Tag Archives: billiards movies

Three Card Monte

Three Card Monte.v2Three Card Monte barely counts as a billiards movie.  But in oeuvre with very limited Canadian representation (i.e., The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II; Behind the Eight Ball; Manitoba Sharks; Hiccups – “Car Pool”), the decision to relax the definition for a little more inclusion from the Great White North seemed straightforward.  Unfortunately, the fact the film is also barely watchable has now led to some second-guessing on my end.

Released in 1978 at the Toronto Film Festival, Three Card Monte tells the story of Busher (Richard Gabourie), a gambling drifter, who begrudgingly allows Toby (Chris Langevin), a 12-year old orphan, to accompany him in his hustling and flimflammery, and builds a close relationship with him in the process.

Directed by Les Rose (Gas; Hog Wild – never heard of them?  Neither had I.), shabbily written by Mr. Gabourie, and starring a pack of unknowns and amateurs, the movie limps along across a too well-tread path of familiar tropes and clichéd two-dimensional characters.   There are two half-witted grease monkeys who chase Busher around Toronto seeking revenge for getting scammed in pool; a gaggle of equally dull-brained craps players who fail to notice Busher is playing with loaded dice; a loose hitchhiker who sleeps with Busher but is pulling her own con; and a well-intentioned hitchhiking friend who eats Twinkies and unwittingly lets a 12-year-old feel her up (?!). And, then there is Busher, who, for all his negative tendencies (e.g., lying, conning, hustling, thieving, drinking, having sex in front of a minor, kidnapping a minor, etc.), is portrayed as a genuinely good-natured guy, just trying to gain a little edge and get back on his feet.

Credibility is not the film’s calling card.

A cardinal problem with Three Card Monte is the complete lack of originality.  The film feels like a mishmash of – or maybe a paean to – superior works about the grift, specifically the movie Paper Moon (1973) and the book Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game (1978).  In Paper Moon, Ryan O’Neal stars as a Depression Era con-man who develops a partnership with a girl (Tatum O’Neal), who may be his daughter. The film had multiple Oscar nominations and won Ms. O’Neal a Supporting Oscar.  In Billy Phelan, the future Pulitzer Prize winning author William Kennedy tells the story of a young pool player and hustler who lives on the edge, making a living in Albany pool halls and card parlors.

(For what it’s worth, Mr. Gabourie won the Canadian Film Award – aka the Etrog – for Best Actor in Three Card Monte. That’s hard to believe until one is reminded by film critic Jay Smith that this particular award is “given by presenters no one knew, to recipients no one recognized, to films no one had seen.”)

Three Card MonteAs for the billiards, Three Card Monte begins on a promising note.  Busher enters a snooker hall and begins practicing on a table.  For viewers accustomed to seeing American pool on the big screen, the snooker table looms large and it’s a welcome reminder how different the game is.  Soon, two local bozos think they can make a buck off Busher and challenge him to a game.  They quickly lose their money, then their car keys, in a rapidly edited snooker sequence, consisting mainly of potted balls.  Tempers rise as Busher leaves, and the players vow revenge (though it was not clear if they were hustled or simply sucked and lost).

That opening scene sets up the whole film, as Toby allies himself with Busher (by racking his balls), and Busher (along with the voluntarily abducted Toby) goes on the lam to escape his post-snooker hustling fate. Unfortunately, though Busher is frequently carrying his cue stick and seems to be looking for his next sucker match, there is no more billiards; the subsequent hustles shift to craps and finally three card monte.  So much for that “hot cue” notably highlighted in the movie’s tagline.

Manitoba Sharks (in production)

It took me a few months to track down Amanda Kindzierski, the documentarian behind the forthcoming short film Manitoba Sharks.  I first read about the film in a press release from the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (WAFF).  According to the release, Ms. Kindzierski had won a $20,000 “pitch contest” from MTS Stories From Home, which is a collection of original, made-in-Manitoba programming created exclusively for MTS TV customers.

Manitoba Sharks

Director Amanda Kindzierski

While the release stated that Manitoba Sharks would “tell the story of pool in Manitoba [a province of Canada] through the eyes of Aboriginal proprietors and players who are among the best in the world,” the real story, as revealed to me by Ms. Kindzierski in an interview this past March, is far more fascinating.

Ms. Kindzierski began with a fundamental question:   Why does Winnipeg have so much billiards talent for such a small city?  (The population is about 660,000.) “We go to these Canadian tournaments and we clean up,” proffered Ms. Kindzierski animatedly.

Though my own post-interview research could not confirm that the citizens of Winnipeg (or Manitoba) win a disproportionate amount of Canadian titles, I was nonetheless hooked by Ms. Kindzierski’s personal story and her mission quest to make this film.

A born cinephile, Ms. Kindzierski became obsessed with movies early, deciding at age 8 that she wanted to become a director.  After some life decisions took her off that path, she ultimately pivoted, giving up her job, apartment, and car, to pursue film.  She was one of nine Canadians accepted into the National Screen Institute New Voices program, in which she attended a nine-month broadcasting school and then, two years ago, made her first short film, The Path.

But, as an active “middle-of-the-road” pool player, she also knew she had another story to tell. “Winnipeg has one of the largest pool leagues in the world,” she shared.  In fact, the Aactive Pool League has more than 4,000 members and 450 teams.  She asked herself: Why does Winnipeg have such a high concentration of billiards players?

