by Richard Subber | Dec 13, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
we’re talking heart and soul…
Movie review:
The Hustler
Okay, first things first: the pool table action in The Hustler (1961, not rated, 134 minutes) is rather tame. Most of the shots are obscurely impossible, but successful.
Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson, the “hustler” who finally wins the big game for big stakes, is, of course, iconic. His character is repetitive and becomes predictable: “I can beat him” isn’t a line of script, it’s a refrain.
Jackie Gleason’s role has name recognition (as “Minnesota Fats”) but it is two-dimensional and secondary. George C. Scott (as Bert Gordon) is a stereotype with a bankroll.
Everybody smokes too much. Ugh!
You should try The Hustler again to take another look at Piper Laurie (as Sarah Packard). She is the largely unheralded heavy hitter in this film. She is the foil for Newman’s thrashing self-doubt. She is the paragon of sensitivity and desperately loving kindness that the men in this tragedy barely hope to become. She speaks truth to gutless macho men. She was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress.
Newman and Gleason and Scott are the action in The Hustler.
Piper Laurie is the heart and soul.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Who Built America?
…including people
who got their hands dirty
by Christopher Clark and Nancy Hewitt
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 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 | Nov 15, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
it’s for grownups, too…
Movie review:
The Wizard of Oz
Maybe you haven’t watched The Wizard of Oz in a while. It’s not just for kids.
There are grown-up songs, introduced by “Over the Rainbow,” and probably you know most of the words to that song. Plus, you know what “follow the yellow brick road” means.
The Wizard of Oz (1939 version, rated G, 102 minutes) is basically a feel-good film, with a great big dose of technical wizardry and a widescreen feel that was created before anyone even dreamed about widescreen.
Judy Garland (1922-1969) was 16 years old when she starred as Dorothy trying to get back to Kansas with her adored Toto. She teams up with the iconic characters that you can name: Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the cowardly Lion. There’s a lot of prancing down the road.
Try watching Wizard one more time, with kids if they’re available. You won’t be surprised when you realize that a movie doesn’t need guns, high speed car chases, or any you-know-what scenes to be more or less completely entertaining.
Maybe, like me, you can remember that The Wizard of Oz was the first movie you watched the first time you had access to a color television set.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Poems of Robert Frost
he hears bluebirds talking…
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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 | Oct 18, 2025 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
Frankie could marry your sister…
Movie review:
Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank
You think Clint Eastwood can’t be a heart-throb sensitive guy, the kind of guy who you wouldn’t mind at all if he married your sister?
Million Dollar Baby (2004, rated PG-13, 134 minutes) is a bona fide tearjerker about a world class, down-on-her-luck lady boxer who ultimately brings out the best in her very reluctant trainer and surprises no one by becoming the love of his life.
Hilary Swank is Maggie, the wannabe boxer who can’t afford her own speed bag but has the spirit and the right moves that make her a world champion.
Eastwood is Frankie, who ekes out a low profile life as the owner of a broken down gym and disdains being a trainer for “a girl.” Maggie finally persuades him, and then love very slowly takes over.
There’s lots of action in the gym and in the boxing ring, but the real action is directed by the fat little cherub with wings and a bow and arrow.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen
…his bleak insight into human nature
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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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Sep 20, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
this time it’s different
Movie review:
Last Chance Harvey
Maybe you’ve been wondering how they come up with those almost-too-hard-to-believe love stories that end with the two unlikely lovers walking off together in the tree-shaded lane.
I don’t know how they come up with them, but I discovered Last Chance Harvey (2008, rated PG-13, 93 minutes), so I know they’re out there.
You never heard of it, you say? Well, here’s a hint: there’s no sweaty sex, no car chases, no guns, no bad language…
There’s just a feel-good heart-throb story about Harvey (Dustin Hoffman) and Kate (Emma Thompson) who are having unhappy lives, who meet really momentarily by chance, who meet again with a little more time to think about possibilities, who can’t stop thinking this time it might be different…
This time it is different. Harvey and Kate slow-walk themselves finally onto a dance floor, and then they walk around town and dither about their obvious blooming feelings, and then they walk off together in the tree-shaded lane…
Are you smiling? Watch Last Chance Harvey, and do the wider smile thing.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: All The President’s Men
The men and women
who crave power…
by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 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 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 | 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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