Category Archives: Billiards Short Films

The Billiards Short Films category is about films less than an hour in length that prominently feature billiards or that have plots focused on billiards.

Billiards Short Films, 2023

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An argument can be made that 2023 was a great year for film.

The industry rebounded from the pandemic with domestic box office ticket sales surpassing $9 billion. A slew of A-list directors – Scorsese, Miyazaki, Mann, Fincher, (Ridley) Scott, Linklater, Gerwig – released new movies. And, of course, there was the Barbenheimer phenomenon, which not only suggested audiences can tolerate more than MCU blockbusters, but also that cinematic portmanteaus are going to be the new normal.

It was certainly a better-than-average year for billiards short films, with five notable entries from around the world releasing in 2023. While they’re not on the level of the genre’s more recent standard-bearers, such as Petrichor, 8, or Inglorious Billiards, they comprise an enjoyable 41 minutes of billiards film watching.

The Ballad of Rich and Champ

Ballad of Rich & Champ, TheIf Robert Rodriguez (Sin City; From Dusk till Dawn) was back in film school, he might have made a movie like The Ballad of Rich and Champ. Written and directed by Caleb Voyles, who completed his Film Production Master’s programs at Florida State University and FullSail University in 2022, Ballad is a homage to 1970s American Cinema, and perhaps, to Mr. Rodriguez, who had too much fun reminding audiences of 70s grindhouse films with his 2007 tribute Planet Terror.

In Ballad, Voyles plays loosely with saturated colors, wardrobes, funky music, a fake trailer (Pieta: A Meditation on Suffering), and plenty of cinema techniques that defined the low-budget, drive-in b-movie blessings that have resurfaced in popularity today thanks to Rodriguez and especially Quentin Tarantino.

The plot is generic, but that’s nothing new. A pair of hustlers – Rich and Champ – have a regular night at the billiards table turn deadly when an opponent makes clear this will be Champ’s last game. There’s a moderate amount of billiards playing – nothing memorable – but the film style and original soundtrack keep you smiling. The full billiards short film is available to watch here.

The Caligo Cuckoo

Caligo Cuckoo, TheThe Caligo Cuckoo may be missing Rod Serling’s famous opener, but there’s no mistaking the film’s deep admiration of The Twilight Zone. Director Kai Patterson shared, “I loved how each story [of The Twilight Zone would transport you to another dimension with endless possibilities, usually with some kind of sinister twist in the end. They felt like old ghost stories you’d tell your friends around a campfire, cautionary tales of sorts. The show made a huge impact on me at a very young age and I wanted to create a film that gave me the same feeling today.”

Patterson’s paean seemingly extends beyond The Twilight Zone to the famous 1961 episode “A Game of Pool,” in which Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters played a game of billiards with life-altering consequences. While definitely not a remake (we’ll leave that to the 1985 “A Game of Pool” episode of the revised Twilight Zone), Cuckoo also pits two players against one another in the middle of the night in which “a quick game of pool can change your life.” 

Cuckoo is a well-crafted film. Only 15 minutes long, Patterson maximizes every minute to create mood and tension, as well as build to the climactic reveal. To capture all the nuance, it deserves more than one watch, and will probably have you thinking twice about the concept of “stepping into another man’s shoes.” The full billiards short film is available to watch here.

Smoking Dolphins

Smoking DolphinsWhile the entirety of Smoking Dolphins is shot around a snooker table inside a rundown social club, the film has nothing to do with billiards. Nor is it about smoking dolphins, though most of the film is a buildup to the incredulous story of a pair of dolphins who are able to – almost – sneak a smoke in the midst of ignorant onlookers. It’s a preposterous tale, made all the more absurd by the ratatat storytelling from the film’s two oddball protagonists, who only reveal their ulterior motives at the end. 

As director Sean Lyons shares, Smoking Dolphins honors “the eccentric locals who, more often than not, chose to spend their time regaling customers with the same old stories, most of which were either embellished to the nth degree or completely fabricated.

”But, it’s also a sharp-barbed satire of Brexit and, in particular, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who Lyons criticizes for his daily lies and scandals. Lyons channeled his frustration in making the film. “I saw the parallels of the bullshit spewed by characters in the script and by those leading the country. A lot of advice you hear is to make a film about something you care about deeply…Seeing those parallels opened a door…to make a film and a subject I feel strongly about.” The full billiards short film is available to watch here.

