Tag Archives: cue sports

Ballbreakers (billiards TV game show)

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For a fleeting moment in July 2005, members of the billiards community were aroused by a new billiards TV show – specifically, a billiards game show featuring both amateur “pool sharks” and celebrities – that debuted on the Game Show Network.

Produced by Sokolobl Entertainment, the show Ballbreakers (originally titled No Limit 9 Ball) consisted of contestants competing in 9-ball for a chance to win $20,000.  Giving the show its billiards imprimatur was Ewa Mataya Laurance (“The Striking Viking”), who provided commentary on game play and expert advice on shots if asked by the players, as well as Mars Callahan, the director of Poolhall Junkies, who was the show’s co-executive producer.   Adding to the show’s popular appeal was Adrianne Curry, winner of the first season of America’s Top Model, who served as the series’ “Rack Girl.”

Billiards TV - BallbreakersWith its cover story in the July 2005 issue of Pool & Billiard Magazine, the show sparked a brief surge of debate about its merit and role in improving the popular image of pool.  Rob Lobl, one of the show’s creators, said, “Pool is coolest in the movies…and the lamest thing on TV.”  His partner, Sam Sokolow, added, “With the right set, the right format, we knew we could come up with the coolest pool show ever…the sky is the limit.”

But, among billiards players, the reactions were more polarizing, even before it premiered.  One person posting in the Billiards Digest Forum said, “This program will probably bring more interest to the game and more pool players.”  While another person countered by saying, “Great.  Another dumbass show to lower the bar…whatever happened to elegance and the beauty of this game to those who really can play.”

In hindsight, Ballbreakers had very little impact on billiards.  This was, in a large part, because the show wasn’t particularly good, and it was cancelled in 2006.   Why, you might ask?  Let’s start with the premise: watching amateur players compete in 9-ball is only interesting to watch on TV if the billiards-playing is decent.  But, the contestants never ran more than a few shots and often missed easy ones.  Similar to hearing bad jokes told at an amateur comedy show, some of the playing became downright cringe-worthy.

This “lousy pool” dynamic in turn made the Striking Viking’s job as commentator kind of a joke, too.  Laurance may be an ESPN commentator, a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, and a winner of all the major events on the WPBA tour, but even she couldn’t breathe much excitement into average playing and positioning.

The addition of Sal Masekela (X Games) as host also did little to dial up the engagement factor, especially because he was asked to treat the contestants as caricatures (e.g., the gay player “Cupcake,” the big player “Beefcake, etc.).  I did, however, enjoy his catchphrase, “Good luck.  Break some balls.”

A group of b- and c-list celebrities, including Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World), Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba) and Noah Wyle (ER) also joined two episodes of the series to boost ratings, but had little long-term impact.  However, at least one of those celebrities – Dorian Harewood – gets an honorary shout-out from me, for he also appeared 6 years earlier in the pool movie Kiss Shot, the topic of a future blog post.

I’ve included above one full episode of Ballbreakers, divided into four segments.  Watch them all, but I encourage you to check out the most novel part of the episode, which was Laurance’s introduction of the game “Jawbreakers” (Segment 2, 7:38) to get table control in the 2nd round.  It’s an interesting game designed to test how fast the players can pocket the 6 balls arranged next to the 6 pockets on the table.  But, like the show itself, it quickly falls apart.

The Cuemaker (billiards documentary)

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In 2012, Gary Chin, a 20-year-old film student at Ithaca College in upstate New York, directed and produced a 19-minute billiards documentary about Dana Paul, an impressive 64-year-old local artisan, who makes custom pool cues and espresso tampers.   Entitled The Cuemaker, the short film, which won Chin a Best Director award at the 2012 Honey and Buddy Documentary Film Festival, is largely not about the technical aspects of making cue sticks, but more about the passion and commitment Paul brings to his craft.

