Avril Lavigne recently revealed that she is planning to turn her 2002 globe-spanning, Grammy-nominated, pop-punk anthem “Sk8er Boi” into a feature film.1
I’m no advisor to the stars, but she might want to reconsider that creative gamble. The landscape of ‘songs made into movies’ is largely a cinematic wasteland. Sure, the film Yellow Submarine was genius, Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy did decently, and Arthur Penn earned an Oscar nomination for directing Alice’s Restaurant, even if the film was a box office flop. But, outliers aside, the 80+ films in the genre represent a hodgepodge of ‘never heard of it’ and ‘wished I hadn’t watched it.’
Unfortunately, the 2020 billiards movie Hard Luck Love Song only adds to the genre’s detritus.
Helmed by first-time director Justin Corsbie, Hard Luck Love Song is based on the 2006 folk song “Just Like Old Times” by American songwriter Todd Snider. Told in the first person, the song is the story of a pool hustler and a hooker, who having not seen one another in years, get reconnected when he sees an ad for her services in the weekly Scene. Little of the hustler’s backstory is revealed, except that he “won a tournament last week in Oklahoma City” and “hustled half of this town tonight.”
In Mr. Corsbie’s film, Jesse (Michael Dorman) is a struggling country music singer/songwriter, who is finally able to put a little cash in his pocket after overtly hustling some California locals in pool. Warned, but feeling confident, he registers for a tournament on the wrong side of town, which pits him against the heavily tattooed neighborhood chieftain Rollo (an unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney). Rather than settling for just the tournament’s pot, Jesse hustles Rollo for an additional $2000 and then narrowly escapes.
Back in his motel room and flush with cash, the movie now picks up where the song starts:
There’s a Coke machine glowin’ through the parking lot
Call it a room with a view
Best night of pool that I ever shot
I made a lot of money too
Enter Carla (Sophia Bush), the aforementioned prostitute. Jesse and Carla have real chemistry, and for a hot moment, the song/movie really works. But, after their rendezvous is interrupted by a police officer, who learns these crazy kids went to high school together in 1982, the song ends, and so does any coherence in the movie.
A third act introduces Eric Roberts as an avuncular bar proprietor and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA as a former boyfriend, but basically it’s a bunch of insipid dialogue that leads to a completely preposterous fight scene, in which Rollo proves pool hustling is no way to make a living.
There is also no further pool-playing, which makes me question the classification of Hard Luck Love Song as a billiards movie, but given the lackluster pool scenes in the film’s first act, it’s probably just as well. Seriously, I’ve seen Kelly Bundy more convincingly portray pool hustling in Married… with Childrenthan what passes for billiards in this movie. There are no styled shots, no set-ups, not even the de rigueur trick shot. When Rollo remarks that he’s never seen someone run a table like Jesse has, it makes you wonder what version of Skittle Pool he’s been playing.2
For a better (albeit hardly great) billiards movie originating from a song, check out The Baron and the Kid, based on Johnny Cash’s 1980 song, “The Baron.” While predictable and paper-thin, the film takes its billiards seriously (thanks, in no small part, to the technical advising of Mike Massey).
Hard Luck Love Song is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
2.According to Dr. Dave Alciatore, the pros break and run in 8-ball between 20-50% of the time. Seems mighty peculiar our friend Rollo had never seen a run.
Dude Perfect may sound like the name of a frat-bro Venice beach cover band, but the moniker belies one of the world’s foremost sports content marketing juggernauts. Consisting of five former Texas A&M college roommates, Dude Perfect has created an eponymous YouTube channel with more than 57 million subscribers. Those numbers make it the second most popular sports YouTube channel and the 21st overall most subscribed YouTube channel.
Since launching in 2009 and shortly thereafter setting the Guinness world record for the longest basketball shot after shooting from the third deck of the Aggies football field, they have produced videos consisting of various sports trick shots, stunts, and battles, and in turn, have amassed more than 14.2 billion views (and 14 Guinness records).
Many celebrities have starred in the Dude Perfect videos, including Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers, Phoenix Sun Chris Paul, Australian ten-pin bowler Jason Belmonte, actor Paul Rudd, country singer Tim McGraw, beach volleyball star Morgan Beck, NASCAR drivers Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and tennis player Serena Williams.
Not surprisingly, that star-studded guest list also includes world-renowned billiards trick shot artist Florian “Venom” Kohler, who appeared with the Dude Perfect quintet in “Pool Trick Shots” (December 2014) and again in “Pool Trick Shots 2” (February 2017).
Mr. Kohler is himself a bit of a YouTube wunderkind. His jaw-dropping trick shots, which often involve ball jumping, massé-ing with multiple cues simultaneously, executing jump and massé shots on moving balls, and executing very high jumps, are mesmerizing. In a world where less than one percent of all YouTube videos exceed 100,000 views, Mr. Kohler’s posts, such as “Sexy Bikini Trick Shots” and “Sexy Pool Trick Shots” (featuring his wife Iana), have generated 14 million and 22 million views, respectively.
But, when you marry Mr. Kohler’s billiards mastery with the global reach and antics of Dude Perfect, it takes trick shots to a whole different level.
“Pool Trick Shots”
Mr. Kohler’s first appearance on Dude Perfect feels like a match made in high-fiving, fist-bumping, bro-hugging heaven. For fans of his milieu, the episode provides the opportunity to expand his viewership by 4-5x, while making shots that are creatively named, albeit somewhat familiar. They include the Curling Coffin Corner, the Beard Trimmer, the Jumbo Curve, and the aptly-named “Cody [Jones] + Ty[ler Toney] Trust Shot,” in which Mr. Kohler jumps a ball off the table into a clay target that is precariously nestled just below Cody and Ty’s genitals.
Whereas other Dude Perfect videos often feature the famous five performing the athletic feats, this webisode largely celebrates Mr. Kohler’s accomplishments, though the guys do make some impressive shots, including hitting two billiards balls from opposite directions into opposing corner pockets at the same time.
“Pool Trick Shots” now has 79 million views and is available to watch here.
