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.

Unknown Life

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In popular culture, billiards is lamentably often narrowly associated with hustling, gambling, seediness and squalor.  From the earliest billiards movie, Bad Boy,  to the genre’s most recent addition, Sixball, these themes run frequent and deep. Yet, the metaphoric application of billiards can be so much broader, as its imagery and language far transcend these limited tropes.

Robert R. Craven, a professor at New Hampshire College, hit on this in his 1980 essay, “Billiards, Pool, and Snooker Terms in Everyday Use.”  He noted the sheer number of colloquialisms – e.g., behind the eightball; call the shots – that are used in general discourse, presumably by an audience that is far larger than the number who play pool. These phrases have become metaphorical, existing beyond the poolroom.

While exceptions to the rule, some movies have sidestepped these historic stereotypes to use billiards as an opportunity for the discussion of larger themes. Martin Lawrence’s exposition from Boomerang on how billiards represents our racist society is a classic and humorous example. “The white ball dominates everything…and the game is over when the white ball drives the black ball completely off the table…it’s the white man’s fear of the sexual potency of the black man’s balls.”

Across the annals of lesser-known billiards movies and short films, there are other exemplifications. The “Game of Pool” episode of The Twilight Zone (1961), as well as the anime short film Death Billiards (2013), both tackles issues of fate and mortality through an individual pool match. Toby Younis’ short film Pool and Life (2011) uses the game of pool as a metaphor for overcoming the obstacles that life places in front of you. Louis-Jack’s short film Petrichor (2020) masterfully leverages snooker to discuss mental health.

To this list, we can add the 2017 Armenian short film Unknown Life. A trailer of the movie is available here.

Directed by Rusanna Danielian, a prolific filmmaker who has directed 48 short movies since 2014 and has not yet even turned 40, Unknown Life focuses on Adam, who has something very strange occur on his 50th birthday. While he is waiting for his computer to reboot, his three strongest personality traits come to life and opt to decide his fate over a game of Russian billiards. Adam’s internal snooker match represents the critical decisions we make in life, in which there is mental arm-wrestling among the rationalist (who lives/works for the future), the worrier (who holds on to the past), and the dreamer (who wants to enjoy the present).

In a Facebook Messenger exchange, Ms. Danielian explained to me why she chose to use a snooker as metaphor.

In the film’s reality, it is only one man playing billiards against himself. But in the fantasy world, the game takes place between three of his dominant character traits…Depending on who has the better argument in their conversation…determines who] gets a ball in. That was the concept around the billiard game I came up with to show which one of his character traits “wins” the game in a metaphorical way and decides about his life on a psychological level.

Also my protagonist stands for a man who has reached a lot of success in his life, but isn’t feeling “happy.” So the pool table stands also for his status as it is something that normally only rich people have in their house. And the fact that he has all of that, but nobody next to him to share it all with, shows that striving for success is probably not the right goal in life.

To capture the intellectual battle among the personalities, Ms. Danielian effectively used a green screen to shoot Adam, played by Aleksandr Khachatryan, in the three different roles and then layered him on so he appears to be engaging with himself. (I believe this is a billiards movie first!)

Unknown Life was filmed in Armenian, though the private copy Ms. Danielian shared with me had English sub-titles. Unfortunately, the translation was a bit stilted, so some of the nuance of the dialogue was lost. Moreover, the actual snooker-playing was pretty terrible.

Nonetheless, Unknown Life is worth the watch for its creative filmmaking and simply for daring to think differently about the application of snooker and how the game can be used to unearth interesting psychological questions.

Animated About Billiards Films (Part 2)

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

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

Detours

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

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

Scratch

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

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

Killer Cueball

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

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

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

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

Petrichor

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Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, completed in 1827, consists of 24 “truly terrible songs, which affected [him] more than any others.” Composed almost entirely in minor keys, the songs and lyrics sound sad, detailing not only the fateful journey of a nameless narrator, but also evoking Schubert’s own personal condition, having recently contracted syphilis. He died just one year later.[1]

The coda to Winterreise is “Der Leiermann” (The Hurdy Gurdy Man). It is about the narrator’s despair and the complete deterioration of his mental state. The lyrics, written by Wilhelm Müller, mention a man who “with numb fingers, plays the best he can…no one wants to listen, no one looks at him.”

It is in words, sound, and spirit, the perfect song to ominously flow through director Louis-Jack’s 16-minute film, Petrichor, completed in mid-2020 and currently on the festival circuit.  The movie is a haunting snapshot of a washed-up, former snooker wunderkind preparing for his final match and unable to accept his career ended some time ago.

From the opening piano chords of “Der Leiermann,” Petrichor evokes a disturbing, spectral sensation. The viewer is intently and intimately focused on a snooker table, but the experience is slightly unnatural. The camera pans right to left and a bodiless, white-gloved referee completes the rack, even as a light dust falls over the baize.

After the film’s title is revealed, the movie abruptly cuts to the backside of a balding man, probably in his 50s, with greasy hair, an unshaven face, and a disturbing paunch drooping over his mustard-colored underwear, the only clothing the man has on. He looks jaundiced, smoking a cigarette, and splashing vodka into a used plastic water bottle that he uncaps with his teeth. He’s in some sort of industrial bathroom, talking to a man in the mirror. The viewer does not want to be in the room, and neither does he.

