In the world of billiards trick shots, few are as jaw-dropping than Florian “Venom” Kohler’s signature massé-ing with multiple cues or Andy “Magic Man” Segal’s famous “The Pendulum” or Bogdan “The Wizard” Wolkowski’s “The Bottle Shot.”
But, I’m pretty sure none of these magicians could recreate the “50 balls to create a word” shot that comprises one-fifth of the trick shot competition in the 1985 Hong Kong billiards movie Equals Against Devils (original title: Huo ping lang zi), which was also released with the English title The Desperate Prodigal. In this trick shot, opponents must shoot and stick a series of balls onto an adhesive surface about 30 feet away to create a word (or a letter).
Of course, the shot is ridiculous (and only made using some crude on-screen computer graphics), but then again, everything is in this low-budget, b-rated film from director, writer, and leading actor Roc (Peng) Tien.
The plot (and that is being generous) of Equals Against Devils is that a wealthy man, Black Sinner, who once had his hand chopped off after beating his opponent, White Cloud, in a pool tournament, enlists a rising pool prodigy in his master plan to extract revenge and win $500,000 from White Cloud in a 150-point billiards tournament.
That prodigy is Alan, who we first meet hustling pool in a local parlor, with Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” (aka the theme to Rocky) playing in the background. Alan is a soft-spoken player, who lives with his three orphaned friends and is so penurious that when he first visits Black Sinner, Alan requests permission to walk on the rug, having never seen one.
Black Sinner befriends Alan, promising him food, wealth and three months of pool lessons in order to beat White Cloud. Black Sinner’s plan works, which then causes the humiliated White Cloud to devise his own series of revenge schemes. First, he hires Chicken, a white leisure suit wearing hitman, who sports a Bjorn Borg headband and suffers from exotropia, to kill Alan. That idea fails, so he then recruits Sally, a buxom, pin-up who hustles Alan into playing pool for a $15,000 diamond ring. Turns out Sally is a pool shark, but this plan collapses as well, when one of Alan’s associates swaps out the diamond for a fake.
Finally, he sets up a doubles trick shot billiards competition, in which Alan and Black Sinner will compete against White Cloud and a billiards pro named Biyashi. This is arguably the most imaginative part of the movie, even if the pool-playing is completely fake. The first of the five shots involves aiming balls at light bulbs to break them. The second is the aforementioned lexical shot. The third is a variation of William Tell’s famous archery feat, but in this case, it entails knocking a billiards ball into a light bulb atop a person’s head. The penultimate shot involves shooting balls into bells. And the final shot requires the player to massé the cue ball through a series of bottles and land precisely in the middle of a small circle.
Alas, Black Sinner and Alan win the competition, which prompts White Cloud to get old-school with his retaliatory tactics. [SPOILER ALERT!] First, he guns down Black Sinner at his mansion, and then he blows up Alan’s car. But, even that idea backfires, as Alan emerges from the debris, looking like an extra in a George Romero film, and, now (suddenly) an expert marksman, proceeds to assassinate White Cloud and all of his henchmen.
Given this film’s appallingly bad billiards animation, and the over-dubbed sound effects (to emulate the pocketing of the balls), as well as the terrible acting and inane dialogue, I think the real “sinner” in Equals Against Devils is director/writer/actor Roc Tien, for forcing his audience to endure this dreck.
Equals Against Devils is available to rent or buy on DVD. I’m not sure why.
For many pool players of the silver screen, the game of billiards is a metaphoric path to freedom, whether financial, emotional, or spiritual. Consider Kailey, from Turn the River, who must reluctantly play one-ball to win enough money to rescue and flee with her son. Or Sarah Collins, the down-and-out single parent from Kiss Shot, who decides that pool hustling is the only route to winning $3000 and saving her house. Or Harry, the Hard Knuckle nomad who will bet his fingers (literally) in a game of pool to reclaim his old motorbike and leave behind his dystopian existence. The list goes on and on.
To this lot, we should add Jakob ‘Jaeckie Zucker’ Zuckermann (Henry Hübchen), the eponymous star of Go for Zucker (original title: Alles auf Zucker!), a 2004 German-made, Jewish comedy about an unlucky journalist whose motto “New game, new chances,” has steered him into a world of financial debt. His only possible salvation: the European Pool Classics tournament with a 100,000 euro prize for the winner.
As we quickly learn from flashbacks, Jaeckie is a pool hustler and gambler whose sad-sack, indebted lifestyle has him one stroke away from his wife divorcing him, the police arresting him, and the bank shutting down his night club for twelve months of missed payments. His misery is compounded when he learns via telegram that his mother has died, and that he must sit for Shiva (a week-long mourning period), which necessitates reconciling with his estranged Jewish brother and conspiring with his goyish wife to act Jewish (i.e., keep kosher, host Shabbat), lest he forfeit an undisclosed portion of the inheritance. Sitting for Shiva, however, will prove impossible if Jaeckie is to compete in the pool tournament.
Cue the comedic lunacy. Ever the hustler, Jaeckie will fake heart attacks, fall onto his dead mother’s coffin, take Ecstasy, lie to the entire family, sneak out of a synagogue on a stretcher handled by fake paramedics, and violate pretty much every aspect of Jewish law, in order to get his shot at the prize money.