Pool Trick Shots 2
Twenty-six months after his Dude Perfect debut, Mr. Kohler returned, bigger and ballsier – literally – than before. For starters, the “Trust Shot” from 2014 has been upped, with all five Dude Perfect members putting their nuts in the crosshairs. But that shot is pocket change compared to the Upper Decker Hole in One, in which Mr. Kohler shoots a billiards ball 28 yards out from a second-floor balcony onto a table, and then hits a second ball into that airborne ball pocketing it into a first floor golf hole.
Once again, the bro-clan celebrates every shot like they won the lottery. They make a few of their own creative shots, such as shooting a billiards-ball-tipped arrow onto a table, where it caroms three balls into three pockets; or, dressing up like a giant panda, slap shot a puck from one table on to another table, where it hits a ball into a pocket.
The webisode’s grand finale is the “Ty Trust Shot,” a shot so complex it’s hard to explain, but I will try. Mr. Kohler bounces a cue ball off a rail, hits that ball mid-air into a vertical trampoline, causing the ball to leap over the first table, when it then bounces off a rail on a second table and subsequently shatters a sugar glass perched atop of Ty’s head.
“Pool Trick Shots 2,” now with 81 million views, is available to watch here.
In 2010, Roy C. Booth, a prolific writer of fiction, fantasy and horror, as well as a poet, journalist, and playwright with 57 published stage plays, turned his attention to movie directing and made the 20-minute short billiards film The Day Lufberry Won It All.
Created on an estimated budget of $300, the movie feels like an amateur, inferior mash-up of the Australian dystopian billiards movie Hard Knuckle and the classic The Twilight Zone episode “A Game of Pool.”Hard Knuckle was pretty bad, and this is much worse; it’s not in the same universe as The Twilight Zone, but few billiards episodes are.
Yet, for all the terrible acting, stilted dialogue, and crude special effects, the film also feels wonderfully indifferent to its audience, as if it were not made to be watched by anyone but an exclusive group of scientifictionists and comic buffs (as well as local friends from Bemidji, Minnesota) who appreciate its literary code and are privy to its inside joke.
The Day Lufberry Won It All takes place ten years after an unspecified event “scorched the earth beyond recognition,” leaving the strong to inherit the planet and those without tradeable skills to perish. Books are the new currency, reflecting a forgotten time. Across this bleak landscape walks Lufberry, a hippyish cross between Donald Sutherland and The Fonz. He can outrun a helmeted hooligan, negotiate with a lacrosse-stick wielding bandit, and refuse the seductions of the local streetwalkers. But, most important, he brandishes a cue stick.
Lufberry’s peregrination takes him to a nameless basement bar, where he can trade two of his books for a chance to hustle pool. But, this is no Book of Eli. The unfamiliar books he offers include The Plea of Apollisian (about a child who “will be born to the fallen mistress of mercy”) by Shane Walker; Feminine Wiles (a 16-tale anthology of “ladies of darkness, women of horror, sisters of the night”) by John Grover; a book imprinted with a Heuer Publishing logo; and most important, The Monster Within Idea (a collection of stories about “monsters born of the human mind”) by R. Thomas Riley.
Here is where the encoded back slaps and head nods abound. For starters, one of the stories from The Monster Within Idea is “The Day Lufberry Won It All.” Mr. Riley also co-authored the novel Diaphanous with Mr. Booth. And who better to leave a review of Diaphanous than Feminine Wiles author John Grover? Shane Walker writes the Abyss Walker series, which was expected to feature a forthcoming short story from Mr. Booth called “Privateer: The Maiden Voyage.” As for Heuer Publishing? They are a century-old publishing house serving the educational and community theater markets. Oh yeah, they also have published seven of Mr. Booth’s plays.
Moving beyond the choice book sampling, Mr. Riley also plays the aforementioned “helmeted hooligan,” who should not be confused with the “lacrosse bandit,” played by the director Mr. Booth. And if that’s not sufficiently familial, then keep an eye open for Mr. Booth’s wife and three children, all who also appear as part of the supporting cast!
Now, back at the bar, things get very weird as a nattily dressed patron named Garth Deon initially challenges Lufberry to a “race to five, alternate breaks on shots, no time limits, foul on all balls, one timeout per rack, with a one game sudden death tiebreaker.” But, Garth then suggests they spice it up by having the winner get the other’s “chi, neshamah, soul.” Garth talks in outdated slang, using phrases like “ain’t that groovy,” “joshing,” “easy peasy,” and “fair and square.” Lufberry seems unfazed by both the colloquialisms and the life-or-death wager, but awestruck by Garth’s “uncanny, uncommonly good” playing. I found that hard to swallow. The only thing uncanny is how bad is the pool-playing as well as the multiple unimaginative pool-pocketing montages.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it involves the revelation that Garth Deon is an anagram of “THE DRAGON,” and there is a guy named Saint Michael who has a vested interest in the outcome of the match.
Finally, I want to extend a huge thank you to Mitch Berntson, the producer and cinematographer of The Day Lufberry Won It All. After my attempts to locate the movie online failed, I reached out to Mr. Booth, who put me in touch with Mr. Berntson. He graciously offered to go through old drives to locate the film and burn a copy for me.
Almost 7000 miles away, the billiards market is booming in Korea, as recently reported by the Seoul Daily News. About 16 percent of the population enjoys playing the sport, especially various versions of carom billiards, such as three-cushion, pocketball and sagu.1
Sang Lee, who moved from Korea to New York at the age of 33, was dubbed the “Michael Jordan of three-cushion billiards” in the ‘90s, winning 12 consecutive United States Billiard Association National Three-Cushion Championships as well as the Three-Cushion World Cup-Champion in 1993.
Other Korean players, while not yet household names, have ascended in the ranks, including “Little Devil Girl” Kim Ga-young, Kim Haeng-jik, Jae-Ho Cho, Cha Yu-ram, and Cambodian-born Sruong Pheavy.2 Kim Kyung-roul was another up-and-coming master, until he tragically died falling out of his apartment window at the age of 34.
Given the sport’s increasing popularity and rising young stars, it’s not surprising to see a wide array of Korean movies and television shows, ranging from cartoons to reality shows to dramas, featuring billiards. Most I’ve watched; one continues to elude my grasp; all present a panoply of billiards viewing, both good and bad.