The viewer soon learns this man is Liam “Lightning” Daniels (played by Paul Kaye, who Game of Thrones fans will recognize as Thoros of Myr), a three-time world snooker championship finalist, the People’s Champion, the Force of Nature.  Daniels enters the snooker hall to the sound of a roaring crowd, but like the man in the mirror, it’s all in his head, as the dreary room houses maybe 10 people, including his opponent.

I won’t share more about what happens, but the ending is shot as beautifully as the opening. The viewer hovers above Daniels, watching him play, but also watching him fade ever farther into the distance. (A special shout-out to “The Cream of Devon” Andy Hicks, who is credited as both a snooker consultant on the film and the stunt double for Mr. Kaye.)

Petrichor is intentionally unsettling and spookish. This is not a love letter to snooker, though the director has shared that “before he even knew the rules, he was utterly mesmerized by [snooker] on TV.” Rather, this is a film about the “psychological warfare on the table, a life lived from a suitcase and relentless losses that have left [Daniels] a shell of a man.” Louis-Jack continues:

“Snooker has an incredible history of amazing characters. Many of the most compelling players to watch – the mercurial geniuses of the green baize – have experienced severe mental illness and volatile personal lives…I thought that a portrait of a snooker player would not only make for thrilling drama but could, in turn, be a powerful vehicle for exploring mental illness.”[2]

It doesn’t take much Googling to confirm Louis-Jack’s assessment of the damaging effect snooker can have on individuals’ mental health. The five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is probably the sport’s most vocal critic. During various parts of his magnificent career, Mr. O’Sullivan has been heavily involved in alcohol and drugs as a way to combat his self-coined “snooker depression.” Speaking to BBC’s Don’t Tell Me the Score podcast last year, Mr. O’Sullivan said: “Snooker is a really hard sport, and if I had my time over again, I definitely wouldn’t choose snooker as a sport to pursue.”[3]

Mark Allen, who won the Triple Crown title at the 2018 Masters tournament, has been similarly outspoken, directly linking his depression to his life as a long-distance snooker player.  So too have snooker professionals Martin Gould and Michael White shared their struggles with the illness. In fact, the issue became so prominent that in 2017 the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) announced partnerships with both Talking Solutions Ltd and with the SOS Silence of Suicide group to support snooker players struggling with mental health issues.

Research has shown that social isolation and depression are closely linked. Therefore, is it really a surprise that snooker players, who are constantly traveling and practicing alone, are at greater risk of suffering from depression than other athletes, especially those who play on teams or who are supported by coaches and trainers?

While Petrichor is not yet publicly available to watch, you can see the trailer here. I hope that the film’s release and reception not only accelerate Louis-Jack and writer Kenneth Emson’s plans to develop a feature-length version, but also continue to amplify the discussion around depression in professional sports.  No one may want to listen to or look at the Hurdy Gurdy Man, but his story needs to be told.

[1]      “Decoding the Music Masterpieces: Schubert’s Winterreise,” The Conversation, August 28, 2017.

[2]      Louis-Jack is quoted in a pre-release article published in It’s Nice That, July 17, 2018.

[3]      “Ronnie O’Sullivan health: Snooker champ discusses how the sport caused his depression,” Express, December 15, 2020

Billiards Short Films Around the World (Part 3)

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In this latest segment of my global billiards cinematic peregrination, I traveled almost 17,000 miles across four different continents to watch four short films. But, this viewing expedition, while it surfaced some original perspectives on, and applications of, billiards in film, left me largely unsatisfied, especially compared to some of my previous jaunts. Let the journey begin, starting in South America.

Sinucada

I was looking forward to watching Sinucada, a 2018 Brazilian film created by 20-year-old Rafael Stadniki while he was studying cinema and advertising at Brasilia University. The movie’s poster looked fresh, and I thought the movie might provide a short lesson on sinuca brasileira, a Brazilian version of snooker, much like other international billiards films have educated me on the sport’s local variations. Unfortunately, the poster proved to be the film’s sole distinction, and there was no billiards lesson to be learned.

Sinucada begins with an early black-and-white promotional film reel introducing viewers to the University of Brazil, “the gem of Brazilian education… [where] the Academic Centers provide intrinsic activities such as conversation for tongue exchange, recreational herbs workshops, and sports competitions.” The two freshman protagonists, Kevin and Rafael, are eager to join an Academic Center, considered the social meccas of campus.  Joining a Center, however, requires passing a test – specifically, defeating a senior in the Traditional Snooker Challenge.

It’s a promising set-up, but Sinucada spirals into stupidity once the Center doors open, the lame dialogue begins, and the snooker-playing commences. The Center looks like a middle school clubhouse, which may be appropriate given the acting.  And the snooker bounces between lifeless and cockamamie, depending on whether one of the players is imbued with some supernatural force that enables him to pot balls. Sinucada is available to watch on YouTube.

The Hustle

The least original, but probably the most enjoyable, of the quartet is the 2013 Australian short film The Hustle, by first-time writer and director Topher Field. The seven-minute comedy stars Nikolai Nikolaeff as Troy, a quintessential pool hustler. Breaking the fourth wall, Mr. Nikolaeff begins the film by introducing the audience to the concept of a hustler (i.e., someone who is not “just the best pool player” but someone who “knows how to pick their targets, how to suck them in, and how to beat them”).