Go for Zucker has generated little news among the billiards community since its release. Within the AZ Billiards Forum, the gold standard of billiards chatter, there has been just one message post, and none on the Billiards Digest or Vegas Billiards Buzz forums. The former Billiard Boys billiards movie list, which includes more than a handful of foreign and independent films, didn’t even reference it.
Yet, this is hardly a low-budget, B-rated, made-for-television film. On the contrary, the movie received generally favorable reviews from the mainstream press, four nominations for the European Film Award, and four wins plus six additional nominations for the Deustcher Filmpreis (Germany’s highest film award) in 2005. (As one journalist wrote, “It’s not every day that a comedy about German Jews, told by a non-Jewish writer, depicted by non-Jewish actors and directed toward a non-Jewish audience, succeeds in Germany.”[1] ) The movie has even been written about in a number of books on film, including Strategies of Humor in Post-Unification German Literature, Film, and Other Media and A Companion to German Cinema.
One likely reason for the omission is that Americans aren’t really interested in foreign-made films. In fact, 95% of all films watched by Americans are US films.[2]
Then there is the subject matter. Dani Levy, the film’s Jewish director of German-Swiss origin, said he made the film to try to revive the genre of Jewish comedy, first made famous by Ernest Lubitsch. Perhaps, the notion of using comedy to address the question of Jewish identity in the Berlin republic is not going to resonate among a community that hasn’t had a famous Jewish player since Mike Sigel was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1989.
Finally, the reason may be the billiards, or lack thereof, in Go for Zucker. Within the 95 minutes, there are only a handful of pool-playing scenes, from the opening hustle to the tournament play to the final match occurring outside of the tournament. Nonetheless, as I’ve stated before, an enjoyable billiards movie does not need to feel like InsidePoolTV. That’s the great thing about billiards as a metaphor. What it represents off-screen can be far more compelling than watching a handful of shots made on-screen.
Go for Zucker is widely available to stream, rent, or buy on DVD.
For most billiards players, the greatest health concerns stemming from the game are Repetitive Motion Injuries (RMI) in the hand and wrist area, which are caused by the sudden and repetitious application of force (using the cue stick) on the forearms, wrists and hand areas. But, for the players who haunt the post-apocalyptic outback of Hard Knuckle, a 1987 made-for-television Australian movie, the far greater concern is the “Knuckle Table,” on which a botched shot means the severing of the top third of one’s finger.
Within this cinematic dystopia, Lex Marinos directs Steve Bisley (mildly memorable for appearing as Jim Goose in Mad Max) as Harry, a nomad garbed in sand-beaten clothes, with silly pool ball earrings and a pet Chihuahua. Finally sober, he has returned to an unnamed town to reclaim his old motorbike and sidecar from Top Dog, the local pool champion who is oddly unintimidating given his stature and reputation in the watering hole where he resides.
Harry learns quickly that he can no longer simply challenge Top Dog to a billiards match. Rather, he has two options. His first option is find an agent, who will put up the minimum $2000 in stake-horse money only then to take 80% of the winnings. His second option is to challenge his opponent to a game on the Knuckle Table, which has a nondescript black domino perched atop it. Players must pocket their balls (all 17, marked with a mix of letters, symbols and numbers) without toppling the domino. If the domino falls, then the player must forfeit the top-third of his finger to a blood-crusted set of pincers, hinged to one end of the table. (This is why friends often ask one another, “Show me your hands!”) Fortunately, a player can resume playing, albeit with a distinctively smaller digit.
Opting to avoid the Knuckle Table, Harry recruits Eddie, a 13-year-old urchin, who may in fact be kin, to be his agent, but is still unable to play Top Dog until he works his way to the top. Though Harry beats his immediate opponent, Pedals, an acquaintance from better days, he is subsequently mugged, and his penury forces him to take his billiards-playing on the road to earn some money through hustling.
In one of the few enjoyable scenes, but one that is also a blatant rip-off from The Hustler, Harry pulls into some urban shanty, where he pretends to be hammered and make an “impossible” shot, thereby duping the regulars to bet their savings if he can repeat it, which, of course, he does.
But, Harry’s next attempt to hustle falls short when he pulls into a more upscale bar with near-topless go-go dancers and a white pool table bordered by glow lights. There, an opportunity to play is thwarted by the arrival of Top Dog, who has been shadowing Harry ever since his exodus from the pool hall. Top Dog, however, had also unwittingly insulted the bar proprietor, and for a brief moment, the only satisfactory resolution appears to be a de-fingering on the Knuckle Table.
Financial problems notwithstanding, Harry helps rescue Top Dog, an act of kindness which benefits him later in the movie when the two nemeses finally do have their billiards match, ironically on the Knuckle Table. That game, unfortunately, like so many other parts of this inane film, makes little actual sense, as Harry willingly sacrifices a digit to remove the domino from the table, and then purposefully scratches at the end, ceding the game to Top Dog.
Hard Knuckle seems to be aiming for a Mad Max meets The Hustler vibe. Instead, the post-apocalyptic setting never feels very uninviting or threatening. (Hell, Top Dog is heckled by a kid with a pea-shooter.) And, the billiards lack cinematic quality, suspense or realism. As one blogger noted, even the Knuckle Table, so prominently featured on the movie’s artwork, is only used twice in the film, and both times, the losing player seems to resume the game unaffected. Toward the end of the movie, Harry says, “Are we going to play pool or are we going to piss around?” Yeah, Hard Knuckle provides an answer…and it’s not about playing pool.