Cue
The earliest example I’ve discovered of billiards on celluloid in Korea is the 1996 drama Cue. Incredibly little is known about the film, except that it focused on “personal and professional jealousies in the high-stakes world of competitive pool, in which a female player seeks to become champion after the long-reigning champ is defeated.” Cue is not even listed on the IMDB filmography for the movie’s lead actor Lee Deok-Hwa. If you have any information on this movie, please share with me.
Bernard – “Billiards”
Known as Backkom in its native South Korea, the South Korean-Spanish-France computer animated television Bernard series centers on a curious polar bear named Bernard, whose bumbling slapstick antics typically result in the bear being knocked unconscious or being severely injured by the end of an episode.
In the “Billiards” episode, which aired sometime between 2006 and 2012, Bernard competes in a game of nine-ball against his lizard pal Zack. Bernard has a strong break and some modicum of talent, but he’s no match for his lacertilian opponent. His attempts to sabotage Zack’s game appear to work until Bernard slips on a discarded ball, banging his head on the side table, and falling unconscious. The episode is available to watch here.
High Kick 3: Revenge of the Short Legged – “Episode 40”
The South Korean sitcom, High Kick 3, aired from September 2011 to March 2012. In those seven months, there were 123 episodes, including “Episode 40,” in which Kang Seung Yun declares himself an unbeatable “pool genius,” a “pool god…born with a pool stick in his hand.” Unconvinced, Dr. Yoon Gye Sang, a “master of studying,” challenges Seung Yun, proffering that anyone can play pool based on understanding the science and reading the books. He avers, “A smart person who understands the equation can possibly do better with less practice.”
Their classmates choose sides and place bets, with the loser owing the winner a chicken dinner. As it turns out, Seung Yun shoots a mean game of three-cushion billiards. Dr. Yoon, not so much. After blabbering calculations about the average number of shots required and commenting on the “tripod grip” for maximum effect, he scratches on the first shot, and it’s all downhill from there. Episode 40 is available to watch here.
Long Inside Angle Shot
In 2014, the New York Asian Film Festival, widely revered for its showings of many first-and-only screenings of Eastern Asian and Southeast Asian cinema, premiered Long Inside Angle Shot from Korea’s Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival.
Released in 2012, the film focuses on a middle-aged woman who seemingly does nothing but watch sagu, a variant of four-ball billiards, on the television. Initially believing she does not even understand the sport, her son Tae-bong realizes this is more than a passive hobby of hers when she reveals to him she has drained his bank account to purchase a new billiards hall. The impetus for the idea was a dream she had in which a Buddhist monk played billiards with a wooden cane.
Unfortunately, the dream didn’t include customers, and tensions mount with the pair’s increasing poverty. But, Tae-bong’s disbelief and rage is put in check after his mother challenges him to a game of sagu, and he appreciates that her TV-watching intensity is matched by her incredible billiards acumen. She not only makes a beautiful masse shot, but also the titular long inside angle shot.
The movie is available to watch below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eTJCQr_NaQ
Drama Stage – “Not Played”
Lasting four seasons, Drama Stage was a South Korean weekly television program that featured ten one-act dramas per season. The first season included the 2018 episode “Not Played” about a woman in her 60s (Won Mi Kyung) who, having spent her life caring for children and housekeeping, accidentally stumbles across a part-time job at a billiard hall and discovers her talent for the sport.
Initially apprehensive, she begins to secretly practice three-cushion billiards in the after hours, and watches tournament footage to improve her fundamentals. When the hall’s proprietor learns of her innate skills, he trains her and encourages her to go all-in. Soon, she is competing against local sharks and, to the dismay of her husband, considering entering a tournament.
I give a lot of originality points to the premise of this episode. Not a lot of billiards shows feature women; none star sexagenerians, though ironically the sagu-playing mother of Long Inside Angle Shot was probably pretty close in age. “Not Played” also avoids all the standard tropes of hustling, barrooms, trick shots, down-and-out players, and chooses instead to focus on an individual who discovers a newfound passion late in her life.
Unfortunately, YouTube’s closed caption auto-translate subtitles were pretty muddled, so most of the dialogue was lost in translation. You can watch the full episode below.
Sixball
My favorite billiards film to come out of South Korea is Sixball, which was released in May 2020. This feature-length film from director Chae Ki-jun focuses on Sung-hoon (Lee Dae-han), a one-time aspiring professional billiards player whose dreams were shattered (and hand was broken) after getting cheated in a game of sixball by the gangster Mr. Yong (Hong Dal-pyo). As Sung-hoon is eventually lured back to billiards by his friend, who promises him the opportunity to make easy money betting in doubles billiards, he also finds himself with the perfect revenge opportunity, if he can survive his ultimate billiards match.
While the plot is formulaic, Sixball works because it energetically doubles-down on certain high-octane elements, such as elegant straight rail carom billiards matches, a menacing and villainous adversary, layers of voyeurism and fetishism of women, and a riveting climactic match with one jaw-dropper of a shot. You can read my full review here.
L.O.Λ.E STORY: INSIDE OUT – “Ready, Cue! Pocket Billiard”
Rounding out the septet is L.O.Λ.E STORY: INSIDE OUT, a new variety web series that portrays a more humble side to JR, Aron, Baekho, Minhyun, and Ren, the five members of the South Korean boy band NU’EST.
The fifth webisode is “Ready, Cue! Pocket Billiard,” which aired in June 2021. It already has 85,000 views and more than 8,000 likes, but I found it beyond painful to watch (though I recognize I’m hardly the target demographic). In Ready, Cue!… the five musicians meet in a billiards hall. Initially they attempt to play carom billiards, but quickly give up and switch tables to play eight-ball. However, each of the players is worse than the next, so there is an insufferable litany of misses, scratches, miscues, often replayed with sound effects. There is a twist toward the end as Minhyun starts making his shots, making the others question if he was hustling them. But, I was more concerned with how many more minutes of this series I needed to endure. You can watch the full episode here.