Born to a Polish/Ukrainian mother and an Ojibwe Cree father, Ms. Kindzierski wanted the world to know about Winnipeg’s talent – and more important, wanted  that story to be told from an indigenous Canadian point of view.  As evidenced by the success of her 3-minute pitch (to a panel that included actor Adam Beach, currently starring in the heavily anticipated summer movie Suicide Squad), a lot of people wanted her to tell that story, as well.

Manitoba Sharks

Joe Ducharme

To represent that story, Ms. Kindzierski opted to focus on two individuals of two different generations.  The first was her father, Joe Ducharme.  A highly experienced amateur player, Mr. Ducharme has won both the Aactive Championship League and placed second in the 2007 Valley National 8-Ball League Association (VNEA).

Manitoba Sharks

Shannon Ducharme (photo by Richard Walker)

The current generation in Manitoba Sharks is represented by Shannon Ducharme (no relation), whose exciting career has been checkered by both a stint in jail and a bout with cancer. A full-time construction foreman by day, Mr. Shannon Ducharme, who once won the Western Canadian 8-ball title at age 19, recently slingshot his career by placing 2nd in the CBSA Canadian Men’s Open 9-ball Championship, and then competing in Doha, Qatar at the 2015 World Nine-ball Championship, where he made it to the fourth round before losing 9-6 to the heavily favored Warren Kiamco from the Philippines.

But, as Ms. Kindzierski narrates the tale, the real impressive story is that “Shannon can only play pool his spare time.  The fact he is competing with these guys is incredible.  Shannon lost to a [top] guy [at the World Championship].  And Shannon couldn’t even find a sponsor.  He was allowed three logos on his shirt and he couldn’t find anyone.”[1]  She adds, “Guys [like Shannon] are digging ditches and driving trucks and then competing against people who play for a living.”

As of two months ago, Manitoba Sharks was in post-production with a rough cut almost completed.  According to Ms. Kindzierski, the next step is to send the estimated 20-minute film to MTS for approval so that it will be released on Stories From Home. Once that happens, Ms. Kindzierski will then turn her attention to securing a distributor in Winnipeg and submitting the documentary to film festivals so a wider audience can view it.

As for the question, Why does Winnipeg have such a high concentration of billiards players?, Ms. Kindzierski acknowledges the obvious answer of the weather.  “We have winter from October to April.” But, she continues that the real reason is that there is a “huge amount of teaching and coaching and sharing of knowledge that doesn’t happen in big cities.”

[1]       Mr. Ducharme will again represent Canada in the 2016 World Nine-ball Championship in Doha, Qatar.  An online fundraiser is underway to help him raise $2000 to attend.

The Break

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For most billiards buffs today, the coupling of billiards and radio can only mean one thing: American Billiard Radio, the popular radio-based podcast that began in December 2013 and continues to air every Thursday evening at 9pm CT.  Conceived and produced by Chicago Billiards Museum curator David “Mr Bond,” the weekly show has featured a panoply of pool professionals, spanning the alphabet from (Johnny) Archer to (Mike) Zuglan, in its effort to bring a “healthy dose of pool and billiard fun from sea to shining sea.”

The BreakBut, for the denizens of Las Vegas, the union of billiards and radio may conjure up a different broadcast – namely, “The Break,” the web series from local station KOMP 92.3 FM that featured radio personality Carlota playing cutthroat pool with members of hard rock bands (of varying name recognition) while she engages in friendly banter.  Each episode was 4-5 minutes.

To my knowledge, only five episodes were produced. The first, from September 2014, reveals the show’s lowbrow appeal.  Filmed inside a nondescript Las Vegas dive, Carlota plays pool against Rick DeJesus, frontman for local hard rock band Adelitas Way. She speaks to him about their new album and the significance behind their singles, “Stuck” and “Dog on a Leash.”  Of the five episodes, this one is the most revelatory, with DeJesus lamenting the state of rock-and-roll and the backlash against edgier bands like his.  The full episode is below.

We don’t get invited to the VMAs. We don’t get invited to the YMCA…We’ve been blacklisted because rock-and-roll is dangerous…I feel rock-and-roll has become so corporate….Youngsters have to get a dictionary out to look up ‘rock.’  Everyone is playing it safe.  Fun is popular.

Following the DeJesus pool match interview, “The Break” got a little more upscale and moved inside the Hard Rock Hotel, where Carlota interviews the four members of Otherwise.  The Las Vegas-based rock band, who talk about their new album (Peace at All Costs) while they founder at their pool game.

The third episode features an interview with frontman Johnny Hawkins and (now-ex) drummer Paul O’Brien of Nothing More, a band primarily known for their single “This is the Time.” The interview is light on content, but the entertainment value is high, specifically because Hawkins is so god-awful at pool.

The fourth episode is another Hard Rock Hotel cutthroat game, this time with Matt DiRito (bass) and Leigh Kakaty (lead vocals, founder) from the Kansas-based rock band Pop Evil. Giving off a 24/7 hard rocker vibe, DiRito and Kakaty talk about life on the road, the lure of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the appeal of hot sauce (“on everything”), and the challenge of being the one guy who knows nothing about sports.  Once again, none of these guys can play pool for shit.  The episode is available here.

Finally, the most recent episode from May 2015 involves Carlota playing cutthroat at the Hard Rock Hotel with Sully Erna (singer, founder) and Shannon Larkin (drummer) of Godsmack, the globally popular band with 20 top ten rock radio hits, including the Grammy-nominated “I Stand Alone,” which powered The Scorpion King soundtrack. Unfortunately, the interview does little to take the listeners behind Sully’s sunglasses, which he wears most the game.  The one memorable nugget is Sully’s confession that he has dressing room OCD.  The episode is available to watch here.