After experiencing a significant dry spell, billiards movies and television series are poised to make a resounding comeback, starting in 2015. Just last week, the Twitterverse lit up like a glowstick with the announcement that the anime short film Death Billiards would be released in 2015 as a TV anime series entitled Death Parade. David Barroso has been working feverishly to bring his billiards crime drama 8-Ball to the film festival circuit in 2015. Documentarian Angel Levine is aiming to bring her seven-year film opus, Raising the Hustler, to Sundance in 2015. And, across the ocean, director Oliver Crocker is hoping his new snooker film, Extended Rest, will hit screens in 2015.
Best of all, for billiards cinephiles, it might be an extended honeymoon. In 2016, pool movie-lovers should brace themselves for the fingers-crossed release of Ride the 9, a hardcore billiards film from director/producer Blake West and actor/executive producer Jordan Marder. Many may remember first hearing about Ride the 9 back in 2011, when the film’s two-minute teaser, complete with killer soundtrack, gritty New Orleans set locations, and jaw-dropping trick shots courtesy of Florian “Venom” Kohler, first made the YouTube rounds.
Billiards fans were salivating everywhere, posting comments that were some variation of the following: “OMG, I would watch this in a heartbeat.” For the next two years, aficionados regularly monitored the film’s preproduction. But, starting July 2013, the film’s principals became relatively radio-silent, and it looked like Ride the 9 could become “the great film that never was.”
Well, thank the pool gods, Mr. West and Mr. Marder are back, with a passion, commitment, improved story, and better financing to help Ride the 9 crash-land onto the silver screen. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. West and Mr. Marder a few weeks ago, and am now 10 times more jazzed for the film’s eventual release.
For starters, these guys – especially Mr. Marder – have pool in the blood. Proving the suggestive power of the medium of film, Mr. Marder was first introduced to pool around the age of 14 by watching The Color of Money and The Hustler, which then led him to spend the next decade lurking in Bronx pool halls, where he “challenged every guy in 9-ball…and lost constantly.” Eventually, he got “sucked into pool” and experienced enough “sketchy situations” to have the resolve not to make Ride the 9 about the underbelly of billiards, but rather about the sport’s heroics.
According to Mr. West, the exact origin for Ride the 9 was a pool game five years ago in New Orleans at Le Bon Temps Roule. (Author’s Note: this is the same Magazine Street watering hole where I honed my pool game for many years. Thumbs up.) “I had just safetied Jordan, when he did an incredible masse shot to sink the 8 ball. Seeing he was such a good player, we decided we needed to do a pool movie,” explained Mr. West.
The basic story of Ride the 9 is that Ethan (Jordan Marder), a pool hustling prodigy who mysteriously disappeared a decade ago, suddenly shows up in New Orleans seeking redemption, only to find an insidious sociopath hell bent on revenge. The title refers to the lingo used in 9-ball when a player goes for the high-risk, high-reward shot of caroming a ball into the 9-ball for a win, rather than trying to run the balls in low-to-high sequential order. Thus, “riding the nine” can be associated with desperation. Or, as Mr. Marder explains, “Riding the nine is about taking chances…learning to go for it without being reckless. That’s the lesson of the film.”
But, the reason behind my titillation is less the story, and more the intersection of three core elements at the heart of great billiards movies: the billiards-playing, the locale, and the music.
Mr. Marder assured me that audiences will see as much pool-playing in Ride the 9 as they saw in The Color of Money. (In other words, a helluva lot pool!) Though the film is “not about pool, pool is integral to the story…it’s the glue.” That’s one of the reasons he reached out early to Florian Kohler. The innovative trick shot legend was happy to help by doubling as Ethan for some key shots. Though Mr. Kohler won’t have a big role in the film, he will be involved in the final tournament sequence, and hopefully will serve as a technical advisor, as well. Other pool players will also make cameos, though none are yet booked, as the film will be “a nod to people who know pool,” according to Mr. West. Added Mr. Marder, “I don’t want any pool player to say that’s not right. We want real authenticity.”
As the idea for the film was birthed in New Orleans, Mr. Marder and Mr. West have decided to film the rest of the movie in the Crescent City, too (and even have named one of their characters Big Easy). This makes it only the second billiards movie in the last 35 years, behind The Baltimore Bullet, a terribly made billiards movie with a high profile cast, to use New Orleans as a primary venue. According to Mr. West, the “story was born there. New Orleans has the gritty feeling we’re going for. Its soul is from New Orleans.” (Ironically, though, the bulk of the pool sequences were shot at Buffalo Billiards in Metairie, the suburban, antiseptic neighbor to New Orleans.)
And then there is the music. Mr. Marder has said that using great music is critical for the movie. If the use of “Young Men Dead” by the Black Angels, a psychedelic rock band from Austin, in the teaser is any indication, then we should expect a film propelled by an explosive soundtrack.
Still, 2016 is a long way away, and the duo are candid that while they have generated some significant equity to produce a film with a $1-2million budget, and not some “super indy film,” there are still a lot of things that have to go right. As Mr. Marder shared, “our dream scenario is to be in pre-production in early 2015, shooting late spring and early summer, then the joy of post-production, [in order for the]movie to be distributed in mid-2016.”