With a teeth-clenching finale, the Los Angeles Rams edged out the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20, bringing a blue-and-yellow confetti-drenched close to Super Bowl LVI. The game was truly historical, and not just because Sean McVay was the youngest coach to win the coveted trophy or quarterback Joe Burrow got sacked seven times. History was made off the field, as advertisers paid an average of $6.5 million for a 30-second spot; some spots allegedly sold for almost $7 million.[1] Maybe it’s worth it. According to Nielsen, 27%-50% of the 100 million viewers prefer the commercials to the game.
Regrettably, billiards had only a fleeting cameo this year when professional golfer Brooks Koepka put down the cue stick to pick up the bowling ball in Michelob Ultra’s “Welcome to Superior Bowl” campaign. (In comparison, billiards was a prominent player in Super Bowl XXXV during Dentyne’s CGI-heavy “Pool Hall”commercial, as well as Super Bowl XLVIII, when Bob Dylan casually played pool toward the end of Chrysler’s two-minute spot.)
Brooks Kopeka (Michelob Ultra, “Welcome to Superior Bowl”)
Billiards may have been absent from this weekend’s big game, but the sport has been a mainstay of commercials across the globe for many years, as I have shared in my previous blog posts, Top 10 Billiards Breaks and Another Top 10 Billiards Commercial List. So, as a salute to the advertising record-breakers, I present One More Top 10 Billiards Commercial List, complete with 10 billiards commercials from around-the-world that are entirely different from those cited on my other two lists. Let the Clio ceremony begin!
10. Trebor Softmints.In 1984, Jimmy White not only won the Masters snooker tournament, and the World Doubles Championships with his partner Alex Higgins, but he also starred in an advertisement for England’s famous “minty bit stronger” confectionery Trebor Softmints. In this particular commercial, “The Whirlwind” hastily clears the table on his opponent Tornado Thompson because the snooker match is the only obstacle in the way of his next Softmint.
9. Roshan.At first glance, this 2012 “Pool Hall”commercial is hardly list-worthy. It features a quintet of friends amiably and not so successfully playing snooker. But the commercial is for Roshan, the largest telecom provider in Afghanistan. That makes “Pool Table” the first Afghan artifact I have encountered showing billiards on the screen. And, it’s an impressive turnaround for the sport, given a decade before the commercial aired, snooker was banned by the Taliban.
8. Cream Silk.Shanelle Loraine is arguably the Anna Kournikova of billiards; if not for her incredible looks, nobody would be talking about her. Consider the facts: in 2010, Unilever turned to this “Billiards Champion” (!?) to market the “beauty and power” of its hair conditioner in this commercial, though her tournament earnings were just $315 that year and her position on the AZB leaderboard was 1,288. Maybe that’s why the commercial ends with a cheap-o trick shot.
7. Goldfish Epic Crunch Nacho.Like Oddjob crushing the golf ball in Goldfinger, so too does Epic Crunch Nacho, our goldfish-headed superhero, prove his strength and “powerful crunch” by interrupting a friendly pool match to crush an eight-ball with his bare hand. Created by Young & Rubicam, this 2019 “Billiards” commercialmay have won over salty snack lovers, but it left billiards fans howling in protest about the poor sportsmanship, never mind the impact it had on our heroine Pretzel.
6. Rolex.Any advertisement that includes the iconic scene from The Color of Money when Paul Newman sees his reflection in the two-ball and forfeits the semifinal match is going to make this list. The fact that Rolex beautifully showcased not only this scene, but also clips from 18 other films, such as Network, Speed, Titanic, Selma, and Apocalypse Now, in its 2017 “Celebrating Cinema” commercial, is truly mesmerizing and impressive. The common denominator? All the featured characters are wearing Rolexes, many as a personal choice, rather than a PR stunt.[2]
5. Bud Light.By my count, Budweiser has created seven commercials that prominently showcase billiards, including the Reserve Copper Lager ad mentioned further down in this list. The 1995“Pool Table”commercial, which followed up the ground-breaking “Ladies Night” commercial from 1993, features a quartet of men, dressed as women, competing in a Ladies Night Finals of Pool to win Bud Light. As Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town” belts from the jukebox, the drag queens dazzle onlookers with their masse, draw, and trick shots, even if some are not fully convinced of their overall qualifications.
4. Venus and Mars.Following the success of Band on the Run, Paul McCartney and the Wings released their 1975 album, Venus and Mars, with its album cover photograph of two billiards balls depicting the nearby planets. The album reached #1 in the United States, a feat perhaps aided by a 60-second television commercialof the Wings members playing snooker, acting goofy and singing songs from the album, including the popular single “Listen to What the Man Said.” The advertisement, directed by Karel Reisz, who would later get an Oscar nomination for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, had been assumed lost, but Sir McCartney pulled it from the vaults as part of the 2014 re-release of Venus and Mars
3. Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager.Originally created for Super Bowl LIII, but then shelved so it could premier during the Oscars a few months later, the 2019“Hold My Beer”commercial stars all-around badass Charlize Theron humiliating a series of men in various bar sports. Set to Run DMC’s “Tricky,” Theron singlehandedly – and by that, I further mean she competes with a single hand since her other hand holds a frothy Bud (as opposed to having only one hand a la her Fury Road character Furiosa) – whups her opponents in billiards, darts, and arm wrestling.
2. Lincoln Nautilus.After filming The Lincoln Lawyer in 2011, it was only natural for Matthew McConaughey to become Lincoln’s pitchman, appearing in numerous commercials for the auto manufacturer since 2014. One ad from 2019featured McConaughey stepping away from his dinner guests to make a trick billiards shot in which the object ball weaves between other balls. The idea was that like the table shot, the Nautilus driver can keep control thanks to advanced driver aids. If you think that comparison is a stretch, you likely have good company. Fortunately, Lincoln released a subsequenttwo-minute adon Facebook, this time with professional trick shot artist Steve Markle, who “demonstrates” specific aspects of Lincoln’s Co-Pilot 360 Technology (e.g., Lane Keeping System, Post Collision Braking) through a series of birds eye-viewed beautiful trick shots. Talk about pool is cool.
