by Richard Subber | Aug 23, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
a different kind of Tom Hanks film…
Movie review:
News of the World
2020
PG-13
118 minutes
It’s titled News of the World, but that’s really not what this see-it-again movie is all about.
This out-of-the-ordinary Tom Hanks film is about awakening, and affection cradled in a dirty crystal goblet, and a little girl with a deadpan face and a deadened life who learns to smile.
The story line: a grizzled Civil War veteran, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), takes time out from his traveling newspaper reading gig to escort a hapless 12-year-old German girl, Johanna (Helena Zengel), to her mostly uninterested distant relatives after she escapes from Kiowa captivity.
There’s no love affair, of course, but the old man/young girl affection starts to pile on, and they handle some adversity, and Johanna teaches Kidd some Kiowa words so they can talk, and Texas cowboy culture passes them by as they roll their raggedy wagon into the future.
Johanna learns a beaming smile as she learns to work with Kidd in his reading rambles, and they make a life. It’s a feel good ending.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Forced Founders
by Woody Holton
The so-called “Founding Fathers”
weren’t the only ones
who helped to shape our independence…
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Aug 12, 2025 | Reflections, Tidbits
this is so simple…
“Time is more complex near the sea
than in any other place…”
Just think for a sec—how many watches do you need?
From Tortilla Flat in The Short Novels of John Steinbeck, by John Steinbeck with an introduction by Joseph Henry Jackson, New York: The Viking Press, orig. copy. 1953, 1963.
527 pages
p. 109
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 31, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
pass the light forward…
“The goodness inside you is like a small flame,
and you are its keeper….
so long as your flame flickers,
there will be some light in the world.”
from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016
p. 201
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 29, 2025 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry
bears thinking about…
bearly
I think I’m running away—
I don’t know where to go,
I still love Mommy and Daddy,
they don’t want to come.
Bobby wants to come.
Bobby grabs my hand,
he always smiles,
Bobby’s not a real bear
but he’s a real friend,
he’ll stay with me
in case I get lost
‘cause Bobby always knows
which way to look
to see the way home.
April 22, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Lord of the Flies
Never more relevant…
by William Golding
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jul 26, 2025 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
good guys sort of win…
Movie review:
Dinner Rush
An honest-to-gosh suspense movie doesn’t come along all that often.
It’s a good bet that you’re not going to be able to guess how Dinner Rush (2000, rated R, 99 minutes) ends before you get to the end. It’s worth the wait. The good guys sort of win, kind of. At least you’ll be rooting for the right team.
Danny Aiello as Louis Cropa, a restaurateur-small time bookmaker-small time mob guy, carries the story line in a confined setting: almost the entire movie takes place in Cropa’s restaurant, Gigi’s, a Tribeca eatery with an acclaimed chef that has a long line of waiting patrons.
The nominal themes are good food, gambling, mobster violence, and an extended debate about portrait art.
The real themes are human frailty, family loyalties, and valiant personal character.
A bonus: the supporting cast is really quite entertaining.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 22, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Reflections
a lifelong quest…
Book review:
Atonement
by Ian McEwan (b1948)
New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2001
351 pages
Atonement is a story of the profound sadness of a child. The sadness is a burden on several lives. McEwan invites the reader to learn to understand the life of a child who learns to understand that atonement can be a lifelong quest.
The child Briony knows she is a writer. She spends most of her life trying to understand how writing can be more than a fancy, and learning how to make it a substitute for real lives.
Briony, mature and nearing her own death, writes the final draft of her regrets for the childish impulse that unmade the lives of her beloved Cecilia and her beloved Robbie.
Briony learns that atonement can fill every space in a life, and she learns that atonement can be impotent.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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