Auction Kings – “Rolling Stones Snooker Table”

There is clearly a market for celebrity pool tables.

In 1998, a snooker table custom made for the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge tour sold at auction for $12,075. In 2007, an Adler Victorian-style carved-walnut pool table, which had been customized for musician Ozzy Osbourne, sold at auction for $11,250.  A year later, the Brunswick table that actor Glen Ford had spent countless hours using  to play celebrities such as John Wayne and Frank Sinatra, went for nearly $8000 in a Heritage auction.

Rolling Stones snooker table

from the Voodoo Lounge tour

So, it was not outrageous for Gallery 63 owner Paul Brown to think that he could make a pretty penny auctioning a snooker table that had been customized for, and used by, the Rolling Stones as part of their 1989 Steel Wheels Tour.  Such is the setup for “Rolling Stones Snooker Table/Aliens,” the fourth episode of the first season of Auction Kings, a reality television series produced by Authentic Entertainment for the Discovery Channel.

Airing in November 2010, the Auction Kings episode, available to watch here, begins with Donald Dukes, the founder and creative talent behind handcrafted table maker Atlantic Billiards, walking into Mr. Brown’s auction house in Sandy Springs, Georgia, looking to sell a custom 12-foot snooker table that he built for the Rolling Stone to bring on tour.

https://youtu.be/ZJMzT_d84lw

This was not the first time Mr. Dukes had been called upon by the Rolling Stones to build a snooker table.  He built a total of five tables for the band and for its lead guitarist Keith Richards, including the aforementioned Voodoo Lounge tour table, which had been crafted from 1,400 pounds of slate playing surface from Italy, worsted wool cloth from Belgium, gum-rubber rail cushions from England, and maple cue sticks from Canada, according to the Christie’s auction site.[1] Mr. Dukes even joined the band on tours in order to maintain the tables.

(It is now well-documented that the Rolling Stones include in their concert tour rider that the promoter installs a snooker table backstage.  Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood wrote in his 2007 autobiography Ronnie: “The gig organizer is also obliged to set up a snooker table for Keith [Richards] and me – it’s a non-negotiable part of the contract. We always have a game before a concert.”[2])

Rolling Stones snooker table

from the Steel Wheels tour

For the Steel Wheels tour table, which was decorated with names of classic Rolling Stones’ hits, had legs mounted with replicas of John Pasche’s famous 1970 “Tongue and Lips” artwork, and included “ironclad provenance – [Mr. Dukes] and Keith Richards shooting a game on it,” the desired price was at least $4,000. “If all goes well, we will use the cash for 2nd honeymoon for our 40th anniversary,” says Mr. Dukes.

At the time right before the episode’s airing, enthusiasts on the AZBilliards Forum opined that the table should command a significant price.  Estimated ranged from “at least 4K” or “around 8K” to 15K and even 25K.[3]

In the actual episode, an appraiser values the table itself at $3,500 but quickly adds that its celebrity provenance is the true wild card which could favorably impact the value.  Owner Mr. Brown robotically follows up, “I’m hoping the fact it was indeed the Rolling Stones’ snooker table will drive the value up in a Jumping Jack Flash.”

“Rolling Stones Snooker Table/Aliens” ends with the auction, which also includes the sale of some African art and life-size aliens that are also highlighted throughout the episode.  With Mr. Dukes in the audience, the auctioneer begins the bidding at $1250.  An anonymous call-in buyer drives up the price, ultimately buying the table for $4000. Though Mr. Dukes only received his minimum asking price, he seems content; Mr. Brown, too, is relieved, though the lackluster bid prices for some of the other auction items leads him to surmise that there is bad luck in the air.

The theme of bad luck was a motif the show’s producers ran throughout the episode, starting with the scratching of winless lottery tickets and ending with Mr. Brown unwittingly walking beneath a ladder.  Such superstitious events were undoubtedly inserted to build the show’s narrative.

But, ironically, the bad luck gimmicks may have been a real omen.  The series Auction Kings ended in 2013, and Mr. Brown’s auction house Gallery 63 closed in March, 2015.  And, according to an AZBilliards Forum post from NoBull9, who spoke with one of the table’s assemblers, the $4000 deal fell through and the table was locked up in a warehouse, still for sale.[4]

[1]       http://www.christies.com.cn/lotfinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=606212

[2]       http://www.backstageauctions.com/catalog/1587-rolling-stones-1994-one-of-a-kind-voodoo-lounge-tour-used-pool-table/ai/0/24241/

[3]      http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=207833

[4]       http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=207833

Lights, Camera, Billiards: 5 Short Films

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Movie director and producer Stanley Kubrick once said, “Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.” As it happens, for many amateur filmmakers, a billiards room can provide the perfect milieu for bringing that camera and engaging in some cinematic and photographic experimentation.

The five recent billiards short films below are wildly different in theme, plot (or lack thereof), pace, dialogue, budget, and ultimately, viewer pleasure, but they have all been hand-picked by me to feature in this blog post because of their shared  connection in focusing on billiards as a way to explore a new camera, some new software, a shiny new toy.

Trick Shot

billiards short filmsIn 2015, Canon USA unveiled its new EOS C300 Mark II, a feature-rich HD motion picture camera. To introduce the new technology to the world, they funded the production of Trick Shot, a 13-minute commercial that masquerades as a billiards short film about a family of traveling grifters.  In the ad – I mean, movie – a father-son-daughter team hustle a roughneck and his gang of goons in a game of 8-ball.  The scam appears to fail when the daughter scratches on the 8-ball, but that gaffe, it turns out, was part of a larger con. Actress Danielle Andrade does most the pool-shooting.  It’s clear she can’t play but then this film was never really about pool.  The full movie is available to watch here, as well as a behind-the-scenes feature that clarifies the camera is the real star of this film.

