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rsubber
Rick has two poetry chapbooks on Amazon: Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups, and Seeing far: Selected poems. His poems appeared in The Four Elements: Effects and Influences, an anthology by Poets Collective.
Rick’s poetry has been accepted by the Aurorean, The Australia Times Poetry, miller’s pond, Literati Magazine, and elsewhere.
https://www.amazon.com/author/richardsubber
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Reviews
Conspiracy (2001)
...a perfection of evil...
Here's the short version: watching Conspiracy is like drinking molten lead.
Conspiracy is an almost flawless portrayal of naked evil being done by powerful men, each of whom has lost or abandoned his moral compass.
It is dry, withering, completely transparent, all too believable-not merely because we know it's all true. We know that there are powerful men and women alive today who are willing to do blasphemously wrong things like killing 6 million Jews.
Conspiracy dramatizes the Wannsee Conference that first officially articulated the Final Solution for the Jews of Europe.
Stanley Tucci as SS Major Adolph Eichmann, Kenneth Branagh as Hitler's Chief of Security Reinhard Heydrich, Colin Firth as Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart (a lawyer who wrote the racist Nuremberg Laws), and 12 others show how it was probably done-almost without passion--around a long conference table in a manor house outside Berlin. One of the participants failed to destroy his copy of the minutes. This surviving document was used in the post-WWII Nuremberg Trials.
Conspiracy is frightening, horrifying, and disgusting. It is a perfection of the evil that men can do.
The antidote for watching it is simple: do a good thing every day.
Read more of my reviews here
richardsubber.com
Emperor of the North Pole (1973)
"...but you didn't have the heart!"
"Emperor of the North" is an heroic film. They don't make too many like this one. If you plan to watch it, do yourself a favor: plan to watch it twice. Watch it once so you get the picture: a tramp named A-No. 1 (Marvin) is a devil-may-care legendary figure in the hobo camps. He teaches a thing or three to the inexperienced Cigaret (Carradine). He challenges the thuggish railroad policeman, Shack (Borgnine), there's a supremely brutal fight on a rolling flatcar, the best 'bo wins, he finally rides Shack's "No. 19" to Portland, and, you guessed it, A-No. 1 is the king of the road. Sounds like a few of the "B" movies you've seen over the years? All routinely imaginable stuff, but Marvin's imperial performance stirs the imagination. Watch it again. Watch Mr. Marvin show you everything you ever wanted to know about classic heroism of the spirit. See him surpassing his impoverished circumstances to enjoy a rich life, embracing independence, rugged optimism, casually competent leadership, generous mentoring, and the dauntless strength of a Viking in mortal combat. Finally, A-No. 1 abandons the feckless Cigaret. "You had the juice, kid, but you didn't have the heart!" A-No. 1 rides off, northward, soaring, in high majesty, singing his victory. American hobo. American hero. Emperor of the North.
Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
Thelma & Louise (1991)
...in mid-air
Thelma & Louise, R. I. P. It's almost 25 years since "Thelma & Louise" hit the big screen in May 1991and instantly became a hit, with sublimely paired performances by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. Callie Khouri won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. T&L has big bawdy action, two all-American rough-and-ready heroines— Sarandon shoots the bad guy in the chest, just like that, a righteous shoot if ever there was one—and a searing final scene that tears your heart out. T&L is crazy and unbelievable, with a sophomoric silliness about the plot twists, and the spectacular you-didn't-see-it-coming ending that defies straight thinking. I think T&L is a captivating invitation to do some serious out-of- the-box sympathizing with two women who finally get some potent excitement in their lives, who are tired of getting the crappy end of the stick, who know with depressing exactitude just exactly where they were going right and just exactly where they went wrong, who understand that Harvey the cop wants to help them, who realize that the only help they're going to get is from each other, who finally understand that holding hands and pedal-to-the-metal is as good as it gets
. I think "Thelma & Louise" demands respect, I think it gives every viewer a chance to think hard about what's-good-in-my-life, I think it opens a window for every viewer to imagine what it would be like to finally have it all, with someone you love, if ever so briefly, even in mid-air
. More on my blogs: Barley Literate History: Bottom Lines
Dirty Dancing (1987)
"I'll never be sorry"
OK, I'll stick my neck out, this is one of the top 500 or top 600 movies in American cinematography. The proof is that you recognize the title, and you know what it means
. My focus goes deeper than the "ugly duckling/Prince Charming/red hot final dance" story—for me, a couple highlights of the film are Baby's naiveté, and Baby's ingenuous embrace of the very hot Johnny, and her eager awareness of her rising woman's heat
. In 1987 many moviegoers would have been more than slightly discomfited by the matter-of-fact abortion episode, and perhaps nonplussed by Baby's casual deception to come up with the $250 to pay for it. Wowee. It's great to help out a friend of a friend and all, but that seems like an unbelievable and baffling stretch for a timorous young girl of Baby's obvious unworldliness. On the other hand, Baby's hormones are ready to pop. Alone with Johnny, in the prelude to intimacy scene, Baby suddenly opens up: "I'm scared of everything
I'm scared of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." That's a heartbeat. You felt it, too. I hope you've had a moment, an embrace, a volcanic new feeling of desire that you feared you would never feel the rest of your whole life. I have. And now I know I didn't have to be afraid
. Hope it turned out the same way for Baby.
More on my blogs: Barley Literate History: Bottom Lines
Jane Eyre (1996)
Profoundly imagined love.....
A quick scan on IMDb.com turns up more than two dozen screen versions of Bronte's classic Jane Eyre. This version, with a subdued William Hurt as Mr. Rochester, and a startling, demure Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane Eyre, is among those that are worth watching a second time. If you're reading this, you may think you know the story, and how it ends. Let's agree on this: from our modern vantage point, if we discovered a previously unknown Charlotte Bronte novel, I don't think it would be difficult to guess the general storyline and character development. Not to say that this makes Bronte uninteresting or unexceptional—I think you can best appreciate and enjoy Bronte if you know what you're getting into, if you can bring an openness to deeply personal, individual human drama to the reading. Any movie version is an abbreviation. I think this one brings Bronte's protagonists to life in a steadily stronger crescendo of the tragic and fortuitous experiences of two lives that are, at first, on grimly divergent paths, and, finally, reach a happy convergence that literally strikes the sparks of love in the ashes of Thornfield Hall. For me, the romance of Jane Eyre is, of course, the storybook love of Edward, master of Thornfield, and Jane, the governess, but the love story ebbs and flows, and, for me, there is a concurrent theme that is equally satisfying. I am drawn to the stark reality of the separate lives of Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre, and their gritty willingness to endure that reality, even as they yearn and yearn for the improbably better lives that they can profoundly imagine. Right up to very end, they don't know how it's going to turn out. Read more on my blogs: Barley Literate and History: Bottom Lines
Nick of Time (1995)
Where are you going, Daddy?
Contains spoiler. This Johnny Depp/Christopher Walken film is unremarkable in quite a few ways: at least, cinematography, script, acting are on the list . . . But I was drawn to the central theme—the paralyzing horror of Depp's predicament. I think Johnny pretty well covers the range of emotions you'd think everyone would feel in his situation. His desperation seems real. Realistic. Lost. Enervated. Enraged. Galvanized. The unremitting adrenaline, pushing him to act, or run . . . or kill. I was on his side, but I did not want to be him. Almost too dreadful to say it in words: kill, or see his child killed. I waited and watched for his escape, his release, his salvation. I fiercely wonder how I would act in such a raging, tormented dilemma. My salvation, right at the moment, is that I don't have to make the choice. Read more on my blogs: Barley Literate History: Bottom Lines
Ethan Frome (1992)
Love in a cold place...
Based on the novel, Ethan Frome (1911), by Edith Wharton.