He then articulates, and executes, each of the “rules” of hustling, starting with “Plan your attack,” followed by, “Make contact,” “Lose,” and “Escalate.” This paint-by-numbers approach to hustling is pretty desperate writing, and makes you wonder if Mr. Field assumes his audience was born under a rock.  Fortunately, The Hustle has a real twist (albeit an obvious one) that once revealed helps the audience realize they were not intended to be the real idiot of the film.  The Hustle is available to watch on Vimeo.

The Hustle

Pool hustling is probably the most vulgarized trope in billiards films, so no wonder I found another film also titled The Hustle. Made by the Chicago-based husband and wife team David Tarleton and Adria Dawn, this four-minute film from 2019 focuses entirely on a confrontation between a broken man and the pool hustler who allegedly ruined his life.

A man is out $250,000, his wife left him, his daughter is not speaking to him, and his daughter’s college money is depleted. As they circle the pool table that separates them, the hustler (hunter) admits to some wrongdoing, and then proposes to the despondent man (prey) that they “play for it.” Since the broken man is “excellent at whupping [the hustler’s] ass in pool,” this seems like a great opportunity to even the score.  Of course, the pool hustler’s smile at the end of the film portends a very different outcome.  The Hustle is available to watch on YouTube, but be warned, there is no actual billiards in this film.

https://youtu.be/VuamMrSF6hM

Precision

Rounding out my film foursome is Precision, a very short 2010 Indian movie directed by Indranil Kashyap and shot entirely in black-and-white. Precision focuses on an underworld don who receives an unsolicited human trafficking deal from a rather anxious woman. Her inappropriate proposal and annoying mien so irritates the don and interrupts his private snooker game that he unflinchingly spears the woman in the mouth with his cue stick. Having muted (literally!) the woman’s proposal, the don’s lackey then finishes the ritual by shooting her dead.

The premise is gruesome and the action is unexpected, but it’s all undermined by a poor billiards set-up (i.e., sloppy rack, unconvincing break, bad shots) and an execution rendered ridiculous by the woman falling over dead before the gun is even fired. Precision is available to watch on YouTube.

 

Game

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My billiards short films pilgrimage has allowed me to crisscross the planet, from Alberta, Canada (Penance) to Australia (The Billiards Room); from Sweden (Biljardkundgen) to Argentina (Maltempo); from Brazil (Inglorious Billiards) to Japan (Death Billiards).  Yet, in all my cinematic searches and layovers over the past seven years, I had never unearthed a billiards film from any of the 54 countries within the African continent.

That is, until two months ago, when I stumbled across Game, a 2017 movie shot in Buea, Cameroon. The 28-minute short film stars and is written and directed by Cyril Nambangi, a Cameroonian filmmaker currently living in the United States.

Mr. Nambangi plays Marcus, an individual bored with his day job who understands that one can learn a lot about women and specifically their habits and vulnerabilities by reviewing their social media presence. Marcus is attracted to Fesse (Nsang Dilong), a woman he knows but has never engaged with. Realizing from her Facebook posts that she recently ended a relationship and now frequents a local pool hall, he intentionally stops by. When the pool hall’s reigning loud-mouth champion pompously beats her in a game of billiards, he seizes his chance to dethrone the champion and impress Fesse. The gambit works, as Marcus humiliates the champion with a deft jump shot in the first game and sinking the 8-ball on a one-handed break in the second game.  Fesse becomes immediately attracted, and the rest is history.

The social media stalking plot is a bit cringe worthy, and while there is a lot of pool-playing in the film, it’s filmed rather uninterestingly, with the exception of the aforementioned shots. I found the most enjoyable parts of the film were the close-ups on Buea nightlife, as the streets, cuisine, and energy made the movie feel wonderfully authentic.

But, sometimes, the appeal of a film can be magnified by knowing its origins. Such is the story behind the making of Game, as recounted to me during a Zoom interview with Mr. Nambangi. “Film making in Africa? You just have to adapt,” he explained teasingly.

Let’s start with the impetus for the movie. Mr. Nambangi shared, “I am an amateur pool player and film maker….I do know how to shoot pool, all the guys in the film are my friends still based in Cameroon.  Whenever we meet, there is a big competition, everyone thinks they are the best player… [I came up with] a story that ties into that, [so I didn’t] need to train actors how to play pool. I did it in reverse: I got pool players then trained them how to act.”

Armed with his idea and cast, the next question was where to film within the town of Buea. A local university provided an unoccupied performing arts space to Mr. Nambangi for one night only to convert into a pool hall, so long as he could outfit it with the necessary pool table and seating.

But in Buea, there are only two locations that have functional pool tables, and people are shooting on them around the clock because “pool is the club’s money maker.” One of those locations is a club managed by three brothers. Incredibly, Mr. Nambangi got approval from the middle brother to borrow the pool table and some matching stools for the evening, so he picked up the equipment in a rented truck and transported it to the university for the shoot.

Fesse (Nsang Dilong)

After filming wrapped at 2AM, three members of Mr. Nambangi’s crew attempted to return the pool table. But, when they arrived, a different manager was on duty and he claimed he knew nothing about the missing table and stools, so he called the police, assuming his club had been robbed. He had the crew members promptly arrested. It would take lawyers working through the twilight hours to get them out of jail.