Billard Raum

Like Trick Shot, this three-minute German film shares a similar mission of using billiards as a way to showcase a camera’s potential.  Created in 2011 by Afif El-Hadi, the director/cameraman used a Nikon D7000, along with three different Nikkor lenses, to create a movie, burdened by an overuse of visual effects, about a man practicing a game of 9-ball.  The most memorable part of the film is the inclusion of the songs “Extreme Ways” (Moby), “Fever Dream” (Tyler Bates), and “Wings” (Martin Todsharow).

The Break

billiards short filmsUsing a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, British director Azeem Mustafa shot The Break in 2015.  The four-minute billiards short film pits Detective Rajat Basu against career criminal Sebastien Duchamps in a private snooker room.  Unfortunately, aside from the opening break, the table goes unused, and instead serves as backdrop to a feet-only (?) fight scene between two on-screen martial artists, Kamran Kam and Wilfried Tah. Calling the sequence the “best fight scene [he’s] every produced,” Mustafa cites credits the Blackmagic with allowing him to “push the cinematic feel of the film.”[1]  The movie is available to watch here.

Pool Hall

This two-minute, black-and-white ode to dark, smoky pool halls is not the standard fare from Tex Crowley, head honcho of Texomatic Pictures, a video production company that caters to the trucking industry.  But, Crowley shot Pool Hall in 2013, both to reminisce about his days shooting pool in North Texas, and, presumably, to showcase his skills using a Canon T2i / 550D with Magic Lantern 2.3 and editing with Adobe Premier Pro CC. The movie is available to watch here.

Chalked

billiards short filmsDon’t be too harsh on Chalked, a conceptual project that takes the same 30-second billiards scene and shows it in three variations of cinema genre: silent movie, comedy, and western.  The film, created by Jake Moore, while he was a freshman in college, shows an individual experimenting with sound, color, lighting, and visuals, to mimic these  familiar genres.  Along with many more recent projects, the film is available on the website of his video production company, Red Bell Central.

[1]       https://officemustafa.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/the-break-martial-arts-action-film/

The Rack Pack

Everyone loves a great sports rivalry between individuals.  A great sports rivalry can lead to memorable matches, heated emotion, superior trash talking, occasional violence, and of course, incredible displays of athletic prowess. Even better, pretty much every sport can point to some defining dogfight which has electrified spectators.

The Rack PackConsider:  Cristiano Ronaldo-Lionel Messi (soccer); Arnold Palmer-Jack Nicklaus (golf); Chris Evert-Martina Navratilova (tennis); Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky (chess); Larry Bird-Magic Johnson (basketball); Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier (boxing); Brian Lara-Sachin Tendulkar (cricket); Jahangir Khan-Jansher Khan (squash); etc.  In fact, the ongoing grapple between Formula One auto racer Niki Lauda and James Hunt was so irrefutable that director Ron Howard made the feud the basis of his 2013 movie Rush.[1]

To that list, we can add the multi-year face-off between world snooker champions Alex “Hurricane” Higgins and “Interesting” Steve Davis, a rivalry that ran through the 1980s and, as a result, turned a back room parlor game into a sport watched on television by more than 18 million people. Fortunately, the bitter contest between these two giants is exceptionally captured in Brian Welsh’s movie, The Rack Pack, which premiered exclusively on BBC’s iPlayer in January, 2016.

The film begins in 1972, with Higgins (Luke Treadaway) defeating John Spencer to win the World Snooker Championship. Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” is used to evoke this epic changing of the guard, with the working-class, semi-unhinged Higgins now emerging as the “People’s Champion.”

The Rack PackAs Higgins injects his maverick, I-don’t-give-a-fuck personality into the sport, fast-forward to 1976, when promoter Barry Hearn (Kevin Bishop) test-drives Steve Davis (Will Merrick), a young, up-and-comer.  Seeing the bowl-cut teetotaler for the first time, Hearn brilliantly quips about Davis, “God, he’s pale…I bet he gets sunburnt when he opens the fridge.”  (Of course, that’s genteel compared to Higgins’ remark when he first eyes his red-headed future nemesis: “What happened?  Did a carrot fuck a snail up the arse?”)

Hearn believes there is big money to be made from snooker. In the robotic Davis, he senses gold, assuming he can mold Davis into a formidable and intimidating player.  Hearn also knows Higgins’ swagger and bravado are signs of vulnerability, saying, “[Higgins] plays to the gunnery like there’s an award for the best shot.  He can’t take a round of applause to bed. He’s like a little boy lost, desperate for approval. Emotion, Davis, is the enemy of success…We need to create an aura of invincibility around you.”

Thus begins an Eliza Doolittle-like transformation of Davis, from a video-game-playing, milk-drinking, socially awkward looby to a stone-cold, laser-focused, snooker assassin, with every mannerism, from crossing his legs to holding his drink, rehearsed for maximum effect. In Hearn’s words, this is the game of “mental snooker.”

The metamorphosis is incredible.  After losing terribly to Higgins in the quarterfinals of the 1980 World Snooker Championships, Davis returns the following year to win the World Championship.  Though Higgins returns the favor in 1982, Davis effectively becomes a snooker juggernaut, rebounding to win the world title five more times in 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1989.  He boasts, “There is no one around who can concentrate long enough to be a threat to my dominating records for years to come.”