That’s our dream as well.
To stay engaged in the progress of Ride the 9, you can go to the film’s website or follow Jordan Marder (@jordansmarder) and Blake West (@blakewest) on Twitter.
What is it about a pool hall that seems to instigate unbridled paroxysms of rage, extended periods of bedlam, and brutal bouts of barbarity, at least in the imaginations of filmmakers, screenwriters and producers?
Scene from Gangster High (2006)
In their defense, the linkage is not totally unfounded. In a five-year study done by the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the researchers found that “bar characteristics that are related to the occurrence of violence included: smokiness, noise, temperature, dirt, darkness, crowding, poor ventilation, the presence of competitive games (e.g., darts, pool), bouncers, and more male than female employees.”[1] On the other hand, a more recent study from 2012 revealed that among the “hot spots” for barroom aggression, the pool-playing area accounted for just 4% of the incidents of violence, as opposed to on or near the dance floor (31%), at the bar (16%), or at tables (13%).[2]
Yes, there’s a scintilla of veracity underlying the pool hall free-for-all, but it’s hardly significant enough to warrant all the attention it generates on the silver screen. Nonetheless, movies abound with pool hall pandemonium. Perhaps, it’s the butcherly utility embodied in a cue stick, 59 inches of tapered wood, that can be used to whack, jab, puncture, impale, skewer, bonk or bludgeon. Or, maybe it’s the spherical perfection of a billiards ball, hardened with a phenolic resin, that invite the amateur pugilist to wield it for all sorts of sanguinary purposes.
In any event, if there’s a pool table in a movie (especially one that is otherwise not about billiards), it’s likely going to be ground zero for some kind of mayhem and melee. Thus, I present the TOP 10 BILLIARDS BRAWLS of all time. Let the countdown begin:
10. Out for Justice. In this 1991 thriller, Steven Seagal plays a Brooklyn cop hell-bent on revenge after his best friend is murdered. Part of tracking down the killer involves frequenting a pool hall where the local patrons are not forthcoming with essential information. This prompts Seagal to unleash the whup-ass, starting with a towel-wrapped cue ball, followed by some (cue) stick fighting and a pool table judo takedown.
9. Velvet Smooth. The blaxploitation era of the 1970s produced many landmark films and iconic characters, including Superfly, Coffy, and Shaft. But, Velvet Smooth (played by Johnnie Hill) would not even crack the top 100. This 1976 low-budget dud has some of the worst choreographed fighting to appear in Technicolor. And while the billiards scene is so (unintentionally) bad, it earns a place on my list as one of the few movies to feature a woman meting out a cue stick drubbing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiADJJKG3zY
8. Ninja Holocaust. This little-known, questionably-named, 1985 Hong Kong martial arts spectacle is likely light on plot, dialogue and other film-making indispensables. Still, the brawl that occurs around a snooker table is notable not only for the rapid-fire dispensing of the combatants, but also for the innovative use of a snooker ball as a temporary gag that is ultimately swallowed (?!) right before the ingestor is impaled on the taxidermied horns of some unfortunate ungulate.
7. Dead Presidents. The Hughes Brothers’ 1995 follow-up to their inaugural landmark film Menace II Society didn’t win favor with critics, but the pool hall scene, backed by James Brown’s “The Payback,” has all the visceral wallop of its predecessor. Anthony (Larenz Tate) and Cowboy (Terrence Howard) play a disquieting game of 8-ball that ends with Anthony becomes uncorked and beats Cowboy bloody with a cue stick all over the floor.
6. Force: Five. This 1981 action flick stars Chuck Norris BFF Richard Norton as a martial artist leading a team of martial artists on a rescue mission to save a senator’s daughter. After defeating an opponent in 8-ball, Norton quickly goes Australian-nutso when it appears his opponent will welch on a bet. Like Johnny Boy in Mean Streets, Norton uses the pool table as his playground for round kicking opponents and even makes smart use of a billiards rack to disarm an attacking cue-sticker. How Norton could shoot stick with that throwing star dangling from his neck I’ll never know.
5. The Krays. In the 1960s, Ronald and Reggie Kray were twin crime lords of London. The story of these underworld kingpins was brought to life in this 1990 biopic, starring real-life twins Gary and Martin Kemp. Known for ruthless acts of violence and intimidation, the Krays turned a snooker hall blood-red with their cutlasses in the graphically memorable “Say Thank You” scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhHWIiSOds
4. Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1973 masterpiece about the daily violence of living on the streets of Little Italy should be mandatory viewing, ‘nuff said. That said, the ruckus that ensues when Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) insults the pool hall proprietor is cinematic, hand-held, perfection, with a single camera darting among the pool tables as they become props in a feral, claustrophobic fight sequence that includes Johnny Boy hopping mad onto a table, waving off his attackers with kicks and cue stick. The full scene, choreographed over the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman,” is available to watch below.
3. Rush Hour. In 1998, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan starred as a pair of ill-matched cops, and in the process, launched a film series that collectively grossed about $850 million. In the original installment, Jackie Chan, a stranger to American culture and argot, begins a pool hall conversation with four poorly-chosen words, “What’s up, my nigga?,” thereby igniting a billiards ruction, complete with all the signature Jackie Chan acrobatics audiences love. Hopping over and under tables, parrying with cue sticks, clubbing with cue balls, this scene has it all.
