Category: Review

The Call of the Wild (Chris Sanders 2020) [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’] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] When I was in eighth grade, I was given a copy of Jack London’s classic dog-and-Yukon adventure novel The Call of the Wild, and it opened up a whole world of… Continue reading The Call of the Wild

The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead (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 his much anticipated follow-up to his Pulitzer-Prize winning Underground Railroad, Whitehead tells the story of life in a Florida reform “school” for boys, returning to the genre of historical fiction, but… Continue reading Nickel Boys

Rabbit Is Rich John Updike (1981) [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’] Rabbit Run, John Updike’s classic 1960 novel introducing the antiheroic everyman Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom into American literature, was listed on Timemagazine’s famous 2010 list of the “100 greatest English-language novels published since 1923” (the year Timewas born) I’d… Continue reading Rabbit is Rich

Ruud’s Top 10 Films of 2019 Since the Oscars are scheduled to be presented this coming Sunday, the time has come for my annual Top Ten movie list for the past year. I did make an honest effort to see as many movies as I could that seemed promising, and so what follows is my… Continue reading Top Ten Films of 2019

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