Musically, Davis’ ascent is complemented by some high-powered voltage by an incredible, 1970s-1980s British rock soundtrack, including “Another One Bites the Dust” (Queen), “Money For Nothing” (Dire Straits), “Sunshine of My Love” (Cream), “Voodoo Child” (Jimi Hendrix), “Tiny Dancer” (Elton John), and “Who Are You” (Who). Those aural anthems are used liberally, along with montages of potted balls, newspaper articles, and magazine covers, all creating a whirligig of snooker and promotional activity around the unstoppable Davis and Hearn, his master puppeteer.

The Rack PackIn addition to Higgins and Davis, The Rack Pack features (brief) appearances by an  extended pantheon of actors portraying snooker greats from the decade, including Kirk Stevens, Jimmy White, Dennis Taylor, Cliff Thorburn, Tony Knowles, and even a 16-year-old Matthew Harrison (who Davis embarrassingly defeats 134-0).

While The Rack Pack probably fawns too much on Hearn, the film doesn’t hold back on showing the meltdown of Higgins, whose repeated losses to Davis both corroded and eroded Higgins, turning him into a coke-fueled, whoring, foul-mouthed, absent father and emotionally abusive husband. A number of the scenes evoke Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, both in their portrayal of the impact drugs can have on a career and in their stark portrayal of a man out-of-touch with the times.   (Interestingly, some reviewers felt the movie was too clement in its portrayal of Higgins, saying the character was “romanticized to brush over some of the more unsavory and extreme aspects of his personality.”[2])

Like many biopics, The Rack Pack struggles with what life chapters to leave on the cutting room floor.  Thus, the last quarter of the movie tends to drag on, as Davis achieves new strata of fame by selling everything from coffee to fragrance; making a quiz show board game; and joining a number of other snooker professionals to sing “Snooker Loopy,” a Chas & Dave song that surprisingly hit the #6 position on the UK Singles Chart.[3]

But, the film emotionally reconnects with its audience in the final scenes, when Higgins, defeated and bankrupt, approaches Hearn, offering to let him become is manager.  Hearn responds, patiently and truthfully,  that  “Snooker needs you, but I don’t need you [Alex]…The millions out there don’t tune in to watch the snooker, they watch for the soap opera….You’re destroying yourself, and millions enjoy watching the process.”  It’s a proper denouement for the Hurricane, whose star would never shine again.  The onetime millionaire died in 2010, penurious, from a mix of malnutrition, pneumonia, and a bronchial condition.

Billiards movies fans often lament that both the lack of good films since The Color of Money (1986) and the absence of snooker films.  Cry a tear no longer.  The Rack Pack is high-quality entertainment, as well as a compelling biopic on two titans whose incredible skills and contrasting personalities fueled one of the most impressive rivalries in sports history.

To the frustration of many, The Rack Pack is available exclusively on BBC’s iPlayer, which is not viewable outside of the United Kingdom.  However, there are many known workarounds, such as the Hola unblocker plugin for Chrome, that can spoof IP addresses and eliminate this restriction.

[1]       There is a wonderful running list, with commentary, of individual sports rivalries on Quora, though sadly there is no mention given to any rivalries existing in billiards.

[2]       http://www.snookerbacker.com/2016/01/19/the-rack-pack-review-a-triumph-of-sound-and-vision/

[3]       Goofy as it is, “Snooker Loopy” holds the #3 spot on my Top 10 Billiards Songs and Music Videos.

Rated B for Billiards: Top 10 Billiards Bedroom Scenes

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Certainly, ever since Marilyn Chambers got ravished on the snooker table by the gardener of her father’s estate in the 1980 pornographic classic Insatiable, the billiards room has been the locus of many sexual encounters, dalliances, and romps in film.  The scenes have ranged from the erotic or coquettish (e.g., Cinderella Liberty) to the brutal and vicious (e.g., Watchmen; Unholy Rollers).  Something about balls, sticks, long flat felted surfaces, and the 30-inch height of a pool table that lends itself to cinematic lechery.  I therefore present my Top 10 Bedroom Billiards Scenes (though, practically speaking, none of these occur in the bedroom) for your consumption, amusement, and critique. Enjoy!  #NSFW