Spiel Des Lebens (Game of Life)

Not all the 2023 billiards short films were good. German director Marcel Flock’s Spiel Des Lebens (Game of Life) is an apocalyptic bomb. The year is 2036. To relieve overcrowded prisons, convicts must face off against the guards in Ball 13 (Future Billiards) life-or-death matches. 

I’m a sucker for dystopian films, but like Hard Knuckle and The Day Lufberry Won It All, this one is painful to watch. Nobody – not the inmates, not the guards – knows how to shoot billiards! If someone used that over-the-middle-knuckle bridge against me, I’d probably want them eliminated, too. 

Granted, this is a “proof of concept” (as opposed to a complete short film), so it naturally feels a little disjointed. But, if it is intended to be a composition of scenes that best represent the concept, story, tone and themes of a potential feature film, the future looks pretty grim. You can watch the proof of concept here.

Tamatsuki’s Dream

Tamatsuki's DreamAt 60 minutes, the Japanese movie Tamatsuki’s Dream, directed by Keita Taguchi, sits in the cinematic purgatory between short and feature-length films, depending on whose chronometric definition is used. I was feeling generous.

I was unable to find this movie to watch, but was highly intrigued by both the film’s poster and its description: “Set in Japan during World War II, Kishino lives in Kumano’s mansion as a concubine, a landowner and munitions factory owner. Upon hearing that her younger brother has been killed in battle, she attempts to commit suicide with her lover. However, just as she is about to commit suicide, she meets a man named Asajiro, who resembles her younger brother. Asajiro, who suffers from tuberculosis, is exempt from military service and lives a secluded life. He runs a billiards parlor that he started with his wife, who also died of tuberculosis, and is under police scrutiny for disrupting public morals, but he still has a dream of becoming the world billiards champion.”

A trailer for the billiards short film is available to watch here. If you can help locate this film to watch, please contact me directly.

O’Reilly’s Luck

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Pat RobinsI’d love to ask Pat Robins why she chose to make snooker the focus of her 1989 short film O’Reilly’s Luck. Active in New Zealand cinema since the 1970s primarily doing wardrobe and production design, Ms. Robins had only directed one film prior to O’Reilly’s Luck. That film was called Instincts and shot for just $17,000. O’Reilly’s Luck had a budget ten times that amount – still relatively small, but clearly a whopping increase over her inaugural film. And, easily, more than half the film’s 25 minutes zero in on an 11-frame snooker match.

The movie is about a young Māori woman, Cissy O’Reilly Ratapu (played by newcomer Poina Te Hiko), who promised her now-deceased mother that she would never let anything happen to her extended family’s land – her whānau’s whenua. When her father’s gambling problems lead to a risk of foreclosure, Cissy decides her only recourse is to bet their savings on her ability to win the annual snooker tournament.

O’Reilly’s Luck clearly reflects some of Ms. Robins’ signature themes. 

OReillys Luck2For starters, O’Reilly’s Luck features a strong female protagonist. In an interview with Illusions, Ms. Robins said, “there was a growing awareness that most of the stuff I had worked on, the women took a back seat; men were making stories about their aspirations and feelings…It was pretty obvious there was an imbalance there, and a growing awareness that women’s stories were important too.” Year later, Ms. Robins similarly lamented, “Worldwide, only eight percent of film directors are women…That’s another reason why more women should be out there telling their stories.”1

The film also reflected Ms. Robins’ belief that “real people are actually much more interesting” than the glamorous, larger than life figures on TV.  The characters in O’Reilly’s Luck are especially ordinary. Cissy and her brother work in a sheep shearing factory. There is a banker; some codgers who are behind the times, surprised to see a woman playing snooker; a crusty fella determined to seize Cissy’s land; a very unmemorable snooker opponent; and a bar full of locals, drinking, wagering, and hoping for a good match. 

But, so much snooker?

Aotearoa has hardly been a mecca for the sport.  Almost a century ago, a New Zealand professional player named Clark “Mac” McConachy almost won the World Snooker Championship. He was a runner-up again in 1952.  He never won.  And, for the most part, that pretty much removed the country from the snooker spotlight.

True, snooker received a huge boost in the 1970s with the airing of the British television show Pot Black, which was very popular in New Zealand, but that show ended in 1986, three years before O’Reilly’s Luck. There was also the Kiwi, Dene O’Kane, who cracked the top 32 in the 1980s, though his peak spot (18) came several years after the film’s release. 