I watched the movie, then I read the book, then I watched the movie again (and again), it's easier than reading the book again, but I'm going to do that too. For my taste, the book and the movie are interchangeable. Knowing the ending doesn't reduce the dreadful intensity of this story that gets ever more sad from beginning to end. The love story breaks through the arid shell of real life—oh, so briefly
Ethan (Neeson) wants more, Mattie (Arquette) wants more, the viewer wants more
Every other character in the story seems to, well, not "want" less but be all too righteously satisfied with less. Except for a brief whirl of a dance scene, there are no smiles on the faces of any of the other characters who live dried up lives, and disdain the spark of love and life in Ethan and Mattie. Doubtless, the town folk see a pitiless moral lesson in the damaged life of Ethan Frome and the love he must keep stuffed inside him. I see a man and a woman who share forbidden love, but don't know what to do about it, and grotesquely fail to snuff it out. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate
The Long Walk Home (1990)
The carpool is the message....
This is the kind of movie that makes you want to cry—not because you watched the movie, but because what you're watching really happened. I didn't live in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955
.didn't know about the bus boycott at the time. Shame on most of the white folks who are accurately portrayed in "The Long Walk Home," the racist citizens who complained at their dinner parties that "the ni__ers don't want to work" while their black maids were serving dinner. And much too tardy and much too inadequate praise for the other white folks who are accurately portrayed, the ones who felt the injustice, a little bit or a lot, that framed their everyday lives, living with their black neighbors in Montgomery. This is a message movie, plain and simple. Sissy and Whoopi are the messengers, plain and simple. They know what they're doing and they send the message to the viewer, straight from the shoulder, right between the eyes. It all seems very calm, except for the one, not-too-violent crowd violence scene at the carpool intersection—frankly, it's a bit awkwardly choreographed, but the denouement is satisfying. Sissy, rather incredibly, tells her domineering, bigoted, abusive husband to stuff himself at the very end. Good message, but not too realistic from a white 1950s housewife in Montgomery, Alabama. But Sissy is the other strong character—Sissy is on the right side of the bus boycott, and she sticks her neck out a lot more than Whoopi's maid character does. There is dreadful truth, and heroism, in "The Long Walk Home." Read more on my blog: Barley Literate
Dracula (1931)
"nobody looks like a vampire anymore".....
"Over the years all these vampire movies have come out and nobody looks like a vampire anymore." Johnny Depp
Most of the time, vampires aren't my thing, although I loved "Interview With A Vampire," the movie and the book. Anne Rice does vampire. Johnny Depp ain't my thing, either, pretty much, although I confess that I've watched "Edward Scissorhands" repeatedly. And I guess pirates aren't my thing, pretty much, either....
But --- "...nobody looks like a vampire anymore"? That's deep truth.
You want vampire? First, you have to read Dracula. Bram Stoker did vampire the right way. You want a white-knuckle "chase scene"? Try chasing Dracula by stagecoach through the mountains back to his castle in Transylvania....
Then you should watch "Nosferatu" (1922) if you want to do this thing right.
Then you have to see the 1931 version of the "Dracula" movies.
Then you have to put Bela Lugosi's poster picture on your wall. Keep looking at it.
Then you can watch the 1992 "Dracula" with Gary Oldman.
Put his poster on the wall. Stare at that one for a while.
Now you're ready to talk vampire talk.
and by the way, I didn't like "Dark Shadows," there are lots of good reasons why the film never made it to the hit parade....for one thing, it doesn't have any Transylvanian stagecoaches, duh.... Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
Emperor of the North Pole (1973)
"...but you didn't have the heart!"
"Emperor of the North" is an heroic film. They don't make too many like this one. If you plan to watch it, do yourself a favor: plan to watch it twice. Watch it once so you get the picture: a tramp named A-No. 1 (Marvin) is a devil-may-care legendary figure in the hobo camps. He teaches a thing or three to the inexperienced Cigaret (Carradine). He challenges the thuggish railroad policeman, Shack (Borgnine), there's a supremely brutal fight on a rolling flatcar, the best 'bo wins, he finally rides Shack's "No. 19" to Portland, and, you guessed it, A-No. 1 is the king of the road. Sounds like a few of the "B" movies you've seen over the years? All routinely imaginable stuff, but Marvin's imperial performance stirs the imagination. Watch it again. Watch Mr. Marvin show you everything you ever wanted to know about classic heroism of the spirit. See him surpassing his impoverished circumstances to enjoy a rich life, embracing independence, rugged optimism, casually competent leadership, generous mentoring, and the dauntless strength of a Viking in mortal combat. Finally, A-No. 1 abandons the feckless Cigaret. "You had the juice, kid, but you didn't have the heart!" A-No. 1 rides off, northward, soaring, in high majesty, singing his victory. American hobo. American hero. Emperor of the North.
Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
A Doll's House (1973)
"Millions of women..."
If you're a fan of Ibsen's stark, unforgiving play, you'll love this film.
Both play and film have the same undercurrent of desperation. Hopkins as Torvald Helmer faultlessly offers bland, devastating condescension to Claire Bloom as Nora, whose despair grows ever more public as she realizes that she has drowned herself in the domestic dead-end of being Torvald's "doll-wife."
If you ache, like me, to bash Torvald and comfort Nora as you watch the pervasive and thinly veiled brutality in the Helmer household, then you, like me, must realize how much you wish it could be unimaginable in any way
.but in vain
.
Nora tells her husband that she had hoped he would take the blame for her transgression, and the disdainful Torvald rebukes her: "
one doesn't sacrifice one's honor for love's sake."
Nora replies with quiet thunder: "Millions of women have done so."
Enfin, we understand how Nora could be too hurt to cry, and too happy to remain in a doll's house
.
Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
She (1935)
"My kingdom is of the imagination..."
If you've read Haggard's novel it's hard to like this movie version of "She" with much enthusiasm. The movie venue is a polar wasteland, not Africa. Ayesha (She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed) has somewhat mysteriously been alive for only 500 years or so, not for 2,000 years after first stepping into the Flame of Life. Many of Haggard's plot details are casually bowdlerized in this film, and the film characters are cardboard cutout versions of those in the book. Ayesha is a somewhat pallid control freak, not stunningly imperious. Leo Vincey is a mawkish, comic-book style hero who's turned on by the hot queen, not a sensitive, heroic figure who is overwhelmed by Ayesha's irresistible beauty and power. Horace Holly is just a Hollywood supporting actor, with none of the moral power of Haggard's Holly. And finally, the girl ("Tanya" in the film, "Ustane" in the book) is a dime-novel sweetie in the film, naturally she's in love with Leo -- in the movie she stands up for her man with an outthrust chin once or twice, in the book she faces down the dreaded Ayesha and dies for her loyalty to Leo. Mostly the movie is disappointing because the director and the writers abandoned any effort to capture the spell-binding mystery of Ayesha's immortality, and the book's pulsing action and sensual seduction of Leo. For my taste there's just too much 1930s cinematography here: almost every word of dialog is a speech, the scene cuts are clumsy and abrupt, it's much too dark, there's way too much relentless, breathlessly beseeching conversation, too much striding, too much of "take two steps away then stop turn and look back" kind of stuff. Ayesha declares "my kingdom is of the imagination" both in the film and in the book. Too bad you need too much imagination to make the film worth watching. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
The Snow Goose (1971)
Densely emotional, wordless exultation....
This justly famous short story is surprisingly simple in its construction and densely emotional in its impact. There are familiar plot elements: ugly old man meets beautiful young girl, they develop a close relationship. In some ways one is moved to think of Silas Marner, there are both rich and rigid qualities in their love, never consummated, sharply constrained. The eroticism of Rhayader's relationship with the girl, Fritha, is almost totally suppressed but it is bursting out of the story repeatedly before the final scenes. It's like the sensual heat of Girl With A Pearl Earring, deeply heartfelt and almost completely unexpressed. Vermeer painted the girl from life; Rhayader painted his girl from memory, a symbolic reflection of his restrained character and the repressed relationship. The story line of Snow Goose is mostly mundane, Gallico easily sustains a dramatic tension, although the Dunkirk evacuation scenes are almost disembodied, almost a charade with the forced Cockney accents dominating the dialog. Snow Goose is eminently poetic, the ending that every reader can anticipate occurs with realistic sadness and realistic revelation. Fritha feels the words in her heart: "Philip, I love 'ee." The long-patient viewer is finally released to wordless exultation. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
La guerre du feu (1981)
Can you make fire?