  1. pool table sceneBedazzled. Director Harold Ramis chose in 2000 to remake the original 1967 Bedazzled by casting Brendan Fraser as Elliot Richards and pin-up goddess Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil in this film about a hopeless dweeb granted seven wishes to snare the girl of his dreams in exchange for his soul. In this early scene from the movie, the Devil seduces Elliot into having a conversation, but not before rendering him tongue-tied with her body-rocking dress and her break that pockets 15 balls in one shot.
  1. pool table sceneDays of Our Lives. At some point in 1992, the daytime soap opera aired an episode, which included this scene, reuniting Carly Manning (Crystal Chappell) and Bo Brady (Peter Reckell), who engage in some truly McCheesy dancing to Joe Cocker’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” Of course, Carly didn’t leave a lot else on, as Bo picks her up and mounts her on the table, effortlessly rolling the cue ball into the corner pocket for maximum effect.
  1. pool table sceneScorned. Shannon Tweed, wife of KISS frontman Gene Simmons and the star of roughly 60 erotic thrillers, doesn’t have time to finish her billiards stroke before Andrew Stevens begins his with a little backdoor billiards in this scene from the ever-missable, softcore 1994 thriller. Amazingly, this film even spawned a sequel, albeit with no billiards scene.
  1. pool table sceneBody Chemistry 4: Full Exposure. One year after Scorned, Ms. Tweed is (literally) back on the billiards table in this 1995 straight-to-video softcore film. Dispensing with any pretension of being used to play pool, the billiards table in this scene is simply another setting for Ms. Tweed to disrobe, writhe, gyrate, moan, arch, and express her curious comfort with getting nailed on the baize.
  1. pool table sceneAnd God Created Woman. Thirty-two years after Roger Vadim directed the French film Et Dieu Créa La Femme (And God Created Woman), he remade the film under the same name in 1988, this time casting the seductive Rebecca De Mornay as the vamp Robin Shea. In this billiards scene, where the “winner says do, and the loser does,” Shea memorializes her victory over James Tiernan (Frank Langella) with the command that he get down on his knees, remove her underwear, and perform oral sex on the table.
  1. pool table sceneAlfie. In this scene from the 2004 film about a cockney womanizer learning the hard way about the dangers of his actions, Alfie (Jude Law) and Lonette (Nia Long) strut around a purple felt billiards table, playing “I Never,” and alternating among shots of pool, shots of 1800 tequila, and shots of Lonette’s cleavage. Jukebox tunes from Teddy Pendergrass (“Love T.K.O.”) and The Isley Brothers (“For the Love of You”) ensure Alfie will do more scoring tonight than just on the table.
  1. pool table sceneFemme Fatale. In 2002, Brian De Palma cast supermodel Rebecca Romjin in this crime drama about an ex con-woman Laure/Lily trying to put her life back in order. The mediocre movie, now largely forgotten, did turn heads and raise the adrenaline with its seductive opening pool table scene. The scantily clad Romjin engages in a slow strip tease that shows no skin, but suggests everything. The sudden juxtaposition of sex and the ensuing violence is equally memorable.
  1. pool table sceneMen in Hope (original title: Muzi v Nadeji). The film poster notwithstanding, this 2011 Czech film has nothing to do with billiards, except for this one lascivious scene in which the bodacious Sarlota (Vica Kerekes) enters the parlor, wearing a skin-tight, eye-poppingly-open, red mini-dress, and is introduced to Ondrej (Jirí Machácek). Along with Ondrej’s father, the trio begin to play three-cushion billiards. Sarlota’s cleavage distracts from the game, but that’s fiddlesticks compared to the delirium subsequently caused by Sarlota shimmying out of her pink underwear and using it as a hair tie, presumably so she can aim better.
  1. pool table sceneRed Shoe Diaries – “Double or Nothing.” Zalman King’s popular erotic Showtime drama series was formulaic with its lite-plot stories of sexual awakening that combined nudity, soft lens cinematography and mood music. In this 1992 episode, the super-sultry Paula Barbieri stars as a woman who is forced to survive by relying on her pool-playing skills…which naturally involves assuming all sorts of positions on a pool table.

 

  1. pool table sceneThe Last Picture Show. Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 Best Picture about the coming-of-age of a group of 1950s high schoolers is worth watching for countless reasons, but the billiards sex scene is certainly among the most unforgettable. Jacy Farrow (a 21-year-old Cybill Shepherd) lures Abilene (Clu Gallagher), her mom’s older lover, to an empty pool hall, where a brief attempt to play pool is replaced with Abilene having sex with Jacy on the table. The close-ups of Jacy’s hands reaching through the netting of the table’s pockets will stain your memory for some time.

Phew, I’m sweating.  Well, if you can still focus your attention, let me know what would be on your Top 10 list.  And, no, Two Nude Girls Playing Billiards doesn’t count.  Of course, with the forthcoming production of 50 Shades Darker (2017), which may include the highly-gossiped billiards scene (cf. “I am going to spank you, then fuck you over this billiard table.”), I may need to revisit my rankings in the near future.

pool table scene

The New Show – “The Hustler”

FATS:  Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?

FATS:  Hundred dollars?

EDDIE:  Well, you shoot big-time pool, Fats. I mean, that’s what everybody says, you shoot big-time pool. Let’s make it two hundred dollars a game.

FATS:  Now I know why they call you Fast Eddie. Eddie, you talk my kind of talk… (moving to the main table) Sausage! Rack ’em up!

As any billiards cinephile knows, these are some of the indelible lines penned by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen for the 1961 film The Hustler. The exchange marks the first interaction between Paul Newman (as “Fast” Eddie Felson) and Jackie Gleason (as Minnesota Fats). The dialogue is so precise that the actors’ voices are audible and instantly recognizable from the printed word alone.

Twenty-three years later, in the 1984 “The Hustler” sequence from The New Show, these words are uttered almost verbatim by the same characters, shot in B&W in a cinematographic feel identical to that created by Eugene Shuftan in The Hustler.  But, replacing Mr. Newman and Mr. Gleason are two very different actors: Kevin Kline (as Eddie) and John Candy (as Fats).  The full sequence is below:

Is this a remake?  Are we going to watch a shot-for-shot reenactment, like Gus Van Sant’s 1998 treatment of Psycho?

For those familiar with The New Show, Lorne Michaels’ NBC sketch comedy that aired during the 1983–84 television season, the answer, of course, is no.  There is anticipation that though the dialogue, framing, music, and cinematography all mimic the original The Hustler, something is hopefully about to become wildly different and madcap.  And, boy does The New Show send-up of The Hustler not disappoint!

New ShowOnce Sausage has racked the balls, and the two players have lagged for break, Fats prepares to break and…miscues. His ingenuous follow-up response is priceless:  “Wait, I wasn’t ready for that.  Can I take that again?” For Eddie’s turn, after asking if you need to call balls (“No, you don’t need to call them.  Except the 8-ball.  That you must call.”), he misses wildly on his break, caroming the cue off of several rails without touching the rack.