2.Gangster High(original title: Pongryeok-sseokeul). Clocking in at more than seven minutes, the pool hall massacre in this 2006 South Korean film pivots from the hyperkinetic, with cue sticks clashing and feet flying, to the near balletic, with one man avenging his fallen comrade through a gruesome series of pool stick maneuvers. Heightening both the beauty and the tension is the switch to black-and-white, while Mahalia Jackson’s gospel spiritual, “Trouble of the World,” plays over the scene.
1. Carlito’s Way. “It’s magic time. After you see this shot, you’re going to give up your religious beliefs,” says Carlito (Al Pacino) in Brian De Palma’s award-winning 1993 crime drama. Pretending to set up one of his “famous trick shots,” Carlito uses the mirrored sunglasses of his opponent to see the gunman behind him, while he rockets a billiard ball, perched atop a cue chalk, into his opponent’s face. Now that’s a pool hall fight scene and getaway to remember!
So, there’s my Top 10 list of Billiards Brawls. Of course, there are a number of great pool halls skirmishes that didn’t make the list, but are nonetheless worthy of honorable mention, including Hard to Kill (1990), Boondock Saints (1999), Black Dynamite (2009), Trainspotting (1996), Code of Silence (1985), Die Bad (2000, South Korea), and Road House (1989). See a scene that should have made the cut? Let me know what movie would be on your Top 10. Otherwise, stay safe. You never know what might happen to you in a pool hall.
When Poolhall Junkies premiered in 2002, I remember thinking, “Damn! That’s an incredible roster of talent for a billiards movie.” The film starred two former Oscar winners – Rod Steiger (In the Heat of the Night) and Christopher Walken (The Deeer Hunter), as well the incredible Oscar-nominated Chazz Palminteri (Bullets Over Broadway). My excitement was understandably a wee more muted about the casting of Ricky Schroder.
But, if one really wants to experience the who’s-who, one-two wallop of billiards movie casting, then the film to start with is There Are No Thieves in this Village (original title: En este pueblo no hay ladrones), a 1965 Mexican movie about how an impoverished community responds when three billiards balls are stolen from a local saloon.
Created in response to the Mexican STPC film union’s “First Experimental Film Contest,” a competition designed to rejuvenate the struggling Mexican film industry, There Are No Thieves in this Village was the directorial debut (and second prize winner) of Alberto Isaac. The movie is available to watch in its entirety here, but note it is in Spanish and without subtitles.
Shot in black-and-white with minimal budget in only three weeks in Mexico City and Cuautla, the film features a pantheon of modern-day Mexican art and culture intelligentsia. For starters, the movie is based on the identically-named short story written by the hitherto unknown, future Nobel Prize in Literature winning author Gabriel García Márquez, who subsequently had 30 movies made from his stories and novels, including Love in the Time of Cholera. Marquez also appears in There Are No Thieves in this Village, making it the first of only two cinematic appearances in his career.
Also appearing in the film as a local priest is the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who the New York Times referred to in his obituary as “a leader of avant-garde surrealism in his youth and a dominant international movie director half a century later.” Six of his films are listed in Sight & Sound’s 2012 critic’s poll of the 250 films of all time, and three of his films (Tristana; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; and That Obscure Object of Desire) have been nominated for Oscars.
Others in the movie include: film director Arturo Ripstein, who won the prestigious National Prize for Arts and Sciences; artist and iconoclast José Luis Cuevas; esteemed author Juan Rulfo; Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington; cartoonists Ernesto García Cabral and Abel Quezada; and critic and journalist Carlos Monsivaís. All of these future cultural leaders were part of a tight circle of friends kept by director Issac and writer (and future film critic) García Riera.
It is debatable whether There Are No Thieves in this Village is truly a “billiards movie,” as the only billiards in the film occurs in the opening sequence of three-cushion billiards. (For more on this billiards variant, check out the 2005 film Carambola.) In this sense, it is more akin to the 1991 Swedish film A Paradise Without Billiards, which depicts an immigrant’s life in a community that does not play billiards.
In There Are No Thieves in this Village, it is the absence of the balls, resulting from an act of larceny committed by the dim-witted troublemaker Damaso, that causes a community to unravel. Initially, the local denizens find themselves rudderless and without activity. That idleness turns to racist aggression when the community identifies a black man as the culprit of the crime. Damaso, showing no regret or concern for his actions, sits back like a passive spectator, as the black man is first beaten and later sent to sea for his crimes. In fact Damaso, who only took the billiards balls when his felonious efforts turned up no other booty, subsequently even toys with the idea of forming a gang and stealing additional balls as a money-making scheme. It is only when his pregnant wife can no longer contain her guilt by affiliation that Damaso reluctantly attempts to return the billiards balls.1
Watching the movie today, I’d say There Are No Thieves in this Village represents a watershed moment in Mexican film casting (and certainly in billiards movie casting), though the actual film is just of passing interest. I think this one reviewer said it best:
“Every time that I see this movie the result is the same, what were the conditions of the epoch to see such an incredible cast of characters. I haven’t seen another movie with so many artists, at least as important as the artists that appear in this movie… If someone is interested in Mexican culture at that time this film is absolutely a must.”