1. MANSCAPED Lawn Mower. Commercials don’t get more outré or laugh-out-loud than this 2021“Pool Table” commercial, with the opening line, “We need to talk about your balls.” Over a thick jazzy bass line, the narrating snooker player asks the hard questions, such as, “Are [your balls] smooth or covered in bits of annoying fluff?” He then shows his (snooker) balls, which “glisten in the light,” while offering a modicum of hope to viewers that their balls can be similar, assuming they use the right tools (no weed-whackers, blowtorches, or cheese graters). The commercial’s final note of optimism is a potted shot, while the narrator warns us, “When it comes to balls you don’t want to muck about.” Cue the YouTube fan base.
Bottom line: if an unknown team like the Cincinnati Bengals can make it to the Super Bowl, then anything can happen during the world’s greatest gridiron game. So why not a few more billiard-themed commercials in the future and give billiards, perhaps the greatest underdog sport, a chance at stardom?
A recent study found that the average human attention span is now just eight seconds. This is reportedly one second less than the attention span of a goldfish.1
Maybe that’s not surprising, given the rising popularity of YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, Clash videos, and of course TikTok, which has now surpassed one billion monthly active users. With only 58% of viewers committing to watching even a one-minute video in its entirety, short-form is where it’s at.2
Fortunately, film seems relatively inoculated to these trends. Average full-length movies still hover at the sub-120 minute run time, and average short films clock around 20 minutes.
Nonetheless, while I know my reading audience has an attention span far more evolved than our freshwater friend, I imagine you would not turn a cold cheek to some rapid-fire billiards movie-watching, all things considered. So, tune in – temporarily – and buckle up. Here are Five Films in Fifteen Minutes.
Pool Pool
If you’re a fan of sketch comedy, such as the “Van Hammersly” billiards skit by Bob Odenkirk from Mr. Show, then you’ll enjoy Pool Pool. Created by the Canadian duo Adam (Brodie) & Dave (Derewlany), Pool Pool is a farcical three-minute interview from 2008 for (the unreal) Unreel Sports #11 on the new sport of aquatic billiards, aka Pool Pool. As the Lord brothers, Adam and Dave blather on about the sport, from the origins of its name (an attempt to clarify the confusion around the nomenclature of the non-aquatic game of “pool”) to its uncustomary rules (e.g., “no intentional tilting,” “no titanicing”). In swim caps and floaties, the Lord brothers also highlight the game’s decorum, such as all “profanity is submerged.” By the time you get to the Pool Sharks ‘Battle of the Brothers,’ hosted by the International World Aquatic Billiard Federation, I dare you to stop smiling. Pool Pool is available to watch here.
Balls
While studying animation and visual effects at New York’s School of Visual Arts, Jennifer Fahey released in 2021 her short film Balls about a cocky and pretentious bar patron who is unsuccessfully practicing for an upcoming billiards tournament. His skills are obviously lacking, but the film’s humor is that the cue ball also won’t cooperate. It passes literally through the rack, rather than breaking the balls; it misses shots; and as the patron’s frustration mounts, it bounces recklessly throughout the bar on a flight path that shatters glasses, a neon sign, and eventually Grandma’s vintage lamp. Watching and documenting the pandemonium is the silent bartender, whose face contorts further with exasperation and disgust after every missed shot and accompanying grunt. The film’s coup de grâce is the bartender using a broomstick as a cue to pocket all the balls in a single shot, followed by presenting the patron with a bill for the damage that includes $15,000 of emotional distress. Balls is available to watch here.
Black Ball
In 2012, Canadian high school student Peter Lilly created the three-minute film, Black Ball, to submit to Your Film Festival, an online film festival aimed at YouTubers and backed by a-list director Ridley Scott. The movie begins on a battlefield, littered with dead bodies. We watch a lone, gas-masked soldier attempt to outfight an invisible enemy. The soldier is mortally wounded and finds himself transplanted to an underworld location where he must play Death in a game of pool. (For the record, the highly enjoyable and somewhat thematically similar anime film Death Billiards came out the following year.) Against an eerie, operatic soundtrack, the soldier and Death take turns shooting the balls, until only the black ball remains. Death pockets the ball, and our soldier dies, defeated. The film is available to watch here.
Among the Stars
At the age of 21, Michael Mike Canon created the two-plus-minute film Among the Stars. The 2013 film pits the cue ball against the other billiards balls in a battle for the baize. There are no actors, no dialogue. There are not even cue sticks. Just balls in motion, getting pocketed to unidentified classical music. Aside from the musical choreography, it’s pretty uninteresting, and other billiards short films (e.g., Killer Cueball; A Game of Pool) have better explored this theme. Fortunately, Among the Stars did not stymie Canon’s career. Several years later, his short film When a Flame Stands Still raked in a slew of awards. Among the Stars is available to watch here.
Pool
Finally, there is the 2014 sub-three minute Belgian film Pool, directed by Oscar Westrup. Candidly, this one is a bit hard to review since it’s entirely in Dutch (with no YouTube subtitle options). But, the plot looks fairly standard. Two hotheads enter a bar and start threatening the waitress, asking for “the boss.” She attempts to dismiss them, but they are not budging. The waitress’ boyfriend intervenes and challenges them to a game of pool. (I’m guessing the wager is, “If I win, you leave.”) The hooligans play an okay game, but they’re no match for the boyfriend, who proceeds to run the table. When it looks like the boyfriend will win, the two thugs resort to violence, and are properly whupped by the boyfriend. Game over, film over, review over. Pool is available to watch here.
Top of the Heap is truly the bottom of the barrel.
Granted, I only watched “Behind the Eight Ball,” the series’ third episode that aired in April, 1991. But, there is a reason this Married… with Children spinoff only lasted seven episodes. It’s comedic dregs, sitcom sludge, the sort of show even a laugh track finds humorless.
Top of the Heap focuses on the attempts of Charlie Verducci (Joseph Bologna) and his son Vinnie (Matt LeBlanc)—to get rich. Charlie’s “master plan” is for Vinnie to marry into a wealthy family; to this end, the father-son duo tries to break into high society, which includes Vinnie getting a job at a country club and Charlie pining for the club’s manager Alixandra Stone (Rita Moreno).