And so it goes, turn after turn. As Kenyon Hopkins’ noirish score from The Hustler marks the slow passing of the hours, Eddie and Fats miss, scratch, and scratch some more, until a line of nine balls have been put back on the table, penalizing the players for their ineptitude. Fats shares, “It’s time to get something going here Eddie. Maybe a little old-fashioned bangy ball.”

New ShowMore hours pass, the hands of the clock rotating speedily, the cigarette butts amassing on the floor, and still the chalkboard reads, “Game One.” The two players, feuding after 16 hours, about whether the $200 bet really counted, collapse on the table, exhausted.  Fats proposes, “Let’s clear all the balls off the table except the 8-ball and the cue ball. Whoever sinks it is the winner.”   I won’t reveal the ending, but it’s consistent with the previous lunacy.

“The New Show” was intended to mark Mr. Michaels’ return to television, after a five-year hiatus from Saturday Night Live. The comedy show appeared on Fridays, not Saturdays, in prime time, not late night. It was filmed “mock live,”not live, and featured three guest stars, who rotated from show to show, instead of one host. These decisions were intended to differentiate it from SNL.  But, even with its incredible rotating cast of characters (Kevin Kline, John Candy, Steve Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Buck Henry, Jeff Goldblum, Gilda Radner, Raul Julia, Penny Marshall, and Laraine Newman), the show was a ratings disaster. It ran for just nine episodes before getting canned as the lowest rated of 94 programs during the 1983-1984 television season.

If you are like me, and you are only experiencing the joy of watching “The Hustler” for the first time via this blog or seeing it recently posted on YouTube, then we collectively owe a huge amount of gratitude to Tor Lowry, a managing member of Zero-X Billiards and the creator of the billiards web series, 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment.

For over the past year, Mr. Lowry had been on a personal quest to locate “The Hustler.”  Other clips from The New Show (e.g., “Roy’s Food Repair”, “The Twilight Zonettes”) had been available on YouTube for some time, but only the first several minutes of “The Hustler” were viewable, prior to Mr. Lowry’s successful sleuthing. (I even reached out to the New York Paley Center for Media, with their library of 160,000 television shows, radio programs and commercials, on Mr. Lowry’s behalf, only to come up empty.)  Mr. Lowry finally located someone who had recorded the episode on VHS, and subsequently transferred the recording to YouTube, making it viewable for all.

Given “The Hustler” has already racked up almost 16,000 views in less than a month, there is perhaps hope that this short-lived series may one day be available again to watch.

Up Against the 8 Ball

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Up Against the 8 Ball Up Against the 8 Ball, the 2004 billiards comedy directed by Troy Curvey Jr on a shoestring budget, packs a wallop of positivity into its 90 minutes. Overcoming obstacles, pursuing higher education, helping one’s neighbor – all these uplifting themes get ample on-screen treatment. But, no amount of feel-good moralism can save this film from its slim-jim plot, insipid script, bad acting, and horrible billiards sequences.

The film begins with Krista (Iva La’Shawn) and Monique (Tawny Dahl), two women who just lost their scholarship funding their tuition at a historically black college, needing to find $10,000 to complete their final semester and graduate. After ruling out robbing a bank and stripping, the girls decide to compete in the Protect Your Stick Condoms National Pool Tournament, which has a $50,000 winner-take-all award.   This should be easy, according to Krista, who was raised shooting billiards by her father, a well-known pool hustler. (The origin of Monique’s skills are not revealed.)

The first step is to win the regional doubles tournament, where they get exposed to a rogues’ gallery of paper-thin opponents, including: Marcus (a local lothario) and his partner Fat Tony (who succeeds in making shots only by equating balls with similarly colored food – e.g., the 1-ball is corn-on-the-cob, the 6-ball is collard greens, the cue ball is mashed potatoes); two Irish priests; an ignoramus that talks about the need to “use English instead of Spanish”; and most offensive, an Asian duo accused of using their “kung fu” to win. (Interesting note: one of the Asian opponents is played by James Kyson, who years later would star as Ando on NBC’s hit show Heroes as well as get named by TV Guide as one of “Hollywood’s 25 Hottest.”)

The ladies win the tournament, which is hard to believe given the actresses are clearly uncomfortable holding cue sticks and the only shots shown on screen are incredibly simple ones. Victory clinched, the women head to Las Vegas, accompanied by their stereotypical gay friend Fruity Jackson (T. Ashanti Mozelle). Expecting they’ll be treated like royalty when they arrive, they are instead dropped off at a squalid depot, where friendly hookers roam under the watchful eye of JT (Jay Cooper), a soft-spoken “not your traditional kind of pimp.” JT quickly befriends Krista and Monique, and after confirming they are not seeking to work the streets, drives them to the Tasmahall Hotel (and not the Taj Mahal Hotel, as the ladies hoped). Once at the hotel, there is some comic relief provided by the proprietor, played by Arnez J, an emerging comic recognizable on BET.

Eventually, after a series of distracting and uninteresting scenes – a budding romance between JT and Monique; an attempt by Marcus to drug (and presumably rape) Krista; Fruity’s efforts to secure the $1,000 tournament registration fee; a schlubby mob boss trying to rig the tournament by recruiting Caroline, a well-known hustler – the tournament begins.

Up Against the *And, wow, is this some painful pool to watch. It’s as if the technical advising was done by a team of 2nd-graders. No one knows how to play. The incredulity and lack of humor hit their nadir when the final match narrows down to our collegiate ladies versus Caroline and her lesbian partner. With Caroline & Co. clearly winning, Monique resorts to baring some midriff and thigh, thereby distracting Caroline and making her partner so jealous that she forfeits in anger.