Thus, as an end to this post, and as a final postscript, let us say R.I.P. to Gabriel García Márquez, who passed away earlier this year in April.
1 My summary may be slightly inaccurate given both the movie and the short story were in Spanish.
Talk about a monte that is just plain jecka. Like sugar, honey, iced, tea. Are you smelling what I’m stepping in?
Actually, I hope you don’t step in it. I hope you run from it.
Because this sort of exaggerated slang is just one of the many problems with the 2005 straight-to-video billiards movie Shooting Gallery (aka Poolhall Prophets). Aspiring to be some mash-up between The Hustler and The Sting, Shooting Gallery tries to generate credibility by overindulging in the argot of pool hustlers and con artists. But, 30% of the lingo is made-up (according to the special feature), and the remaining 70% is so forced, it feels like the director/writer Keoni Waxman was double-dared to make every fifth word some form of billiards slang. Even worse, Waxman lacks the confidence to let the script breathe meaning into the words, and instead resorts to a cheap bit of opening credit hokum by literally showing translations of the jargon (e.g., “on the lemon” = playing bad on purpose; “shortstop” = local player; “cecil” = $100; etc.).
If the pool patois were the only problem in Shooting Gallery, maybe the monte (= movie) would be passable. Unfortunately, the entire 102 minutes is mos def (= most definitely) jecka ( = terrible). Behind the horrible dialogue is nonsensical story about Jericho Hudson (Freddie Prinze Jr, whose acting in this film makes Keanu Reeves appear Oscar-worthy), a street-smart pool player, who falls in with the Tribe, a New Orleans gaggle of hustlers, led by Cue Ball Carl Bridgers (Ving Rhames), a chicken-foot sucking, 8-ball cane-wielding kingpin. Each Tribe member is tattooed with an 8-ball, which makes beaucoup (= lots of) sense, given they are supposed to be incognito 9-ball hustlers.
Jericho quickly rises through the ranks of the Tribe; his success driven by his gift for hustling 9-ball and his ability to say with a straight face craptacular (= awful) dialogue, such as, “I was a hustler with a goal, which would make either happy or dead.” His one weakness seems to be Jezebel Black (Roselyn Sanchez), who “looked like two scoops of ice cream on a warm summer day.” (So that means what exactly…?)
Jericho gets himself into some trouble when he tries to hustle on the side. Jezebel gets herself into some trouble when she can’t pay off her gambling debts to ex-NFL great Bill Romanowksi. People keep getting hustled at the Shooting Gallery, a billiards hall run by Cue Ball Carl and widely and illogically known as a hustler’s paradise. A corrupt cop shows up with a need to set up a 9-ball game against Cue Ball Carl so he can retrieve a video cassette, the maguffin of the film. A coked-up crackshot named Tenderloin Tony appears, but is then killed. Some pool is played, but not that much. More idiotic dialogue is sputtered (“If I’m lying, I’m dying. – Jericho Hudson).
None of this make a lick of sense. Shooting Gallery plays like a string of two-bit hustling clichés strung together by poor acting and middle school dialogue. As I said at the start, this film is sugar, honey, iced, tea (= S.H.I.T.).
Shooting Gallery is widely available to rent or purchase online.
A guy walks into a snooker club. He sees two elderly gentlemen at a nearby table. One of the men is partially sighted, the other largely deaf.
If you’re waiting for the punch line, this is no joke. Quite the contrary, this was part of the impetus behind Oliver Crocker’s decision to make Extended Rest, a new snooker film currently in production, which tells the story of a retired professional player, who tries to make a comeback in his sixties.
It’s been almost 30 years since the British “snooker movie boom,” which included the deplorable Number One (1984), the campy musical Billy Kid and the Green Baize Vampire(1985), and the laudable BBC series Give Us a Break (1983). Since that heyday, some snooker short films (e.g., Snooker (2000)) and the Big Break game show have surfaced, and Hong Kong entered the market with the movie Legend of the Dragon(1991) featuring Jimmy White, and the television series The King of Snooker (2009), but it’s otherwise been a barren cinematic wasteland for the sport of snooker.
Mr. Crocker seeks to change that with Extended Rest, starring Tony Osoba (from the BBC sitcom Porridge, as well as Give Us a Break) as Terry “the Grenade” Kincaid, who returns to the green baize after the death of his wife. Though a lengthy email exchange, Mr. Crocker opened up to me about the origins of the movie, his personal connections to snooker, his good fortune to cast snooker legend Neal Foulds, and his timeline for getting the film in front of audiences. The following are excerpts from that exchange:
Why did you decide to make this movie?
Tony Osoba practicing
“I’ve wanted to make a snooker movie for about 10 years… [Tony Osoba and I] play at the Twickenham Club and we mused to the owners the idea of making a film there and they have been terrific support, out of this world… When you think of some of the all-time great snooker matches, they often play out like a movie script…People are easy to criticize snooker, calling it boring. I think they’re barmy, it’s drama and skill of the highest order.”
What is your personal connection to snooker?
“I’ve watched snooker with my Dad all of my life, both on the telly and live at The Crucible and Wembley…We had a miniature table at home and he would play me as soon as he got home from work, as long as I’d done all my homework. I used to play both of my Grandads too, treasured memories… [I also] have many happy memories at school of playing snooker with my friends.