Perhaps, just as Cissy gambles on her own ability, the extended focus on snooker represented a similar gamble from Ms. Robins. Regardless of the sport’s waning popularity in her home country, snooker could provide an appropriately compelling backdrop for telling local stories of ordinary people and showcasing the determinism and perseverance of the film’s protagonist.  

Made in association with the Short Film Fund of the NZ Film Commission, and Television New Zealand Commissioned Independent Productions, O’Reilly’s Luck is available to watch free on NZ On Screen.

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  1. Both quotes are from: https://www.nzonscreen.com/profile/pat-robins/biography

Break and Run

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There is no shortage of jargon in billiards. You can “ride the cheese,” “sweat the action,” or “dog a shot.” There are “donuts,” “bagels,” “nuts,” “lemonade,” and even “duck soup.” The cue ball alone has multiple monikers, including the rock, the stone, the egg, the albino, whitey, and Judy. Part of playing the sport is speaking the language.1

One of the sport’s more popular (and perhaps more intuitive) phrases is “break and run,” which refers to the opening shot (the “break”) and the subsequent shots in which the person who broke “runs” the table (i.e., pockets all his/her balls without giving the opponent an opportunity to shoot).

For many amateur players, it’s an aspiration, more than an actuality. It’s also the name of two different billiards short films (which is a welcome relief from the glut of 8-ball and 9-ball named movies).

Break and Run (2018)

Break & Run (2018)Directed and written by Matt Baum as part of his final project for Michigan’s Motion Picture Institute, this 14-minute film has a lot of heart, humor, and billiards, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with a “break and run.”

The film focuses on Trey, a 25-year-old pool junkie with a drinking problem, who can’t hold a job long enough to move him and his longtime girlfriend out of his parents’ garage. His temper is too short, and his patience too thin, to last in roles as a Customer Service agent at a website company or as a Cashier at a video rental shop. 

Jobless and out of options, Trey joins an 8-ball tournament at The Last Straw, with a $5000 cash prize. He finds his billiards mojo and steadily defeats all his opponents, including the final one, his father, who has a history of taunting him and telling him that he “can’t keep sucking on the family tit forever.”

The billiards playing is neither climactic nor interesting. (I’m still wondering what shots were so difficult that they required the director’s father, Loras Baum, to take them.) But, the film is upbeat, largely driven by Trey’s charm and a well-chosen soundtrack, including Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” Jonny Lang’s ode to pool “Rack ‘Em Up,” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” an obvious audio tribute to The Color of Money.

The billiards was filmed at Ball & Cue & Brew in Lincoln Park, Michigan, but unfortunately the venue has since permanently closed.

Break and Run (2020)

Break and Run (2020)Brendan Gallogly’s movie is the more expertly filmed Break and Run though it tries too hard to pack too much into its 12-minute runtime. That’s likely because the film was intended as a proof of concept for a feature film the director intends to shoot. 

Mr. Gallogly, who received an Outstanding Television Commercial Emmy nomination for his work on the 2015 Budweiser commercial, “A Hero’s Welcome,” is a seasoned Associate Creative Director, who has built his career at advertising agencies such as Anomaly and McCann.

The movie is about a group of twenty-somethings who are cash-strapped and unable to come up with the money to rent an apartment. They convene every Tuesday at a local bar, which hosts a billiards league night (though there is only one table). Jokes and jeers are exchanged, and then Bort (the director’s brother Liam Gallogly) has an opportunity to play and impress the new girl on the team. 

There’s a comic bit where he improvises Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” in the bathroom and convinces himself to go for the “break and run.” That’s followed by a well-filmed billiards sequence, including some trick shots made by Andy Segal, but Bort ends up choking against his opponent, who he learns is the former New York Library President, accused of embezzling $500,000. 

The movie then awkwardly pivots to Bort’s “break and run” plan, which is to break into his opponent’s house and run off with the money. It’s idiotic, even to his fellow league mates.  There’s a final a-ha at the end of the movie, when Bort learns how his opponent hid the money, but it’s nonsensical on too many levels to count. Break and Run is available to watch here.

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  1. Thank you to Dr. Dave Alciatore, who maintains the popular billiards resource website billiards.colostate.edu, and has assembled the largest billiards terminology glossary.