Around the same time the crew members were getting arrested for returning the table, Mr. Nambangi’s trio of local actresses (“dressed in little minis for their scene”) were heading home in taxis. Mr. Nambangi recounted what happened next:

“As soon as they got out of the taxi, a black maria (i.e., a police van) came up, door swung open, two officers jumped out, and drove off with the girls bringing them to the police station. We went to the police station and were told they were dressed indecently.  But, [the officers] were just looking for some bribery money. They think, ‘Give me something and you can go home.’ The girls were terrified. If you don’t have someone to call, you’re screwed. That’s how it goes for you. The police will keep you there for a couple of days. And those are not conditions where you want to stay.”

Fortunately, Mr. Nambangi was able to grease some hands and get the women released, bringing his night of multiple arrests to a close.

The coda to the film’s production came much later once Mr. Nambangi had competed the film and was trying to get it included at festivals through submission to the now defunct Withoutabox. Out of the blue, he was contacted by Amazon Prime, which offered him the chance to have it featured exclusively within their platform. (Note: IMDB, a subsidiary of Amazon, acquired Withoutabox in 2008.) For a budding filmmaker, the opportunity was irresistible.

The experience has been mostly positive for Mr. Nambangi, though the decision has come with some tough sacrifices. He explains, “Amazon Prime is not available in Cameroon, so my friends could not see the movie, and once on Prime, I could not submit it to festivals.  Everyone who has participated has still not seen the project. I was planning to do a local premiere, but we have a war situation, so I’m not going back there now.”

While it may be some time before his colleagues can watch and appreciate Game, I hope those who do have access to Amazon Prime will spend the half-hour and watch it. The movie is available here.

Billiards Short Films Around the World (Part 2)

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Two Sundays ago, I spent a wonderful afternoon celebrating Father’s Day with my dad and my two children. Not having seen my father since COVID-19 unleashed hell on earth, the day got me thinking about this uniquely special filial relationship.

In my previous blog post, I committed to taking readers around the world with billiards short films. I started with Biljar (Croatia), Biljardkundgen (Sweden), and Penance (Canada). In this post, I continue that global odyssey, with the added nuance of featuring films that address that father-child relationship. Those three films are Maltempo (Argentina), Breakin Balls (USA) and Break (Czech Republic).

Interestingly, fathers do not physically appear in Maltempo or Breakin Balls, yet they are still central characters, reflecting the ongoing and treasured influence of the paterfamilias. In this way, these films are a welcome departure from better known billiards movies, such as the recent Walkaway Joe or The Baron and the Kid, where deadbeat dads feature so prominently.

Maltempo

Without question, the 21-minute Maltempo, released in October of 2016, is the best among this trinity of billiards short films.  The setting is Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1942. Two poor Italian immigrant brothers, Cecilio and Paolo Maltempo, have sold their deceased father’s pocket watch, their last remaining physical memory of him, in order to prevent starvation. Cecilio is hot-headed and irascible. Paolo is thoughtful and even-keeled, his temperament and sensibility more closely aligned with their father’s, as we learn through a backstory told by Paolo to illustrate his father’s kindness (and the watch’s origin).

One evening, the Maltempos are provoked by a pair of rich, insolent Frenchmen, who are now in possession of the prized pocket watch. For a chance to win back the watch, the Frenchmen challenge the brothers to a 30-point match of three-cushion billiards. When the match is 28-25, Paolo is dared to make a game-winning six-cushion shot.  Knowing he can make the shot, Paolo anticipates that his success will result in the Frenchmen’s humiliation. While the Maltempos will win the match, violence will ensue, blood will be shed, and they will lose in the long run. [SPOILER ALERT!] Instead, Paolo invokes his father’s spirit, intentionally just missing the shot so that his opponents can save face. His opponent ultimately understands and repays him by returning the watch.

Directed by Alan Borodvsky, Maltempo is wonderfully filmed and saturated with a gorgeous mix of yellows and browns that evoke the era and the beauty of the locale. Unsurprisingly, Maltempo racked up an impressive dozen awards from the festival circuit.  The full film is available to watch on Sofy TV.

Breakin Balls

To be clear, Breakin Balls is not a good film by any conventional measure. Created in 2016 by first-time writer, producer and leading actress Natalie Pagano, the film focuses on a struggling South Philadelphia couple who enter the St. Patty’s Pool Tournament at J.W Hothead’s, a (real-life) hair salon with a pool table. The stakes are a $2000 prize, which is just enough to save their trailer and feed the future Little Frankie, assuming they can beat their foes, the Sharkey Twins.

Between the amateur acting and the wooden dialogue, Breakin Balls feels like an inside joke that mistakenly escaped the room.  And yet, there is something rather heartfelt about the film. Ms. Pagano is upfront that Breakin Balls is a tribute to her father, Anthony Pagano Sr. (aka Mr. P). She says he was an “avid billiards player who was studied by many…had his hustling moments but good heart and kind mannerisms…I was very fortunate to grow up watching my father run balls, he taught me everything I know…this film is in your honor.”