(How Mr. LeBlanc ever rebounded from this dumpster fire to join the cast of Friends three years later and ultimately earn $1 million per episode defies explanation.)
In “Behind the Eight Ball,” Charlie is concerned that Alixandra may have eyes for Warren Prado, a wealthy new club member, so Charlie tries to hustle him in a game of nineball. However, after witnessing someone call the man “Godfather” and kiss his hand, he quickly starts to backpedal, fearing for his life and “spelling help in [his] underwear.”
The acting is robotic, and the jokes are cringeworthy, but there are few highlights worth mentioning. Joey Lauren Adams plays Vinnie’s high school-aged neighbor (two years before her first major role in Dazed and Confused); Christina Applegate, reprising her Kelly Bundy role, appears for continuity’s sake; and two former Playboy models, Heather Parkhurst and a 24-year-old Pamela Anderson, show up to… show off. There are also two enjoyable trick shots, including one (seen here) that entails hitting five balls into four pockets with one shot.
But it’s hard to muster a smile amidst the egregious billiards inaccuracies, such as when the cue ball is ricocheted into a nearby aquarium and then miraculously appears on the table in the next shot. Or, in a game of nine-ball, when Charlie’s opponent sinks the nine with the cue, while leaving the two on the table (?!).
William Finnegan, The “Godfather of Pool”
It’s hardly a spoiler, but Mr. Prado turns out not to be that kind of godfather, but rather just some bub’s male sponsor. Of course, this got me thinking: what is the relation between billiards and criminal godfathers? Or, even better, between billiards and The Godfather?
For starters, several players have adopted the nickname “The Godfather,” including Taiwan’s Zhuang Zhiyuan and the Phillipines’ Aristeo “Putch” Puyat. Readers of my blog may also recall Steinway-Café Billiards regular William Finnegan, the self-proclaimed “Godfather of Pool,” who has appeared in multiple billiards reality shows, including The Hustlers, the “Emily” episode of In A Man’s World, and Kiss of Death.
Though none of these individuals appear connected to the mafia, the game of billiards has on occasion been associated with illegal activity, specifically gambling. So much so that in the 1920s, the Illinois Billiards Association was committed to keeping crime and booze out of billiards halls, as part of their “clean billiards crusade.” And before Johnny Torrio built the Chicago Outfit and turned loose his protégé Al Capone, he got his start in crime by opening a local pool hall in New York, where he ran an illegal gambling operation. More recently, Gerald Huber recounts many “war stories” of billiards, gambling, and mobsters in his autobiography The Green Felt Jungle.
Unfortunately, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola chose to ignore the underworld billiards connection in writing and directing The Godfather movies.
Andy Garcia looking bored in “The Godfather III”
While plenty of gangster films have noteworthy billiards scenes (e.g, Mean Streets; The Krays; The Departed), the only billiards scene in Mr. Coppola’s trilogy is an unmemorable dialogue in The Godfather III between Connie Corleone (Talia Shire) and her nephew Vincent (Andy Garcia), while he is playing pool.
That’s a shame, given the iconic Hearst Estate mansion that was used in The Godfather as the home of movie producer Jack Woltz included a 32-foot-high billiards room.
It’s not like the Corleones – or at least, the actors who played them – didn’t know how to shoot billiards.
Marlon Brando in “Viva Zapata”
Twenty years before Marlon Brando became the Don, he was playing pool off set with his Viva Zapata co-star Anthony Quinn. So too did Robert DeNiro, the younger Vito of The Godfather II. He was quite happy at the table, as seen in The Deer Hunter.
Sonny Corleone’s gangster career may have been short-lived, but actor James Caan moved forward, picking up a cue stick one year later in Cinderella Liberty and then again – on horseback! – in Another Man, Another Chance. And, the incoming godfather, Al Pacino, makes one of the best “magic time” shots in eightball a decade later as Carlito Brigante in Carlito’s Way.
As for Fredo…poor Fredo. He wanted to be at the top of heap, but he took sides against the family and truly wound up behind the eight ball.
The “Behind the Eight Ball” episode of Top of the Heap is available to watch on Crackle.
Earlier this year, English game show host Tom O’Connor sadly passed. One of the shows he hosted, though it never aired, was Pick Pockets, which paired traditional trivia with snooker and featured top players.
Today, it’s beyond fanciful to imagine a game show dedicated to billiards. Especially in the US, no players are household names. Ask most people about billiards and they’ll stare confusedly at you. To my knowledge, Jeopardy! was the last game show to feature billiards. That was in 2014 with the elementary Pool Shots category.
But, while modern game shows have not been kind to billiards, TV game show history tells a more complicated story that echoes the rising and receding popularity of our favorite cue sport.
The first billiards-themed game show was ABC’s Ten-Twenty, which aired in 1959 and lasted approximately 13 weeks. Conceived by billiards evangelist and promoter Frank Oliva, Ten-Twenty was intended to bring pool out of the murky pool halls. Quite the challenge as this was still two years before both the movie The Hustler popularized the sport and the brothers Jansco organized the first Johnston City Hustler Jamborees.
Ten-Twenty pitted top players of the era, such as “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore and Irving “The Deacon” Crane, against one another in games compressed for 30-minute television watching intervals. Though Ten-Twenty was hardly a national success, the fact itever aired is downright impressive.
The first billiards tie-in that I could find occurred one year earlier, when World Straight Pool Champion Willie Mosconi appeared on To Tell the Truth in 1958. Mosconi subsequently appeared on I’ve Got a Secret (1962) and What’s My Line? (1962), in which celebrity panelists questioned contestants to determine their occupations. Perhaps, it was a harbinger of the future that none of the panelists successfully guessed Mosconi’s job.
Other billiards players similarly appeared on these celebrity panel shows, including a six-year-old Jean Balukason I’ve Got a Secret in 1966, but the next big step in the billiards-themed medium was Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros in 1967, followed by the more successful Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats in 1968. Fats, the quintessential showman and impresario, was the perfect host for a game show in which he entertained audiences by playing celebrities for charity. The game show ran for four seasons, and starred a who’s-who of the era’s A-listers.