Containing Safety

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Given billiards is lamentably, often associated in pop culture with hustling, drinking, and even violence, it’s a real pleasure to stumble across a snooker short film as warm-hearted and genuine as Containing Safety. 

Containing Safety.2Created in 2022 by TAPE Community Music and Film, a community arts charity which specializes in “inclusive, person-led support for people of all ages” (more on that later), Containing Safety tells the story of Wayne, a man who communicates without speech and requires external support to accomplish many quotidian tasks, such as drinking or moving from one location to another.

On a regular visit to a snooker club, Wayne watches his support workers, Tony and Dean, play a game. They bicker with one another, fussing about a previous game in which a containing safety may have been unwarranted. They take shots, missing more than they pot, and then one of them launches into a monologue about snooker being the ultimate “colonial sport” because the “white ball violently takes out the colored balls.” (This idea was much funnier when Martin Lawrence originally discussed it 30 years ago in the billiards scene from Boomerang.)

Wayne may be amused or bored by his support workers. But, his attention ultimately wanders to the adjacent table, where a elderly gentleman wearing upside-down glasses is successfully potting ball after ball. Tony and Dean are oblivious to the gentleman, even when he comes over to Wayne, pleasantly engaging him and asking him if he wants to see a maximum break. 

Dennis Taylor

Dennis Taylor

By now, most snooker fans watching Containing Safety might recognize the affable septuagenarian as Dennis Taylor, the former world snooker champion who famously defeated Steve Davis in the 1985 World Snooker Championship final, arguably one of the most famous matches in snooker history. 

(Snooker pop culture enthusiasts may also know Mr. Taylor from his participation on the music single “Snooker Loopy,” #3 on my list of Top 10 Billiards Songs and Videos. He also had guest appearances on the snooker game show Big Break and the dancing competition Strictly Come Dancing.)

Mr. Taylor pots his final ball, raises his cue in victory, and then grabs Wayne’s hand, saying farewell and giving him an autographed note. As Mr. Taylor exits, the film humorously ends with Wayne’s co-worker finding the note and dismissing it as a sham. He boasts, “I’d think I know if the world snooker player was playing on the table next to me…what a con man.” Of course, Wayne – and the audience – know better. Wink, wink.

Containing Safety is an enjoyable viewing experience, not just because the film has a warm heartbeat, but also because it was birthed through TAPE’s inclusive process in which people of all ages, abilities, and experience levels collaborated on everything from the script to the production to the acting. TAPE’s co-founder, Steve Swindon, shared with me a behind-the-scenes video, which highlights this inclusive process, as well as TAPE’s noble charitable aims.

Interviewed by the North Wales Pioneer about his participation, Mr. Taylor shared, “I am delighted to have taken part in this short film with TAPE. Having read the script, I was impressed by the way in which the story used a simple visit to a snooker hall to present important messages about how people are supported.” 

Containing Safety is available to watch on TAPE’s website.

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  1. Billiards Forum defines a containing safety as a type of safety shot which takes place at the mid way point of a safety exchange. A containing safety is not like a typical safety in that it is not meant to place the opponent into a difficult situation with respect to their next safety. Instead, a containing safety is done as such that it does not leave the opponent with an easy pot on.

Welcome to the Billiards Zoo

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Since the dawn of the green baize, there have been animals playing billiards:  Johnny “Scorpion” Archer. Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan. Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee. Horace “Groundhog” Godwin. Steve “The Whale” Melnyk. The zoological roll call of billiards monikers can go on and on.

The Secret of Magic Island

But, nicknames aside, animals have throughout the years picked up the cue stick to entertain. For example, costumed monkeys were shooting pool in an uncredited film from the 1930s. Far stranger is the 1957 French film, The Secret of Magic Island, in which real rabbits play pool (along with a picture-snapping dog and a motorbike-riding frog). Mister Ed, that famous TV Palomino, pocketed a shot in the eponymous 1964 episode “Ed the Pool Player.”  Today, it seems every animal even wants its 15 fifteen minutes of fame; YouTube  is rife with homemade videos of dogs, cats, and squirrels shooting stick. 

Well, this billiards menagerie better make some room. In the television episodes and short film below, there’s an international vivarium of dogs, chickens, toads, badgers, weasels, pigs, tigers, wolves, and bears ready to pot some shots.