He was also the creator of the “famous” jump rod, Mr. P’s Jumpstick, which features prominently in the film. When Natalie is down in her match, a sultry courier suddenly arrives, bearing the famed stick. This gives Natalie all the power she needs to turn around the match and win the prize, thus also honoring her father.

The final scene, in which all players, opponents, and Hothead’s patrons, convene at the Trailer Park Community Center to dance, giggle, jiggle, and eat billiards-themed cupcakes, shows just how much fun the cast had in making the movie, even if that sentiment can’t be shared by the viewing audience.

Break

Unlike the previous two films, Break is a much more traditional father-child movie. This eight-minute documentary, released in 2012 and directed by Tom Weir, follows 11-year-old Calvin Washburn, and his father, Geoff, who spend alternating weekends together shooting billiards. The movie is available to watch here.

As Geoff only has his son on weekends, and “the pool tournaments are on weekends, so that’s we do.” For the film, that means traveling to a 9-ball competition in Ostrava, Czech Republic, to compete for 4000 Euro (approximately $4500 USD).

The premise has potential. Calvin started shooting pool when he was five, and he comes across as a typical awkward tween who is super comfortable on the table.  But, as a film, Break flounders because there is no tension, suspense or drama. In eight minutes, we don’t get to know Calvin or Geoff or learn much of their relationship.  And, the pool-playing is a bust because after winning his first match, Calvin loses, and then loses again. He may have “pocketed quite a bit of money” over the years, but there’s no joy or interest watching a kid get mopped.

 

To my father, and to all the fathers out there, Happy (belated) Father’s Day.

Billiards Short Films Around the World (Part 1)

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I’ll be honest. As my comprehensive list of billiards movies, TV episodes and short films surpassed 250, I thought I had probably hit a ceiling.  But recently, late one evening, I had a head-slap, do’h! moment research idea that had not occurred to me in six years. Rather than searching IMDB by keyword (e.g., “billiards,” “8-ball”), I would search by plot summary.

Plot summary search results from IMDB.com

Wow. That one change shattered the roof, surfacing no less than 35 new entries. The majority of these new discoveries are billiards short films from around the world that were made in the last 15 years.  Talk about rolling double sixes!

Having unearthed so many new short films, I am going to devote several upcoming blog posts to reviewing trios of these local movies. Today’s threesome: Biljar (Croatia), Biljardkundgen (Sweden), and Penance (Canada).

Biljar

Purists may deride my decision to call Biljar a billiards film, but I think the 7-minute Croatian film is worthy of inclusion. Released in 2018 by writer/director Dina Cvek, the movie occurs in a nondescript bar.  Asking “are you open?,” a couple enters and proceed to order beers and play billiards. Though the bar is otherwise empty, the billiards scene injects levity, especially because it’s powered by the high-energy sounds and whimsical lyrics of “The Accident of 1993” by Austin, Texas rockers Poly Action.

But, when the bartender temporarily steps out, everything gets topsy-turvy. Playfulness is replaced with dread thanks to the sudden music shift to the heavy metal of Regular Gonzales. The couple mysteriously disappears and reappears, and the bartender winds up on the wrong side of a gun. The film concludes by the bartender seemingly waking up, only to have the same opening scene and inquiry repeat. (This motif about the fleetingness of time is reinforced by a question asked in the film, “Why is the rabbit always running in Alice in Wonderland?” As Lewis Carroll readers know, the White Rabbit represents the pressure of time and the fear of missing a deadline.)

The film is available to watch here. Billiards fans: please don’t lose sleep over the cringey 30-second billiards montage. Biljar is not intended to be about pool.

https://youtu.be/7_m5MLUGzaA

Biljardkundgen

Translating in Swedish to “The Billiards King,” this 12-minute film from 2011 is about a youth center worker whose talent for billiards does not live up to his boasts about the sport.  Handsome and muscular (but oddly sporting a good bit of armpit sweat), Matte fancies himself a billiards hotshot. He likes to quote the opening lines of The Color of Money, he has a poster of The Hustler over the pool table, and he is fixated on shaping his cue tip while he giving creepy glances at the underage girls who frequent the center.

Trying to impress a new girl, he promises to defeat Ali, who is currently on the table, so he can teach the girl how to play. After losing the first game, he demands a rematch on a technicality. He then loses the second game, which prompts him, temper rising, to wager 100 krona (about $107 USD) on a final match. This too he loses after botching a gimme-shot on the 8-ball.

Aside from the novel location (I haven’t discovered any other billiards films that use a youth center as the battle arena of choice), Biljardkundgen is pretty unmemorable, and the pool playing is terrible.  The movie is available to watch here with English subtitles.

Penance

Certainly, of these three films, Penance is the closest to a traditional billiards film.  Directed by Ivet Koleva, this 12-minute film, shot in entirety at the beautiful Top Shots Billiards in Alberta, Canada, is about two seemingly unrelated characters, Lydia and Jimmy, reconciling their history over a 9-ball race to 15. Penance is available to watch on FilmFreeway.

Lydia, a mysterious young woman with a mounting reputation for running tables, seems to know a lot about her opponent. “You’re the famous Jimmy O, pool hall owner, tournament player, money game player, pool ambassador.” Jimmy does not recognize her, but gets his first wind that they have a connection when he recognizes her pool cue as one he used to own. Unable to undermine her confidence, the tête-à-tête leads to a 9-ball competition with Jimmy’s pool hall as the grand prize. I won’t spoil the story, though it’s neither hard to predict the outcome of the match nor the relationship between Jimmy and Lydia.