The Cuemaker - billiards documentaryChin, a rising pool player and the president of Ithaca College’s Billiards Club, starts his documentary with his personal quest to “take [his]game to the next level by building a custom cue,” specifically a 19.5-oz jump break cue.  That quest leads him to Paul, the resident cue repair and cue-building expert.  Along his quest, he also attends the 2012 Super Billiards Expo in Philadelphia, where he observes Shane Van Boening, currently ranked #1 in the US, win the Ten-Ball Players Championship.

But, Chin’s quest is intentionally subsumed under Paul’s larger “quest for [cue-making] perfection.”  It is powerful to hear a craftsman talk with such pride about his trade. Speaking to Chin, Paul says, “I am not attached to [a] particular piece of wood…I’m attached to the idea that it will become, it not treasured, at least respected by you or maybe even your children.  He then later adds, “I am not obsessed but I am determined….I want to love the cue because I want it to be an example of my most prodigious effort to do the best I can do with a cue.”

In the end, Chin, with Paul’s obvious assistance, does make himself the perfect jump break cue.  But, it’s also clear that Paul will forever chase that state of perfection.   If I were currently investing in a cue stick, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Cuemaker billiards documentary is available to order on DVD only through Gary Chin’s website.  A preview trailer for the documentary is below. You can also show your support for Chin by liking his Facebook page for The Cuemaker.  To see more of Dana Paul’s woodwork, visit his Tamperista website.

The Baron and the Kid

As far back as 1906, there have been movies based on songs, such as the silent short Waiting at the Church, based on the music hall song of the same name by Vesta Victoria.  Over the years, the genre has expanded to include more well-known movies, such as Alice’s Restaurant, Yellow Submarine, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, and Born in East L.A.

To this atypical list, we must also add the 1984 made-for-TV-movie, The Baron and the Kid, directed by Gary Nelson and starring Johnny Cash as William “The Baron” Addington.

The Baron and the Kid (billiards movie)Based on Cash’s 1980 song “The Baron,” the title track of his 1981 Columbia Records album of the same name, The Baron and the Kid was derided by pundits as a feeble attempt to follow in the footprint of Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler (1980) – another movie based on a song – and rope in those same fans.  (There is something inherently in the story-driven DNA of C&W songs that lends themselves to movie translation. See also Convoy; Ode to Billy Joe; and Take This Job and Shove It.)

In any event, this criticism is not entirely unfounded.  The Baron and the Kid follows the basic sentimental father-son drama as The Gambler in that it casts Cash as an ex-pool hustler determined to rectify the wrongs of his violent, alcoholic past life by establishing a relationship with his son, Billy Joe “The Cajun Kid” Stanley (Greg Webb), who his ex-wife Dee Dee Stanley (June Carter Cash) had kept a secret for 18 years.

Wish I had a known ya
When you were a little younger
Around me you might have learned
a thing or two
If I had known you longer
You might be a little stronger
And maybe you’d shoot straighter
Then you doooo

Not surprisingly, that reunion doesn’t go swimmingly well at first, especially since the Cajun Kid, now a successful small Southern town hustler, has no interest changing his cue stick ways and listening to the Man in Black.

Apparently, when there is “nothing to lose, everything to win,” the only way to forge a father-son bond and remedy almost two decades of absence is to bond over billiards on the road and get “in the zone…a combination of what experience tells you to do, the ego wants you to do, and the nerves will let you do.”  This includes competing against Dr. Pockett (played by the perfectly named Earl Poole Ball, Johnny Cash’s pianist of 20 years) in a double-elimination tournament;  playing a “10-game freeze out” against the menacing Frosty (memorably and most ironically played by Richard Roundtree a.k.a. “Shaft”) and his posse of rednecks;  and trading shots with trick-shot legend Mike Massey, who makes a cameo as a rival 9-ball player.

