Category: Review

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”

Harriet Kasi Lemmons (2019) [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’] If you’ve been excited by the previews and waiting for the release of Kasi Lemmons’ new biopic of famed Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman, thinking that it’s about time somebody brought this inspiring story of American heroism to the… Continue reading Harriet

The Testaments Margaret Atwood (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] Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past few months, you are probably aware that TheTestaments, Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited sequel to TheHandmaid’sTale, was released on September 10 and, a month later on… Continue reading Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments”

Zombieland: Double Tap Ruben Fleischer (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] Has it really been ten years since the original Zombieland? I know time is supposed to move faster the older you get, but I’m thinking I must be about 159 by now, since… Continue reading Zombieland: Double Tap

Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon (1973) [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] I was familiar with Thomas Pynchon from having written a senior honors thesis as an undergraduate in 1972 on what writers in those days were calling “the absurd novel.” Alhough I focused on John… Continue reading Gravity’s Rainbow

Judy (Rupert Goold 2019) and Joker (Todd Phillips 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=”] If you want to come out of the cinema with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart, you might want to avoid the way I spent… Continue reading An Odd Couple: Judy and Joker

Quichotte Salman Rushdie (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] Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, Quichotte, was published in the United States on September 3, following an August 29 release in the United Kingdom and in India. His first novel, Midnight’s Children, won the coveted… Continue reading Quichotte