But, by the early ‘70s, America’s appetite had waned. Indeed, it took 16 years before another billiards game show appeared. This time it was in the UK, where snooker was truly catching fire, as evidenced by 18 million TV viewers watching the 1985 World Snooker Championship. In 1984, the Stuart Hall hosted quiz show Pot the Question launched. Contestants were paired up with a snooker player, and the points per question were determined by what the snooker player potted.
Surprisingly, Pot the Question only lasted one season. The aforementioned Pick Pockets was the next attempt to cash in on snooker’s popularity, but that too failed. It took a few more years before the BBC’s Big Break nailed the formula, launching by far the most popular billiards-themed game show, with 222 episodes across 11 seasons.
Hosted by off-color comedian Jim Davidson and former snooker player John Virgo, Big Break paired three contestants with three professional snooker players in a series of rounds that combined trivia and snooker play. Many of the snooker giants of the era – e.g., Dennis Taylor, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, and Allison Fisher — appeared on Big Break.
Back in the US, billiards was back in the shadows. The sport had disappeared from game shows, with 2002 being the one outlier. That year, in the “Billiards for Gross Eats”episode of Fear Factor, contestants were given a cue ball to sink four balls in five shots. The missed balls had pictures of the gastronomic horrors they would have to eat. In the “Beat the Shark”episode of Dog Eat Dog, a contestant competed against a billiards professional to sink four balls before he cleared two tables. It didn’t help that the opponent was Dave “The Ginger Wizard” Pearson, who set the Guinness World Record by potting two consecutive racks of 15 pool balls in 82 seconds.
In 2005, what many hoped would provide an industry resurgence proved to be the final nail in the coffin. That game show was Ballbreakers. Executive produced by Mars Callahan, director of Poolhall Junkies, and featuring commentary by Ewa Mataya Laurance, the show consisted of contestants competing in 9-ball for a chance to win $20,000. Intended to be the “coolest pool show ever,” according to its creator, Ballbreakers was an unmitigated disaster, lasting only one season and proving there is no joy watching amateur players compete in 9-ball.
Assuming Jeopardy! emerges from its current PR apocalypse and begin its 38th season, I have a suggestion – or more precisely, an answer — for whomever replaces Mike Richard as executive producer.
This sport, often maligned and portrayed unfairly in popular culture, is overdue for some recognition.
Answer: What is Billiards?
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This article first appeared in BCA Insider, BCA Holiday Issue, November 1, 2021.
In popular culture, billiards is lamentably often narrowly associated with hustling, gambling, seediness and squalor. From the earliest billiards movie, Bad Boy, to the genre’s most recent addition, Sixball, these themes run frequent and deep. Yet, the metaphoric application of billiards can be so much broader, as its imagery and language far transcend these limited tropes.
Robert R. Craven, a professor at New Hampshire College, hit on this in his 1980 essay, “Billiards, Pool, and Snooker Terms in Everyday Use.” He noted the sheer number of colloquialisms – e.g., behind the eightball; call the shots – that are used in general discourse, presumably by an audience that is far larger than the number who play pool. These phrases have become metaphorical, existing beyond the poolroom.
While exceptions to the rule, some movies have sidestepped these historic stereotypes to use billiards as an opportunity for the discussion of larger themes. Martin Lawrence’s exposition from Boomerang on how billiards represents our racist society is a classic and humorous example. “The white ball dominates everything…and the game is over when the white ball drives the black ball completely off the table…it’s the white man’s fear of the sexual potency of the black man’s balls.”
Across the annals of lesser-known billiards movies and short films, there are other exemplifications. The “Game of Pool” episode of The Twilight Zone (1961), as well as the anime short film Death Billiards (2013), both tackles issues of fate and mortality through an individual pool match. Toby Younis’ short film Pool and Life (2011) uses the game of pool as a metaphor for overcoming the obstacles that life places in front of you. Louis-Jack’s short film Petrichor (2020) masterfully leverages snooker to discuss mental health.
To this list, we can add the 2017 Armenian short film Unknown Life. A trailer of the movie is available here.
Directed by Rusanna Danielian, a prolific filmmaker who has directed 48 short movies since 2014 and has not yet even turned 40, Unknown Life focuses on Adam, who has something very strange occur on his 50th birthday. While he is waiting for his computer to reboot, his three strongest personality traits come to life and opt to decide his fate over a game of Russian billiards. Adam’s internal snooker match represents the critical decisions we make in life, in which there is mental arm-wrestling among the rationalist (who lives/works for the future), the worrier (who holds on to the past), and the dreamer (who wants to enjoy the present).
In a Facebook Messenger exchange, Ms. Danielian explained to me why she chose to use a snooker as metaphor.
In the film’s reality, it is only one man playing billiards against himself. But in the fantasy world, the game takes place between three of his dominant character traits…Depending on who has the better argument in their conversation…determines who] gets a ball in. That was the concept around the billiard game I came up with to show which one of his character traits “wins” the game in a metaphorical way and decides about his life on a psychological level.
Also my protagonist stands for a man who has reached a lot of success in his life, but isn’t feeling “happy.” So the pool table stands also for his status as it is something that normally only rich people have in their house. And the fact that he has all of that, but nobody next to him to share it all with, shows that striving for success is probably not the right goal in life.
To capture the intellectual battle among the personalities, Ms. Danielian effectively used a green screen to shoot Adam, played by Aleksandr Khachatryan, in the three different roles and then layered him on so he appears to be engaging with himself. (I believe this is a billiards movie first!)
Unknown Life was filmed in Armenian, though the private copy Ms. Danielian shared with me had English sub-titles. Unfortunately, the translation was a bit stilted, so some of the nuance of the dialogue was lost. Moreover, the actual snooker-playing was pretty terrible.
Nonetheless, Unknown Life is worth the watch for its creative filmmaking and simply for daring to think differently about the application of snooker and how the game can be used to unearth interesting psychological questions.
Sports biopics are a staple of Hollywood. They run the gamut from ultra-popular sports, such as football (e.g., Remember the Titans; Invincible), basketball (e.g., Glory Road; Hoosiers), and baseball (e.g., 42; Price of the Yankees) to those far more niche, such as horse racing (e.g., Seabiscuit), surfing (e.g., Soul Surfer), and ski jumping (e.g., Eddie the Eagle).