Regardless of the predictable plot, the fact is any billiards movie starring Johnny Cash gets a thumbs-up from me.  And, without question, this is a billiards movie.  It opens with an incredible series of pool shots performed by Cash (reflecting the brilliance of technical adviser Mike Massey). There are then frequent pool games and demonstrations of pool prowess, including the introduction of Tracy Pollan (future spouse of Michael J. Fox) as pool-shooting Southern belle Mary Beth Phillips.  And, of course, like so many other billiards movies (e.g., The Color of Money; Up Against the 8 Ball; Kiss Shot), there is the culminating final tournament, in this case, the National Pocket Billiards 9-Ball Championship

And while the movie is rather hackneyed, it does introduce one aspect of pool that I’ve not seen in other movies – namely, the practice of ”jarring,” in which a player has his opponent’s drink spiked with drugs (e.g., amphetamine) to make him overconfident so that he’ll undertake impossible shots.  I couldn’t turn up much research on the practice, though a handful of message boards confirmed that “jarring” was done through the 1980s.  Of course, today in sports, the issue is less about drugging one’s opponent than it is about self-doping…yes, even in billiards.   Just ask German billiards champ Axel Buescher, who was stripped of his national carom billiards title in 2008.

The Baron and the Kid is widely available to rent or buy online.

The Baron and the Kid v2Additional information of interest:

Kisses & Caroms (Billiards Movie)

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I remember the first time I saw Bob Clark’s 1982 movie Porky’s.  It felt like I was engaging in something forbidden, much like the oversexed high-schoolers do as they look through the peephole into the girls’ shower.

Looking at the poster of the 2006 billiards movie Kisses & Caroms (also known as American Pool), I assumed I would experience a similar feeling.  The movie’s titillating (pun intended) poster, featuring a woman’s private parts covered by a perfect rack (pun intended?), reminded me of the Black Crows’ Amorica album cover.  Like Porky’s, this movie screamed devilish and naughty in an R-rated, tongue-and-cheek manner.

Kisses and Caroms - Billiards MovieAnd for the first 5 minutes, I thought this might just be the Porky’s of Pool.  Zack, the slightly dim-witted owner of Breakingtime Billiards, a pool table and gameroom supply store, awakens in a ménage a trois arranged by his girlfriend (Jennifer) and her able-bodied close friend (Tara).  I thought, “Well, it lacks the prankish humor and build-up of Porky’s, but this could be interesting…”

But, the humor never surfaced, the sexual action never continued, and, still worse, the billiards never materialized.  Instead, we’re left with a contrived story about a pathetic guy who can’t make up his mind about his ex-girlfriend relationship, and as a result, channels his annoyance into progressively more hostile conversations with his store’s annoying patrons, including the “Chalk Guy” and the “Naked White Guy.”  Shot on a budget of $11,000, the movie aspires to be Clerks in a pool supply store, but the dialogue is stilted and uninteresting, making me wonder if Clerks director Kevin Smith really said the film was “a sexy little day-in-the-lifer.”

There is some intermittent billiards playing on the store table, but it’s clear none of the actors have used a cue stick.  And, there’s one random sequence in which Tara (played by Playboy bombshell Nicole Rayburn), who we learn is not just a willing threesome participant but also a local pool star, hustles some yokels in a neighboring bar, but it’s a pointless scene meant only to further highlight Tara’s sex appeal.  But, this woman has nothing on billiards’ true beauties, the Rack Starz.

In summary, the movie has all the right influences, but when it came time to execute, Kisses & Caroms is one big table scratch.  It is widely available to buy or rent as DVD or online.

Death Billiards: Anime and Pool

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The newest entry to the pool movie genre is not Anthony Palma’s 9-Ball from 2012 (the subject of a future post), but rather the March 2013 anime work Death Billiards, directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa and produced by anime juggernaut Madhouse Studios.

Death Billiards - billiards short filmThis 26-minute psycho-fantastic film is one of 4 anime works that each received 38 million yen (about $480,000 USD) from the “2012 Young Animator Training Project,” an animation labor group, funded by the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, that distributes the bulk of its funds to studios which provide on-the-job training to young animators.