The Oscar for Best Makeup is icing on the cake, but let's face it, nobody really knows what your basic early human Cro-Magnon looked like. My delight in this film has nothing to do with makeup. The "moment" in Quest For Fire is Naoh (Everett McGill) watching in epiphanic amazement as a young boy of the Ivaka tribe makes fire with two sticks. Imagine that all your life you've been driving a succession of stolen cars that mysteriously stop running after a while, and you could never figure it out. One day you see a young fella with his Hyundai at one of those places that have pairs of big shiny machines, each with an attached hose and nozzle, and this kid is sticking the nozzle into the recessed pipe over the left rear fender of his car and
. Suddenly you feel like a Cro-Magnon. And the movie is heroic in many ways: tribesmen sacrificing themselves for their fellow early humans, salvation as a reward for good deeds, a love interest that makes a baby and keeps Mom and Dad together, staring at the same moon that you and I see
. And the monosyllabic proto-language is surprisingly easy to decipher, with body language and facial expressions contributing just as much to understanding as they do today. Great low-key adventure film, straight, no chaser. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
Crazy Heart (2009)
It's not about redemption....
Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a genuine country singer that some folks have forgotten.
Technically, I guess, Blake is not a loser: he is a celebrity performer, he has CDs to sell, he can write killer country lyrics, he opens for a hot current star, and he's mostly honest with himself. But he loses: loses his wives, loses touch with his son, lets drinking run him off the road to opportunity, loses his relationship with the woman that, finally, he loves in a way that makes his life livable and worth living
.
It's tempting to say that "Crazy Heart" is a film about the flaws and successes of a man striving for redemption, but I don't really see it that way.
I see Bad Blake as a man who knows what he is, knows what he can be, finally knows what he wants, and ultimately has to accept solitary self- renewal instead of salvation in Jean's arms
.ultimately, and poignantly, he admits to himself and confirms to Jean that all he has left is to live "one day at a time"
..
There is a lot of heart in those words, but a lot of heart has already drained out of them.
Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
Lincoln (2012)
You'll want to see it again
I finally made it to the cinema to see "Lincoln" with Daniel Day-Lewis. It's compelling, I want to see it again. I'm pretty sure you'll be like me, you'll learn more about the 13th Amendment to the Constitution than you ever knew. The amendment is surprisingly concise:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
It was speedily endorsed by the states and was finally approved on December 6, 1865, when Georgia ratified it. It was the first step of Lincoln's plan for "reconstruction" of the South after the Civil War.
Too bad he never had the chance to implement the rest of his program, which would have been considerably more reasonable than the harsh and careless policies adopted by the Radical Republicans after the assassination. A side note about the movie: Wow, it was dark at night in 1865. Gas lamps and candles don't throw much light. It was shadowy indoors after sunset, and, to our modern sensibilities, gloomy. A little creepy
Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
Steal a Pencil for Me (2007)
Unimaginable, believable love story
A believable and deeply touching story of an unimaginable romance that happened in Holland in World War II and bloomed in the horrible camps at Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen. Two Dutch Jews, Jaap Polak and Ina Soep, did what young lovers do, in a sadly minimum way while they endured the terrors of the camps and struggled to stay alive. Their final escape from Bergen-Belsen, on separate trains bound in opposite directions, kept them apart only for a few desperate months. In this deliberately understated film, they dance at their 60th wedding anniversary and recount only as much of their experience as we would want—they maintain some privacy, while celebrating their love over so many years. The best moments for me were in a scene with school children on a family outing at a WWII camp location that remains as a memorial to the dead. Jaap talks plainly to the kids who stand listening, mutely attentive to the old man and perhaps unable to fully grasp the meaning of his words. A mother uses the moment to remind her children that "this man is Jewish, but he is no different from us." Jaap and Ina are old, and they are Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and they are happy now. I don't want to be different from them. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick