Almost a year ago, I wrote about three short animated billiards films I had discovered:  New York Billiards, an evocative film that traces the path of a billiards ball as it crosses the New York skyline; Inglourious Billiards, a visually bold film that pits two pool opponents against one another to win a woman’s affection; and Fresh Grass, an unclassifiable film about unworldly beings who are resuscitated when a bar patron feeds them billiards balls.

Since that post, I’ve discovered three more billiards animated films – Detours, Scratch, and Killer Cueball – each thematically similar to some degree with one of the trinity members from my original post.

Detours

Similar to Thyra Thorn’s New York Billiards in which the peregrination of a billiards ball creates the dramatic narrative for a wordless film, Nico Bonomolo’s 2014 Italian short film follows the path of an eight-ball across geographies and time. Starting on a traditional pool table, the eight-ball travels through a window into a dog’s mouth, which brings it onto a ship, of which it rolls off into a fishing boat, where it is then ice-packed with fish, where it is then loaded onto a plane, which sadly crashes in a desert, where it is recovered by a local boy, who grows up with it and ultimately gives it to someone on a train, who loses it, so it can wend its way through the streets, only to eventually be recovered by a soldier.

If this sounds like a billiards version of Flat Stanley, you wouldn’t be totally off, though what makes Detours remarkable is the three-minute film is based on animating 900 different frames of hand-painted paintings by Mr. Bonomolo. The film is available to watch here.

Scratch

Much the way animator João Cardoletto spent three years creating Inglourious Billiards as part of a final project for a 2D course, student Sean Coleman spent 10 months in 2008 making his animated film Scratch as his senior thesis at the Southwest University of Visual Arts. Both movies feature two billiards players – one slender and wormish, the other short and ovoid – competing for a prize. And, both feature an array of trick shots. Notably, in Scratch, the egg-shaped adversary makes most of his shorts while jumping in the air, as he is too short to otherwise reach the table.

But, the primary difference between the films is the players’ raison d’être. Whereas in Inglourious Billiards, the bounty is the woman, in Scratch the prize is the ever-growing pot of money. Behind the clever and light-hearted animation is the greatest trope in billiards films: the hustle.  Too bad our Humpty Dumpty-shaped friend appears not to have watched such movies, as his early winnings are quickly reversed when his opponent morphs into a pool shark. Scratch is available to watch here.

Killer Cueball

Rounding out the trio is Paul Carty’s 2013 3D short film, Killer Cueball. Similar to Ida Greenberg’s Fresh Grass, Mr. Carty’s source material is based on the anthropomorphizing of billiards objects, specifically the cue ball and the one- through nine-balls.

Imagine a cue ball that has been “pushed, kicked and scratched, jumped, shot, even had cigarettes put out on him… you can only take so much.”  That life of abuse causes this particular spheroid to snap, transforming into an orange-mohawked cue ball, with an unfortunately Asian caricatured countenance.

Seeking revenge against his nonet of tormentors, he attacks each ball, saving the worst punishment for the 9-ball, which is chased into a Pac-Man maze. But, his ploy backfires when the maze portal leads to the chute of a coin-operated pool table and he is summarily rejected. Labeled “bad”, the cue ball plummets to a hellhole where a spherical-headed devil that plays guitar on a pitchforked cue stick oversees the Devil Ball Tournament (“if you’re here, you’ve already lost”).

But, before playing commences, the other balls, risking shape and life, daringly rescue our protagonist from an infernal fate. Past tensions are mended, and a stadium of solids and stripes welcomes back the cue ball with signs such as “We Forgive Cue” and “Cue-T-Pie.” Killer Cueball is available to watch here.