The rather hallucinogenic plot involves a young man and an old man, who are brought to a cavernous, stained glass bar to compete in a game of billiards and to “play as if their lives depended on it.”   Aside from the two men, there is a somewhat scantily clad hostess and a mysterious, laconic bartender who explains the rules of the game. With no idea of how they got to the bar, the younger man proceeds to wig out and the older man stoically accept the stakes.  They compete in a game of 8-ball with balls that are adorned with images of the players’ organs.  As the two men play, it becomes apparent that the older man is the far better player, as he demonstrates with two trick shots and a jump shot.  Ultimately, a fight ensues, a players is presumed dead, no rules are broken, and a bunch of viewers are left scratching their head about what just ensued.

http://youtu.be/nof4Z7xpAWY

Judging from online forums, this cryptic ending is not unintentional.  Through the melee, we learn about the players’ backgrounds and that both men have led imperfect lives.  And while each player’s outcome is open for debate, the final scene suggests that other individuals will be subsequently summoned to this billiards purgatory to have their fates determined.

To my knowledge, Death Billiards is the only anime member of the pool movie genre. Fortunately, it’s a great inaugural member, as the animation and art is beautifully done, with rich background detail, a gorgeously dark palette of colors, vivid facial expressions, and accurate pool showmanship.

Death Billiards is widely available to watch for free online.  The full movie can be watched above.  Also, for the most thoughtful interpretation of the movie, I suggest reviewing the Panda’s blog – “A Different Point of View,” which impressively deconstructs the movie’s symbolism and equates it with Noh theater.

Death Billiards v2 - billiards short filmOther worthy blog reviews on Death Billiards:

A Century Ago: Billiards Mad, A Game of Pool, and Pool Sharks

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It has been more than a century since the first pool movie was filmed.  While some billiard enthusiasts credit the 1915 short Pool Sharks with originating the pool movie genre, the true trailblazer is Frank Wilson’s Billiards Mad, an English comedic short filmed in 1912 in which a man dreams he plays billiards in unlikely places.  Wilson was a prolific director, making more than 250 shorts between 1910 and 1920. Unfortunately, little appears to be known about Billiards Mad, and, to my knowledge, no copies are in distribution.

A year after Billiards Mad was released, the first American-made pool movie came out.  Wilfred Lucas’ silent comedy, A Game of Pool (also known as The Pool Shark) was released on August 7, 1913, as part of a split reel that also featured his film The Latest in Life Saving.  Here again, unfortunately, little seems to be known about this short, and, to my knowledge, no copies are in distribution.

Perhaps then it is no surprise that the film commonly deemed the “first pool movie” is the 10-minute silent movie Pool Sharks, released September 9, 1915.  This short is the acting and writing debut of William Claude Dunkenfield, better known as W.C. Fields, the legendary comedian, actor, juggler, poker player and billiards player.  Fortunately, this film is widely available online, as well as on DVD as part of the W.C. Fields “6 Short Films” Criterion Collection.

pool sharks

The movie’s premise is simple:  two men are vying for the attention of a woman.  Their squabble moves from the outdoor picnic area to the indoor billiards room, where the men shoot a series of impossible trick shots, before the game turns into billiard-ball throwing mayhem. The film’s antics are classic W.C. Fields, though the pool, a mish-mash of stop-motion animation and prop tables, ironically does not show Fields playing pool, even though his biographers indicate he was an expert player, taught by hustlers and pros he met doing vaudeville.

Pool Sharks was not only an auspicious debut for Fields, but it was the precursor to films that featured far funnier pool scenes with his famous crooked cue stick.  Though neither his Six of a Kind (1934) nor The Big Broadcast of 1938 meet my purist definition of a billiards movie, they both, as shown below, include wonderfully humorous pool scenes with the crooked cue.  Enjoy and laugh out loud.