I was lucky enough to interview both Ali Carter and Jimmy White for the “This Morning” program on ITV (my day job) for our Male Cancer Awareness Week. I’ve interviewed Tom Cruise, Madonna, Jason Statham… but trust me, I was more nervous and excited about meeting Jimmy and Ali – and they were both absolute gentlemen, really good fun, generous with their time and I got to film them both practice, which was a thrill. So snooker is a massive part of my life and I’m grateful for it.”
How much snooker should viewers expect to see?
“There are four matches and a healthy amount of practice sessions. Tony Osoba has been working very hard on his practice. Tony plays every shot in the film himself. We’ve got some great out-takes along the way too. “
How did you get Neal Foulds, who once was the third best snooker player in the world, to appear in Extended Rest?
Oliver Crocker and Neal Foulds
“Tony Osoba and Shirin Taylor (our leading lady) had met working on the BBC’s snooker series Give Us a Break. The snooker coach on this series was Geoff Foulds, Neal’s Dad, who taught Tony how to play snooker, the right stance etc. So I tweeted Neal Foulds one day to tell him about the film. Neal recalled meeting Tony during the filming of Give Us a Break and said that Extended Rest sounded fun. So I asked him if he would consider making a cameo. I sent him the opening twenty minutes of the film, where there is a climactic battle on the baize between Terry Kincaid and Alec Slater. Because this is Terry’s first match against an opponent since retiring, in his head he returns to his glory days of walking out to the sound of applause, after an introduction from an MC and then during the match, he imagines hearing commentary from Foulds.
Neal agreed, and he came down to ITV, where I work, and recorded his commentary. We chatted for ages before we recorded, he is such a friendly guy, great sense of humor and he seemed to like the fact that I knew my stuff about snooker. I had [even] used some of his comments from real matches in the script.”
How long do audiences have to wait until they can see Extended Rest?
“We are filming in four mini blocks…By the end of August, we’ll have filmed half of the film. The opening twenty minutes of the film is complete – all edited, graded and scored…The final filming block is scheduled for November this year, so the release will be 2015, when exactly I don’t know, but it will be exciting to find out!”
Mr. Crocker has called Extended Rest his “love letter to snooker.” Frankly, he had me when the guy walked into the snooker club. We’ve waited 30 years. We can certainly wait another 6-12 months.
To keep up with the progress of Extended Rest, follow the director (@olivercrocker) and the film (@Extended_Rest) on Twitter.
If Legend of the Dragon (Long de chuan ren) sounds more like a Bruce Lee movie than a billiards movie, that is very much intentional. The 1991 Hong Kong film, starring comedian Stephen Chow, is in many ways a paean to the martial artist, though it replaces the hand-to-hand combat with a showdown on the snooker table.
For starters, Legend of the Dragonsounds like the natural sequel to two of Bruce Lee’s most famous films, The Way of the Dragon (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). Stephen Chow (perhaps today better known as the director and star of the hyperkinetic comedies Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer), plays Chow Siu-Lung, who is named after Bruce Lee Siu-Lung. (Stephen Chow is well-known for his cinematic admiration for Bruce Lee, as evidenced in this great clip comparing Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (1972) with Chow’s First of Fury (1991)).
Chow Siu-Lung lives in the small fishing village of Tai O, on the western side of Lantau island in Hong Kong. Much of the land is owned by his father Hung (Yuen Wah), a master of the local kung fu school and a former stunt double for Bruce Lee. While Hung wishes his son would become a disciple of martial arts, Chow is uninterested in martial arts, neglecting his studies and preferring to live simply and naively, whether that is flying kites, goofing around with his childhood friend Mao (Teresa Mo), or playing snooker.
But, Chow’s child-like existence is disrupted when his cousin, Yan (Leung Ka-Yan) from the mainland, returns a favor to Chow’s father by agreeing to show Chow Hong Kong. The “fish out of water” scenes that follow (similar to Bruce Lee’s scenes in Return of the Dragon) showcase the dewy-eyed and under-socialized Chow mesmerized by everything from the buildings to the traffic to sight of women’s breasts (Hong Kong sex symbol Amy Yip in a cameo appearance).
Yan, who is seriously in debt to the local yakuza, has alternate intentions, however, aside from showing his cousin Chow a good time. When Yan fortuitously realizes that Chow is an amazing snooker player, he hatches a plan to bet on Chow’s games. The yakuza catch wind that Yan is stake-horsing Chow. They promise to wipe clean Yan’s debts if Yan can arrange for Hung to bet the deed to his land on a game between Chow and the yakuza’s “hired” snooker player.
The big reveal is that yakuza’s player is none other than Jimmy “The Whirlwind” White, the real six-time world snooker finalist. (Billiard movie aficionados should not be surprised at the casting of a professional pool player as the main nemesis. See Keith McCready in The Color of Money(1986) or Marcello Lotti in Io, Chiara e lo Scuro (1983) for earlier examples.)
Jimmy White may look like a fish out of water in this movie, but regardless, it is billiards-nirvana to watch him on the table, and director Danny Lee gives him plenty of opportunity to show off his incredible masse, spin, and shot-making skills. (His cue-ball manipulation is jaw-dropping.) White quickly trounces Chow, who has been traumatized by the knowledge his cousin has been betting on him.