Given the centrality of billiards to the movie, I was surprised to learn that Ms. Koleva is not a player herself. In an email interview, she explained to me that she likes to “go out of her comfort zone to portray various subjects” and that she was inspired by the “love and lifelong dedication to billiards” from some people she knew.

Penance has received a mixed reaction from the billiards community. Some veteran players have been quick to categorize it as another movie that gets the details wrong when it comes to billiards.  It’s clear from their bridges and ways they jump after shooting that the actors don’t know how to play pool. It’s ridiculous that Jimmy would constrict his mobility by wearing a heavy leather jacket or that he would make such a high wager against a complete unknown.

But others, and I would lump myself into this latter category, believe that the movie tried to get it right and succeeded, especially through Greg Waggoner’s beautiful cinematography, in showing a respect for the sport.  As Ms. Koleva told me:

I have tried to come up with new scenes, colors and shots so that Penance can have different elements to it. Some of the shots within the match scene were unique and had to be planned out with billiard players. The specific scene where the final ball hits the corner rather than going in took quite a few shots to get right, which is part of the reason why we framed the shot so tightly (that, and it turned out more impactful when the camera is so close).

Ultimately, I think Geoff Bradshaw at Bradshaw Billiard Service, said it best, “If you want a movie that is about pool, with perfect attention to every detail of the game, watch an instructional DVD. I believe that this short film was beautifully produced. Nice story, nice lighting, nice camera work, decent acting, and a gorgeous pool hall. [They] did a great job.”[1]

[1]      https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=489623&page=2

Animated about Billiards Short Films

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Ralph Bakshi, the great American animator of movies such as Fritz the Cat and American Pop, said, “What’s most important in animation is the emotions and the ideas being portrayed. I’m a great believer of energy and emotion.”[1]

I think Mr. Baskshi would then be pleased with the three short animated billiards films I recently discovered – Fresh Green, Inglourious Billiards, and New York Billiards – as each bubbles with energy and emotion.

Fresh Green

It’s not just the green that is “fresh” in Ida Greenberg’s 4+ minute billiards stop-motion animation Fresh Green. The whole film is wonderfully fresh and original, and very consistent with Ms. Greenberg’s self-described visual style of “erring on the side of quirky…often humorous, dark, or strange.”

A student at Maryland Institute College of Art, Ms. Greenberg created Fresh Green as her senior thesis project.  Her original project idea had nothing to do with pool, but when that idea wasn’t working and with deadlines quickly approaching, she turned to billiards.  As she shared with me in an email interview, “My apartment building at the time had a pool table, so I would occasionally play by myself. I’m a complete novice when it comes to billiards, but I find playing to be very meditative and strategic. So the idea of billiards was bound to make its way into my work, and Fresh Green is that project.”

The film starts out simply with a lone patron playing pool. By accident, he unhinges a floor board, which reveals a wide-eyed, solid blue, human-like being laying supine beneath the floor. Initially shocked, the patron recognizes the being is the same color as the 2-ball, so he feeds him the ball. This sustenance energizes the being to emerge from the floor and exit the bar.

In the film’s eeriest moment, the patron then slowly looks to see what else is beneath the floor. He discovers an entire colony of similar beings, sardined together, as if hidden in a bunker, or quarantined, or locked away for future experimentation like something out of The X-Files. Each being matches the color and pattern of a different billiards ball. As they are literally fed their respective billiard balls, they each emerge and gaily leave free. But, when the patron starts a new game, they return (or are summoned?) to their original hermitage.

Fresh Grass took an estimated 2600 hours to complete, so the film was not finished until late 2018, after Ms. Greenberg had already graduated.  Since that time, it has shown at numerous festivals and garnered multiple awards. To watch the film, you must contact the director through her website.

Inglourious Billiards

Talk about a labor of love.  As part of a final project for a 2D animation course, Brazilian animator João Cardoletto spent three years creating his 4-minute film Inglourious Billiards, which was inspired by the classic Twilight Zone billiards episode, “A Game of Pool.”

Released in the United States in late-2016 at Animation Nights New York, the film focuses on a game of pool between two men that turns into a fierce battle to win the attention of a beautiful patron who has just arrived at the bar. Geniality and sportsmanship succumb to jealousy and rage as the two players demonstrate increasingly daring, imaginative and outlandish billiard shots to woo the woman.  Two of my favorites include pouring the woman’s martini on the ball and lighting it on fire to make a triple bank, and cracking open the 7-ball to release a bird that then hatches (!!) the 7-ball into the corner pocket.

While the notion of a pool game going wildly off the rails is not original to billiards animation (e.g., Dirty Pool; Kikioriki – “The Game Must Go On”), Mr. Cardoletto’s bold, lively visual style and exaggerated characters are highly enjoyable. A teaser for his film is available here, and additional information is on Mr. Cardoletto’s website.

New York Billiards

Released in Germany in 2013 and nominated for an award at the Regensburg Short Film Festival in 2014, New York Billiards is 3+ minutes of emotionally poignant and evocative billiards animation.  The movie is available to watch here.

Created by Thyra Thorn, a multimedia artist whose oeuvre extends into movies, crime novels, poems, and comics, New York Billiards traces the continuous path of a billiards ball as it is shot across the New York City skyline.  Set to intensely escalating music, the crude charcoal-drawn ball contrasts with the black-and-white photographed Manhattan architecture.

As ominous as the first half of the film is, the second half is far grimmer. An unidentified player, perhaps an investment shark or real estate tycoon, shoots the ball back in motion. The ball retraces its course, but this time unleashing destruction on the city, with fires, tidal waves, and electric storms flattening buildings and uprooting landmarks.

As the Empire State Building topples over, the final scene is the ball falling off the skyline’s precipice. With nothing left to raze, we hear someone nasally remark, “Oh no,” the only two words of the film. The diabolical game, played by faceless and untouchable overlords and gamemasters, has ended, at least for now.

[1]      Ralph Bakshi was also no stranger to billiards, as evidenced by this memorable scene from Fritz the Cat.

8

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Preparing for his New York Film Academy thesis in 2017, Gabriele Fabbro had narrowed down his options to two ideas.  The first film concept was about an immigrant family escaping. The second was about billiards, based on a memory from when he was a child in Italy.   Most people suggested he make the first film, given the relevance of the subject matter in today’s political climate.  Moreover, aside from the challenge of making billiards interesting on-screen, the second film concept also would have minimal dialogue, another cinematic red flag.

But, Mr. Fabbro bucked the popular opinion and chose the second concept, turning it into the short film 8. Well, the rest of us can thank him, for he has blessed us with an original, mesmerizing and visually stylish film that not only deserves the many awards and nominations it has since garnered, but also breathes new life into the billiards movies canon.

Filmed over eight days in March 2018 (at the First Street Pool and Billiards Parlor in Los Angeles), 8 is a story of love and redemption told over the course of two pool matches played at Lucky Lizard Billares, a few miles away from the New Mexico border.

The film opens with Jack (Esteban de la Isla), a selfish, sexist, pool hustler cheating a local rube by making what appears to be near impossible shot pocketing two balls, but is, in fact, an illegal double-hit stroke with the cue tip hitting the cue ball and then a second object ball.

Shortly after, Jessie (Jordan Knapp) enters to a chorus of muted whispers and furtive glances. Jack makes her for an easy mark and challenges her to three games of 8-ball, confident his pomp, swagger, and faster-than-the-eye (illegal) shots will empty her pockets. But, Jessie is unflappable, and Jack quickly realizes that his cheap bag of tricks is no match for her flawless and silent game.  Before leaving with his money, she breaks her silence only to reproach him by saying, “Cheating doesn’t make you a player.”

Jack may have been humiliated, but he is also love-stricken as well as enlightened, believing there is a path to being a worthy and honest opponent, should they play again.  We watch him endure a relentless training routine, in effect learning the game honestly for the first time.

When that magical rematch does occur, the tension is palatable.  The pool playing is quickly intercut with a mix of eye glances and close-ups of the players and the table from all sorts of different camera angles. Undergirding the tête-à-tête is the powerful score by composer Sean Goldman, with different musical compositions capturing the ever-changing emotional dynamics of the game. In a match with no dialogue, the “music becomes the script,” according to Mr. Fabbro.

Tipping the hat to Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, Mr. Fabbro interweaves some highly original billiards montages. But, his cinematic influences run far deeper.  As Mr. Fabbro shared with me in an interview, his movie’s style was much more affected by some of Italy’s greatest directors, such as Sergio Leone, whose landmark films brilliantly used subtle actions and gestures rather than words to tell a story; Federico Fellini, who used exaggerated gestures to breathe life into characters; and especially, Bernardo Bertolucci, whose “unmotivated camera movements” created visual contrast and thus excitement.

For billiards movies fans, 8 should be 18 minutes of absolute pleasure. However, purists may get turned off by the bizarre rules of eight-ball that govern the two matches. In these games, players alternate after each shot, regardless if they sink a ball.

When I pressed Mr. Fabbro about why he chose to invent rules for an otherwise straightforward game, he shared that in Jessie’s perfection, she would not miss a shot, and therefore there would be no tension. Breaking the rules was a necessity to create excitement and intimacy within the games. Given the monotonous and humdrum billiards sequence that plague too many films and television episodes, I give my full approval to such creative license. I hope the billiards community will, too.

8 premiered at the Beverly Hills Film Festival in April 2019. The film is now available to watch on Amazon in the US.

Snookered

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SnookeredIn the sport of snooker, getting “snookered” means that one has been put in a position where s/he does not have the ability to use the cue ball to make a direct, linear shot on the object ball.  It is a perfectly valid and highly technical form of defense.

In modern parlance and away from the table, “snookered” is a slang verb that means to “deceive, cheat, or dupe,” according to Dictionary.com.  That definition has provoked considerable criticism across the Ocean from linguists who counter by referencing the Oxford English Dictionary: to snooker is to place in an impossible position; to balk, stymie. Ergo, to be snookered would imply that one is in a difficult situation, but nothing duplicitous has occurred.