Mad Dogs

Throughout the UK – and splattered across the internet – are kitschy paintings of dogs playing pool in pubs. This canine camp provided the perfect inspiration for the creative trio at Gadzooks Animation. Released in 2019, their film Mad Dogs is a seven-minute, stop-motion, animated film in which a nonet of regional British dogs discuss the quintessentials of British culture while drinking beers and shooting pool in a pub. Mad Dogs was created in response to Article 50, an open invitation to artists, commissioned by Sky Arts, the British 24-hour television channel, to define who the British are as a nation. It is available to watch here. 

The pint-drinking pack includes an English Foxhound, Afghan Hound, West Highland Terrier, English Bulldog, Old English Sheepdog, Scottish Terrier, Welsh Terrier, English Bull Terrier, and a Welsh Corgi. Each speaks with a specific regional accent. The dogs’ personalities are wonderfully distinct, and the dialogue hits the right mix of pride and pretense. 

My only gripe with Mad Dogs is after the English Bull Terrier takes its shot and rips the baize! How this faux pas doesn’t incite the crowd to a heightened level of rabble-rousing rabidity is the real unanswered question.

Chicken Stew

Cartoon history is replete with famous rivalries: Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Tweetie Pie and Sylvester the Cat. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.  To this list, add the chicken trio (Uncle Wattles, Free Range, and Small Fry) and weasel duo (Slim and Glutton) of the Chinese animation series Chicken Stew. 

First aired in 2009, Chicken Stew focuses on the weasels’ harebrained schemes in hapless pursuit of an elusive chicken dinner. In the 2011 episode “Blame It On Billiards,” available to watch (in Chinese) here, Uncle Wattles and Free Range are competing in a friendly, albeit dishonest, game of billiards. Tables are tilted, pockets are relocated, but it’s all in good fun, until Slim and Glutton try to weasel their way into the game. While their disguises work, their plans fall apart. Bombs go off, flying nunchaku come out, cue sticks are brandished, and poor ol’ Glutton gets a multi-billiard ball ass-whupping.1

Wind in the Willows

Noone likes to be told he’s a “social calamity,” least of all Mr. Toad, whose failure to understand the game of bridge leads him to purchase a billiards table, “a game no gentleman’s residence should be without.”

That’s the setup for “Champion of the Baize,” the 1987, Season 3 episode of Wind in the Willows, a British stop-motion animated series based on Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s novel of the same name. The full episode is available to watch here.

https://youtu.be/IPDY7TQv0KU

While this dapper amphibian certainly has the means to buy the table, Mr. Toad is too proud to admit he has no idea how to play the game. This leads to some fairly jovial banter with Mole and Rat, who attempt to explain what a rest is, how to chalk one’s cue (or “pole”), and why the object of the game is not to bounce the ball off as many “things” as possible.

But, when two weasel passersby hear the “sound of ivory on ivory,” they challenge Mr. Toad to a game of snooker, and that’s when his vainglory becomes more of a problem. Flattered by the weasels, Mr. Toad is hustled into wagering his motorcar, which he quickly loses to the more skillful opponent. However, in a scene reminiscent of the Fresh Prince episode “Banks Shot,” Mr. Toad’s elderly friend Badger requests a match, feigns ignorance about the required sequence to pot the snooker balls, and then proceeds to hustle the weasel in a 7-0 run, promptly winning back the auto. 

For all its British formality, “Champion of the Baize” is a wonderfully enjoyable television episode that shows a great appreciation for snooker. A considerable number of minutes is devoted to the matches, in which backspin features prominently and the shots are at least somewhat realistic in their execution.

Masha and the Bear

“That’s Your Cue” is a seven-minute billiards episode from the Russian animated television series Masha and the Bear. Join 11.6 million other viewers (!!) to watch the Season 3 episode on YouTube.

First aired in July 2018, “That’s Your Cue” begins with Whiskers n’ Stripes, a Siberian Tiger, visiting his circus friend, a retired Kamchatka brown bear, in the forest and surprising him with a billiards table.  They decide to hold a billiards tournament, and quickly enter the forest to source players.

While they’re gone, three-year-old Masha enters the bear’s house and innocently swaps the billiards balls with a set of numbered blocks. When the tiger and bear return, along with six additional competitors – a Himalayan black bear, two gray wolves, a she-bear, a cat, and Rosie the pig – they are startled to find the balls missing. But, the tiger is undeterred and convinces his furry brethren to improvise and use the blocks as balls instead.  

