continue reading 1917

Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy (1895) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] The latest figures from the U.S. Census bureau show that the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans is the widest it has been in fifty years. Putting it… Continue reading Jude the Obscure

Little Women Greta Gerwig (2019) [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 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] Yes, I know that everyone must have been expecting Star Wars in this spot, but hey, everything that could possibly be said about Star Wars has no doubt already been said and yes, it was… Continue reading Little Women

Children of Virtue and Vengeance Tomi Adeyemi (2019) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Susanns.jpg’ attachment=’78’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=10” appearance=’on-hover’] 2 JACQUELINE SUSANNS [/av_image] Harvard-educated Tomi Adeyemi was 23 years old when her debut novel, Children of Blood and Bone (2018) not only found a publisher but also garnered her a seven-figure advance, certainly one of the… Continue reading Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Knives Out Rian Johnson (2019) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] So start with a large Gothic mansion owned by a wealthy patriarch, surrounded by a houseful of his leeching family members who owe their comfortable lives to his fortune. Let him… Continue reading Knives Out

The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1973) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] The Soviet Union’s most important writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, had already won the Nobel Prize for Literature three years earlier when he began to publish what he considered the major work… Continue reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”

Ford v. Ferrari James Mangold (2019) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] The Ford GT40 was the first car designed and built in the United States to win the storied 24 hours of Le Mans classic, and it ended up winning that… Continue reading Ford v. Ferarri

Future Home of the Living God  Louise Erdrich (2017) [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’] There’s no doubt that Louse Erdrich is one of the pantheon of American writers whose novels are always greeted with anticipation and excitement, who has produced so many critically acclaimed works over several decades that… Continue reading Louise Erdrich’s “Future Home of the Living God”