You guessed it. There are no billiards biopics.
Fortunately, over the years, a variety of companies have stepped in to honor some of the greats of the sport with short documentaries. Though these films vary considerably in production quality and entertainment value, they all deserve some praise for attempting to preserve on-screen the legends of the baize.
Years ago, I wrote about the 2013 Sky Sports Productions documentary, The Strickland Story, focused on Earl Strickland, as well as the Probe Profile on Efren Reyes. Today, I’ll turn my attention to Willie Mosconi, Willie Hoppe, and Shane Van Boeing, each the subject of a billiard short film. Also, in a future blog post, I’ll jump across the channel and review the documentaries on snooker stars Alex Higgins (Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion) and Ali Carter (Ali Carter: The Unbreakable).
A Pete Smith Specialty: The Mosconi Story
At 1621 Vine Street, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, there is a star honoring Pete Smith, an Oscar-winning American producer and narrator of short subject films. Between 1931 and 1955, Mr. Smith made more than 150 movies that covered everything from household hints to insect life to military training. The majority, however, were short comedic documentaries that he narrated. This includes one of his final films, The Mosconi Story, about the life of perhaps the greatest pool player in history, “Mr. Pocket Billiards” William Joseph Mosconi. It is available to watch here.
Created in 1952, this 10-minute film is a reenactment of Mr. Mosconi’s life, starting when “Little Wille” would skip his violin lessons to practice billiards at Joe Mosconi’s Billiards Parlor using a sawed-off broom handle and potatoes. By age 7, Mr. Mosconi was traveling, doing exhibitions. His career climbed quickly, eventually taking him to the Worlds Pocket Billiards Championship on six occasions. But, he did not win any of those matches.
Most of The Mosconi Story takes places In 1941, when Mr. Mosconi opted to give it one more try. With a child on the way, his billiards career was headed either for the “championship or the want ads.” As billiards historians know well, he made it to the finals to compete against three time world champion Andrew Ponzi, one of the “real greats of the day, the craftiest player in the game.”
Neck and neck with Mr. Ponzi, Mr. Mosconi’s game is interrupted by a telegram telling him that his baby boy, Willie Jr., had arrived early. That announcement gives Mr. Mosconi the confidence to attempt a five-cushion rail shot. He makes the shot, winning 125-124, and becomes the world champion. It was a feat he would repeat many times.
Columbia Pictures presents the Willie Hoppe Story
Released in 1954, The Willie Hoppe Story is a nine-minute mash-up of documentary and exhibition. The first 60 seconds is biographic, a whirlwind time travel from 1896, when Mr. Hoppe began playing billiards at the age of eight, to the present (1954), when a 66-year-old Mr. Hoppe starts showing off his three-cushion carom billiards skills at the world-renowned New York Athletic Club. It is available to watch here.
First, he dispatches with his opponent, New York professional billiards champion Edward Lee. Then, he demonstrates the essentials of billiards, such as the proper grip and techniques for creating spin. Finally, he brings the real magic, showing off more than 20 eye-popping, three-cushion (or more) carom billiards shots, including a nine-cushion shot.
Narrator Bill Stern, who thirty years later would join the inaugural class of the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame, can barely contain his euphoria watching the shots made by the “wizard of the cue, the king of the cushion, Willie Hoppe.” He proclaims that Mr. Hoppe is “no professor of billiards, he’s a professor of English [spin],” and he describes one shot that navigates 25 bowling pins on the table as a “Sunday driver going to the picnic grounds.”
Shane Van Boeing – The South Dakota Kid
Given the number of billiards titles, championships and accolades accumulated by Rapid City’s Shane Van Boeing, it’s no wonder South Dakota Public Broadcasting produced this eight-minute segment in 2014 for its Dakota Life series focused on “interesting South Dakota people, places, and things.” You can watch it here.
Mr. Van Boeing was only 31 years old in 2014, but he was already a six-time US Open champion, the 2008 doubles world champion, a two-time all around champion, a seven-time Mosconi Cup member, and the “current #1 pool player in the US.” (His accomplishments have only further proliferated in the past seven years.)
Shane Van Boeing initially takes a fairly standard approach to his life. He grew up in a pool-playing family, sitting in the baby chair watching pool and then getting his first table at age two from his grandfather. Soon he was participating in trick shot exhibitions.
But rather than continuing down memory lane and charting Mr. Van Boeing’s path to turning pro in 2006, Shane Van Boeing instead chooses to narrowly focus on his hearing impairment, with his mother, Timi Bloomberg, describing how she realized when Shane was 16 months old that he was almost totally deaf. She describes being very careful that her son not get labeled as “handicapped,” insisting that he surrounds himself with “speaking people” to “function normal.”
Mr. Van Boeing elaborates, saying he was bullied in school for his hearing impairment, but when he played pool, it was a different world where he didn’t have to worry about that. He says he really learned to communicate in the pool room – “this is where I got my better communication.”
Incredulously, Mr. Van Boeing says some opponents have derided his impairment as an “advantage,” indicating it’s “not fair” that he isn’t distracted by external sounds. His retort: “put in earplugs, you’ll be just like me.”
In a wonderful closing note, he shares how he wants to be a role model for the hearing impaired. Kids can look up to him and think “I don’t have to be handicapped. I can utilize my disability to have ability in other areas.”
I’m no advisor to the stars, but she might want to reconsider that creative gamble. The landscape of ‘songs made into movies’ is largely a cinematic wasteland. Sure, the film Yellow Submarine was genius, Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy did decently, and Arthur Penn earned an Oscar nomination for directing Alice’s Restaurant, even if the film was a box office flop. But, outliers aside, the 80+ films in the genre represent a hodgepodge of ‘never heard of it’ and ‘wished I hadn’t watched it.’
A third act introduces Eric Roberts as an avuncular bar proprietor and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA as a former boyfriend, but basically it’s a bunch of insipid dialogue that leads to a completely preposterous fight scene, in which Rollo proves pool hustling is no way to make a living.