Fortunately, like many great kung fu films, there is a chance for the hero to redeem himself. In this case, it is a rematch against White in the World Snooker Challenge Cup. The snooker match is initially off to the same ill start, with Chow unable to pocket balls. But, in a deft comedic moment, Chow finds himself with the opportunity to make a truly easy, direct, corner pocket shot. Filmed in slow motion, Chow makes the shot, and his confidence returns. The snooker “combat” then becomes a shot-for-shot slugfest between two evenly matched opponents. Of course, there must be a winner, and with a final shot that combines billiards and karate-like aerodynamics, Chow pockets the final ball, winning the match and the land back for his father.
Legend of the Dragon is available to rent or purchase on DVD.
I will concede that if I were writing or producing a billiards movie, I might consider throwing “8-Ball” or “eight ball” in the title, such as Up Against the 8-Ball or Behind the Eight Ball or even the whimsical 8 Ball Stud. After all, the eight-ball is laden with symbolism, given its inherent neutrality in the battle of solids and stripes, as well as its association with both good and bad, depending on whether it leads to someone’s victory or defeat on the billiards table.
But, to name the movie just 8-Ball? Where’s the originality in that? This is a crowded market folks, and as difficult to believe as it may be, I uncovered five billiards movies and short films called 8-Ball, as well as a couple of non-billiards movies of the same name. Welcome to a world of confusion.
At the top of my watch list is the forthcoming billiards crime drama 8-Ball, starring and executive produced by David Barroso. Mr. Barroso promises the movie will borrow elements, narration, and plot elements from Godfather Part II, GoodFellas, The Usual Suspects, and The Silence of the Lambs. According to the movie’s Twitter feed, it’s now expected to hit theaters this fall. Fortunately, this is the only full-length film with the title 8-Ball.
Less about billiards as sport, and more about billiards as an allegory for life, is the 2007 short film 8 Ball, directed by Inon Shampanier. As Shampanier shared with me, the larger allegory is that “like balls on a pool table, the lives of strangers collide and change course. The film poses questions about the accidental nature of these collisions and the sense of ‘order in the chaos.’”
This seven-minute Australian film, shown as part of the 2012 Aurora Short Film Festival, anthropomorphizes the 8-Ball as an enlightened maverick, fleeing the confines of a pool table to explore the outside world. (“There was nothing these suckers could do to stop me.”) While the concept is interesting, the dialogue is terrible, including the encounter with a female tennis ball. A far better movie that brings pool balls to life is Pool Talk, a two-minute 2009 short film.
8 Ball
This four-minute American film, made some time in 2012 or 2013, has no dialogue, no plot, and sadly, no purpose. Directed by George Monard when he was probably 17 or 18, it features a “dangerous” pool player who is unsuccessful in his intimidation of the other players. A match ensues; he loses, so he shoots his opponent. I didn’t get it either.
Using billiards as a backdrop, this four-minute American film, made a few years ago, was directed by Garrett Gutierrez, while a graduate student at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. It basically features two friends arguing about religion. The project was intentionally constrained to 3 pages, 2 characters, and 1 location.
OK, at this point, cinematic confusion should be setting in. But, now is when it gets really weird…
In 2012, the short film 8-Ball was released in Argentina. Having nothing to do with billiards, the movie is about a man having a personal crisis who seeks solitude in a park, when a passing stranger named 8-Ball takes an unwelcome interest in him. The movie won a host of awards throughout the UK. Apparently, no one thought to question the inanity of the title.
Finally, there is the 2013 full-length Finnish crime film 8-Ball. It is about a single mother who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her life anew. The return of her former boyfriend stirs up a past she preferred to leave behind. I don’t know why it’s called 8-Ball, but I’ll cut the director Aku Louhimies a little slack, since its original title is 8-Pallo.
So, the next time you’re thinking about making a film about billiards (or not about billiards for that matter), heed this advice: There’s still an opportunity to cash in on the 5-Ball or 13-Ball. Just stay away from (un)lucky number 8.
But, I’m pretty sure none of these magicians could recreate the “50 balls to create a word” shot that comprises one-fifth of the trick shot competition in the 1985 Hong Kong billiards movie Equals Against Devils (original title: Huo ping lang zi), which was also released with the English title The Desperate Prodigal. In this trick shot, opponents must shoot and stick a series of balls onto an adhesive surface about 30 feet away to create a word (or a letter).
That prodigy is Alan, who we first meet hustling pool in a local parlor, with Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” (aka the theme to Rocky) playing in the background. Alan is a soft-spoken player, who lives with his three orphaned friends and is so penurious that when he first visits Black Sinner, Alan requests permission to walk on the rug, having never seen one.
Finally, he sets up a doubles trick shot billiards competition, in which Alan and Black Sinner will compete against White Cloud and a billiards pro named Biyashi. This is arguably the most imaginative part of the movie, even if the pool-playing is completely fake. The first of the five shots involves aiming balls at light bulbs to break them. The second is the aforementioned lexical shot. The third is a variation of William Tell’s famous archery feat, but in this case, it entails knocking a billiards ball into a light bulb atop a person’s head. The penultimate shot involves shooting balls into bells. And the final shot requires the player to massé the cue ball through a series of bottles and land precisely in the middle of a small circle.