So begins the elimination tournament that ultimately ends with Rosie pocketing cubes one through seven in a single break and then sinking the eight-cube to beat his gargantuan opponent, the Himalayan bear. 

That rounds out our billiards animal kingdom. To the best of my knowledge, no animals were harmed in the shooting of these billiards sequences…though more than a few had their egos bruised.

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  1. For other cartoon nemeses battling on the baize, check out Tom and Jerry (“Cue Ball Cat”) or Woody Woodpecker and Buzz Buzzard (“Cue the Pool Shark”).

Money Shot

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In 2016, during his final year at the New York Film Academy, director Tom Edwards created his 15-minute thesis film, Money Shot. The movie’s premise is simple: a virtual reality (VR) pool game addict (Liam) must exit the digital world and enter the real world to compete in a pool tournament to save the life of his brother (Nigel), who is indebted to a local drug lord. 

The all-or-nothing, do-or-die, billiards tournament is a familiar trope in billiards movies. From The Baron and the Kid to Stickmen, from Kiss Shot to Up Against the 8 Ball, down-and-out players have bet it all on the baize, hoping to avert bankruptcy, family dissolution, death, and all of the above.

Money Shot opens with Liam, who is frustrated that his Pure Pool VR gaming system no longer works since his roommate brother hasn’t paid the internet bill. Forced to emerge from his alt-reality, Liam can barely hold a conversation with his brother’s Tinder girlfriend, and he quickly retreats into blackness by re-donning his virtual headset.  But, when Liam learns that Nigel owes $3000 to a murderous kingpin, he throws away the VR goggles, picks up his cue stick, and heads to the local 8-ball tournament, with its $5000 grand prize, to hopefully pay off his brother’s bounty.

While the film’s camera work, editing, pacing, and use of music (“Uprising” by Muse) are quite effective, especially for a college senior, the overly convenient tournament, coupled with an uninspiring pool-playing montage (that focuses more on handshakes with fallen opponents than the strokes it took to beat them), should make Money Shot more of a table scratch in my billiards annals.

Yet, for all its overused elements, the film does pose a fascinating question that I have never encountered in almost ten years of reviewing billiards movies: does playing virtual pool make one a better real-life pool player?

Within online pool forums, the topic of virtual pool increasingly arises, starting with the verisimilitude of the leading games, such as Virtual Pool 4 (created by Celeris) or Shooterspool (created by EVEHO Ingeniería). Players share and debate the graphics, physics, and accuracy.

SportsBar VR

Less popular, but more germane to the game Liam is playing in Money Shot, are the virtual reality pool games, such as Maxi Pool Masters VR, Black Hole Pool, SportsBar VR, or the genre’s OG, PoolNation VR.  All of these games require hand controls and VR headsets (e.g., HTC Vive, Oculus Rift). As the user has no ability to physically lean on the table and line up shots, ambidextrous coordination is required to manipulate separate controls, a trigger button, and sometimes a “ghost reticle.” It’s hard to imagine mastering virtual reality pool, let alone the experience translating to the billiards hall.

Many billiards pundits and amateur players scoff at the question. They cite some plausible benefits (e.g., better understanding of angles, ball position, strategy), but otherwise deem the game largely untransferable since cue control and technique cannot be replicated. Yet, a recent study by two professors from San José State University suggests otherwise. Using the Pool Hall Pro video game, a Wii game console and a Wii game controller attached to a physical cue stick, participants were able to improve their performance on a variety of shots. The researchers concluded, “the video game system [with the haptic technology]  improved people’s real-life pool performance.”1

Regardless of the validity of the research, for the almost 400,000 of us who have watched snooker world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan try to use PoolNation VR back in 2016, the answer is likely to produce skepticism and guffaws.  (Sorry Ronnie, that looked like it hurt.) If Ronnie is falling over, what chance do the rest of us have?

Money Shot is available to watch on director Tom Edwards’ Vimeo site.

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  1. “How Haptic Feedback in a Mixed Reality Pool Game Affects Real-Life Pool Performance,” Elaine Thai and Anil R. Kumar, published in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2019 Annual Meeting.

Gamblin’

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When you think of the Baldwins, Daniel may not be the first of the four brothers that comes to mind. 

There’s Alec, of course.  

There’s Stephen, who starred in The Usual Suspects before he found religion and became a born-again Evangelical. 

There’s Billy, the former fashion model and MTV heartthrob, who steamed up the screen with Sharon Stone in Sliver and much more recently got all crazy weird in Too Old to Die Young. 