For a film that includes such virtuous (albeit vapid), dialogue as, “This is our only chance to graduate and make something of ourselves,” it’s amazing and disturbing how much of the film traffics in two-dimensional stereotypes and derogatory comments, such as referring to the final match as the “collegiate chicks [against] the lesbian hos.” Somewhere stuck between crude comedy and righteous homily sits Up Against the 8 Ball, which makes for a pretty terrible movie.

Up Against the 8 Ball is available to watch online or on DVD.

Help Me Find These Three Billiards Short Films

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Billiards professionals are a frequent mainstay of billiards movies and television shows, whether assuming leading roles (e.g., Jennifer Barretta as Gail in 9-Ball); acting as archrivals (e.g., Keith McCready as Grady Seasons in The Color of Money); portraying themselves for scene authenticity (e.g., Steve Mizerak in The Baltimore Bullet); or even making uncredited cameos (e.g., Willie Mosconi in The Hustler). [1]

billiards short films

An uncredited Willie Mosconi in The Hustler

Fortunately, all of the aforementioned films are readily viewable. However, I’ve recently discovered three  billiards short films – each featuring a professional billiards player – that I’ve been unable to watch anywhere. So I beseech my readers: If you can help me locate any of these films, please contact me directly.

Take a Cue

[Update: Since my original post, Take a Cue was posted on YouTube, but it has since been removed.]

The oldest of the three missing movies is Take a Cue, a nine-minute billiards short film that starred the future “Missionary of Billiards” Charlie Peterson, who was a tireless promoter of billiards in the United States and in 1966 became one of the inaugural inductees into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame.

Directed by Felix Feist and released in 1939, Take a Cue features Mr. Peterson (who was then known as the world’s Fancy-Shot Champion) as a high school teacher who redirects a group of students’ attention away from an important basketball game the school just won, and toward the fine art of carom billiards.  Most of the film features Mr. Peterson making some eye-popping trick shots, including hitting a coin off the far rail and back through a narrow opening between two chalk cubes. When Mr. Peterson is not making shots, he is either providing instructional tips (e.g., how to hold a cue, gauge distance, deploy spin to improve ball position), or he is thwarting the antics of Homer, the star basketball player who is ill-prepared to cede the limelight.

Champion of the Cue

[Update: Since my original post, an antique dealer notified me in January 2023 that he had found a 16mm Champion of the Cue on a reel of film in a recent estate deal. Unfortunately, he sold it privately on eBay and I was unable to watch it.]

In 1928, Columbia Pictures launched a sports-themed newsreel series, initially named “Great Moments in Football,” and while cycling through a flurry of name changes, temporarily used “Sports Reels,” before eventually landing on “The World of Sports.”

During the short-lived “Sports Reels” era, Columbia released in 1945 the eight-minute documentary, Champion of the Cue, in which popular sportscaster Bill Stern narrates in his engaging, theatrical style, while billiards champion (and future legend) Willie Mosconi demonstrates his cue stick prowess, with many of his shots shown in slow motion.

Mr. Mosconi starred in the documentary four years into his unmatched record of winning the World Straight Pool Championships 15 times (between 1941 and 1957). Nicknamed “Mr. Pocket Billiards,” Mr. Mosconi was another of the first inductees into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame. He set so many records and popularized such a variety of trick shots that his name became nearly synonymous with billiards for most of the latter 20th century.

Nineball

[Update: Since my original post, the film’s director, Ricky Aragon, helped me locate the movie. My review is here. A trailer for the film is below.]

Fast-forward 60 years, and the third and final elusive billiards short film is Nineball, a Filipino movie directed by Enrico Aragon. Released in 2007 and premiering at the prestigious Cinemalaya Film Festival held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the film won the Special Jury Prize in the Short Feature Category. Fortunately, a trailer for the film is still available here.

The film sounds absurdly enjoyable, if the following review is any indicator:

billiards short filmsIt is rude, crass, yet absolutely hilarious. It first pokes fun at the indefatigable relationship between Filipinos and the game of billiards…The center point is an obsessed billiards aficionado, his face covered by a horrid rag (it is the mystery that opens to the punchline) and is fed with raw potatoes (his obsession extends to his turning his eating utensils into cues and the potatoes into billiards balls); the punchline is that his misfortune is a freak accident in one of his usual games. The punchline of the punchline is the cameo of Efren ‘Bata’ Reyes, the aficionado’s savior. Aragon prolongs the comedy through the end credits: the suspect nineball passed from one cue to another in shocking yet deadpan fashion.[2]

Of course, part of the film’s brilliance in lampooning Fillipinos’ love affair with billiards is the casting of Efren “Bata” Reyes, one the most successful and most popular global figures in the sport. Mr. Reyes, aka “The Magician,” has won more than 70 international titles; made history by winning world championships in two different disciplines of billiards; taken home the single greatest purse in history by beating Earl Strickland in the “Color of Money” tournament; became the first Asian inducted (in 2003) into the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame; and, of course, starred on the silver screen in the billiards movie Pakners with fellow cultural icon Fernando Poe.

Three short films.

Three BCA Hall of Famers.

Three missing movies.

Please help me find them.

[1]       See my 200th blog post: https://www.billiardsmovies.com/top-10-pool-players-playing-pool-in-movies/

[2]       http://oggsmoggs.blogspot.com/2007/12/cigarettes-cues-and-cinema-filipino.html