Category: Review

Alien: Covenant Ridley Scott (2017) [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=”] I remember watching James Cameron’s Aliens and being absolutely terrified back in the 1980s. I’m pretty sure it was the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, and that remains true to this day. Alien III… Continue reading Alien: Covenant

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword Guy Ritchie (2017) I guess Guy Ritchie’s new digitized entertainment King Arthur: Legend of the Sword has something to do with the legend of King Arthur, in the same way that Robin Hood has something to do with the flour sold under his name: There are characters in Ritchie’s… Continue reading King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (James Gunn, 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’] The original Guardians of the Galaxy grossed more than three-quarters of a billion dollars worldwide in 2014, making this sequel inevitable, and clearly volume three is in the works, to judge by the closing… Continue reading Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

Gifted Marc Webb (2017) [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=”] Diane Adler was a brilliant mathematician, a prodigy whose talent had put her on the fast track to scholarly fame and immortality. She is on the verge of solving one of the most difficult and… Continue reading Gifted

The Zookeeper’s Wife Niki Karo (2017) [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=”] Early in The Zookeeper’s Wife, the new film from New Zealand director Niki Karo (The Whale Rider) based on Diane Ackerman’s best-selling nonfiction book of the same name, the title character Antonina Żabińska… Continue reading The Zookeeper’s Wife

Kong: Skull Island Jordan Vogt-Roberts (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’] I admit to having avoided Kong: Skull Island, the latest in the long line of remakes dating back to the first stop-action giant gorilla in the classic 1933 original, that pretty much introduced us to “special effects”… Continue reading Kong: Skull Island

Beauty and the Beast Bill Condon (2017) [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=”] The tale may not really be as old as time, but it’s at least as old as 1991, when in the midst of the Disney Renaissance, the studio gave us a musical… Continue reading Beauty and the Beast

A United Kingdom Amma Asante (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’] It’s a good bet that the vast majority of Americans would be hard put to find Botswana on a map. And even among those who were able to do so, the name Seretse Khama is likely to… Continue reading A United Kingdom

Get Out Jordan Peele (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’] It starts out as an updated version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, morphs by the second act into The Stepford Wives, and finally ends up going full Frankenstein. Whatever you think of writer-director Jordan Peele’s debut film… Continue reading Get Out

I Am Not Your Negro Raoul Peck (2016) [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 story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.” That sentence from novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social activist… Continue reading I Am Not Your Negro