Lastly, there is Daniel, who having made the reality TV circuit on Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Celebrity Wife Swap, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, and Celebrity Big Brother, now appears in a lot of movies no one has heard of.  

Gamblin' movie posterBut in the late ‘90s, Daniel was everywhere. He’d already spent three years as Detective Beau Felton in the award-winning NBC TV series Homicide: Life on the Street. He closed out the millennium by appearing in more than 20 movies, sharing billing with popular stars such as James Woods, Ray Liotta, and Steve Buscemi.

One of those was the short billiards film Gamblin’. According to director Wayne Orkline, it wasn’t even initially intended to be a released movie. “I made it as a calling card to Hollywood…to show to studio people who might then be interested in making other films of mine,” Mr. Orkline shared with me in a  video interview a couple of years ago.

Getting Mr. Baldwin to star in Gamblin’ was a “fluke,” according to Mr. Orkline. “A friend was an acquaintance of Daniel’s. He sent him the script.  Two weeks later, my phone rings, ‘This is Daniel Baldwin. I like this script. I want to do this.’ At the time, he was making big movies [e.g, John Carpenter’s Vampires]. He said if I gave him some kind of ownership of the movie, he’d do it for free. Once he came on board, everything else came together.”

The concept for Gamblin’ – specifically, how the addiction of gambling can lead to very bad decisions – had been rattling around in Mr. Orkline’s mind for years. “I always loved sports gambling. Growing up on the East Coast, we would gamble on basketball, football games.  As I was doing it for fun, I would meet people who really had a gambling problem. I started seeing patterns. This is an addiction. Always stuck with me. I would see people do things that they wouldn’t normally do to gamble, and I thought to myself, ‘How far would a person go?’”

Without spoiling the film, the answer to that question is pretty damn far. Pike (Daniel Baldwin) is $56,000 in debt to Pappy (Carmen Angenziano). To erase the debt, Pike must beat Pappy, two out of three, in nineball. But, if he loses, he must have sex with a young woman in the room whom he knows well, but is otherwise unidentified, while Papi watches. 

The whole film occurs  in a single, dingy  billiards room, where the lighting and camera angles create a claustrophobic atmosphere.  Once the rules of the bet have been established, most of the movie’s dialogue either focuses on Pike’s futile negotiation efforts or his female compatriot’s ever-increasing pressure to win.  

Given a full day of filming was devoted to pool shots and Mr. Baldwin is comfortable with a cue stick, the primary action is watching balls get pocketed and the players’ various reactions as they inch closer to the endgame, and of course, the denouement’s sinister reveal.

The movie premiered at the LA Shorts Film Festival in 2000 to an estimated crowd of 300 people. One day later, Showtime called, saying they wanted to license the film for heavy rotation on the Sundance Channel for two years. They even picked up the music licensing costs, which were substantial, given the movie features tracks from The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers, and John Lee Hooker.  But after renewing it through 2005, Showtime permanently shelved it. (I was only able to watch Gamblin’ thanks to Mr. Orkline generously mailing me a copy.)

Unfortunately, Gamblin’ didn’t open as many doors as Mr. Orkline had hoped. He went up to Canada to work again with Mr. Baldwin on Fall: The Prince of Silence, but it was a bust. Though the two remain friends, they didn’t collaborate again. Today, Mr. Orkline writes and assists his girlfriend, the actress Kelly Mullis. 

Nonetheless, the experience of making Gamblin’ was a great joy for Mr. Orkline. Throughout our interview, he warmly and  vividly spoke about the film’s creation, recounting nuanced details from twenty years ago. 

Perhaps most rewarding was the subsequent call he got from veteran director John Carpenter (The Thing; Escape from New York; Halloween), one of Mr. Orkline’s cinematic influences. “Wayne, I loved it. I didn’t see the end coming. It was sick and twisted.”

I’m gambling Mr. Orkline didn’t see that call coming.

The Day Lufberry Won It All

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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. 

Billiards, Korean Style

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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.

  1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049761/south-korea-billiards-participation-rate-by-age/
  2. Of course, the world’s most well-known Korean player is likely “The Black Widow” Jeanette Lee. However, she was born in Brooklyn, New York.

Five Films in Fifteen Minutes

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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.

  1.   “You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish,” Time, May 14, 2015.
  2. Vidyard Video Benchmark Report, 2021.