Now, all of this lexical debate could be routinely dismissed and relegated to the online nattering of etymologists on the English Language & Usage Stack Exchange, except “snookered” improbably shows up as the single most common title of billiards movies and television episodes. By my count, “Snookered” is the title of four billiards televisions episodes and three billiards short films, not to mention a billiards-themed play, two billiards-themed books, and the b-side of Chas & Dave’s famous anthem, “Snooker Loopy.”  So, without further delay, let’s get “Snookered.” 

Terry and June – “Snookered”

From 1979 to 1987, the BBC ran the sitcom Terry and June, which starred Terry Scott and June Whitfield as a middle-aged, middle-class suburban couple. In the January 1982 “Snookered” episode, Terry has purchased a six-foot snooker table, with grand fantasies of becoming a champion. But, the acid-tongued June is less certain, telling Terry, “You’re about as good at snooker as the captain of the Titanic was at spotting icebergs.” 

Admitting to his shortcomings, Terry begrudgingly sells his table for 30 pounds by advertising it in the newspaper. However, immediately after selling the table, he starts getting inundated with inquiries from prospective buyers, who are willing to pay more than 100 pounds.  Realizing the table is worth far more than he thought, he buys it back for 70 pounds. Then, he begins a rather comical – and ultimately expensive — journey to determine why there is such demand for the table, even when antique dealers tell him it is “rubbish.” I won’t spoil the ending but don’t get your hopes up that Joe Davis has any relation to the legendary Steve of the same surname. The full episode is available to watch here.

https://youtu.be/FiYLo8qh8Nw

Mortimer’s Patch – “Snookered” [WANTED!]

Unfortunately, most of the other “Snookered” television episodes I was not able to find online, including the June 1984 episode from the New Zealand police drama Mortimer’s Patch.  If you can help me locate any of these episodes, please contact me directly.  All I could learn was that the series, which lasted only three seasons, featured detective and police work in the fictional town of Cobham. In the “Snookered” episode, a pool hustler comes to town in order to blackmail.

Roy – “Snookered” [WANTED!]

Roy O’Brien, the 11-year old cartoon-animated son of a live-action family in Dublin, is at the center of this eponymous Irish children’s television series. In the February 2014 “Snookered” episode, Roy’s dad, Bill, discovers that his son is a snooker prodigy.  When his dad bumps into his old snooker-playing rival, Clive “The Tornado” Butler, Bill forces Roy to compete in a grudge match.  For Roy, it’s a big fuss about “a silly game of snooker,” but for Bill, it’s an opportunity for “claiming glory on the field of battle” and for his son to “be a world champion by the time he’s 16…have [his] own line of merchandising, maybe a video…and then in 25 or 30 years, retire as the greatest player to ever pick up a snooker cue.”

Though I could not watch the “Snookered” episode online, I got some mild enjoyment from this transcript of the episode.

Harry’s Mad – “Snookered” [WANTED!]

Still another children’s television series that seized on the name “Snookered” is Harry’s Mad, a British show that ran from 1993 to 1996.  Based on the book by Dick King-Smith, the series focused on 10-year-old Harry Holdsworth, who inherits a super intelligent talking macaw named Madison (aka Mad).  Harry and his family have lots of adventures, but the bird also attracts the attention of the villainous Terry Crumm.  There’s a dearth of information about the “Snookered” episode, except that it featured snooker world champion Steve Davis.

Snookered (short film, 2005)

This nine-minute film written and directed by Hammish Scadding saw a larger audience than it deserved because it was a part of Virgin Media Shorts, the UK’s biggest short film competition at that time. (The competition ended in 2014.)

The movie focuses on two ‘friends,’ one of whom has always been more popular and successful than the other. The narrator, always undermined by his friend, views the pool table as “the most important place. Two sides fighting for supremacy on that bright green battlefield.” Presumably, he’s never won a game against the friend until – spoiler alert – tonight. And, with that victory, “every winner loses, while every loser joins a winner’s table.” Really? Someone actually wrote that?  The film is available to watch here.

Snookered (short film, 2014)

Almost three years ago, I wrote a blog post about Azeem Mustafa’s 2015 billiards-martial arts short film The Break. At the time, I was unaware of that film’s predecessor, the five-minute film Snookered, which, naturally, also mixes billiards and martial arts over a funky soundtrack.

The ‘martial arts criminal comedy’ focuses on two gangsters who opt to play a game of snooker to determine who shall walk away with a valuable briefcase. The five-hour game fails to determine a winner, so the two men follow up with a one-hour martial arts battle (that has some pretty decent fight sequences for a self-made short film). The film is available to watch here.

Snookered (short film, 2018)

Rounding out the septet of Snookered-named films is this seven-minute film from Scotland that won the 48 Hour Film Project.  Like the name suggests, the movie was written, shot, and edited in just 48 hours for entry into this cinematic competition. The plot centers on a mysterious, dangerous box that must be couriered to a local snooker hall.  When it is delivered to and opened by the recipient, we learn it contains toxic cue chalk that kills the user when he blows on the cue. Created by Team Dropshack, Snookered won Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.  

So, to all the film auteurs still contemplating the name of their next billiard masterpiece, please heed my advice and leave alone the title “Snookered.” I promise I’m not trying to deceive or cheat you, or put you in a difficult situation.  I just don’t want anyone to be snookered again.