Tag Archives: jennifer barretta

Sharks Web Series

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In last week’s post on the billiards movie Legend of the Dragon, I highlighted the creative casting of snooker sensation Jimmy White as the primary nemesis in the film. Mr. White has almost no lines in the movie, but he lights up each of his scenes because he is prominently featured doing what he does best: shooting snooker. His on-screen time is mesmerizing as a result. It helps that the movie stars veteran Hong Kong comedic actor Stephen Chow and is directed by Danny Lee, who has worked in film with iconic director John Woo.

Sharks Web SeriesIn stark comparison is the Sharks web series, which is set around billiards and shot at Amsterdam Billiards & Bar in New York City. Filmed and released throughout 2012, the series consisted of 21 episodes, each 7-17 minutes in length, and featured an all-star cast of female billiards professionals, including Jennifer Barretta (“Ann”), Borana Andoni (“Kelsey”), and Caroline Pao (“Samantha”). Many other notable players make cameos.

Sharks 1The problem, however, is that billiards is only tangentially relevant to the overall storyline, which is about betrayal, jealousy, deception, and winning, and reads like a poorly-stitched collection of inane dialogue from amateur, hackneyed soap operas.   With talent like Ms. Barretta, Ms. Boroni, and Ms. Pao, the fundamental want is to see them play pool, not watch them try to act their way through lamentable scenes of late-night dinners, exercise workouts, urban strolls, and domestic violence. (Ms. Barretta seems to have unfortunately stumbled into the casting niche of abused pool player, given her similar role in the 2012 billiards film 9-Ball.)

It also doesn’t help that the production value is god-awful. Created, directed and produced by Jim Murnak, the gifted craftsman behind Murnak custom cue cases, Sharks is rife with cheap green-screen production, bad audio dubbing and background noises, amateur editing, ill camera direction choices, unnecessary montages, prop gaffes (i.e., Jennifer Barretta’s character Ann wearing a “Jennifer” necklace in Episode 6) and an over-reliance on music.

Fortunately, most of the episodes include, albeit jarringly and poorly edited, a billiard scene. Those scenes are the hallmark of Sharks.   For example, Episode 6 (shown below) includes Mika “The Iceman” Immonen, a past winner of both the WPA World Nine-Ball and World Ten-Ball Championships, schooling an out-of-towner in nine-ball with a dazzling display of pool prowess. (Humorously, the out-of-towner is played by Carl Yusuf Khan, a well-known pool player.)

Similarly, Episode 3 features the incredibly sexy Yomaylin Feliz hustling a local yokel. She makes some incredible shots, even if they are unfortunately interspersed between some dreadful third-grade banter.

One of my favorite sequences was from Episode 2, watching Jennifer Barretta and Borana Andoni’s compete in nine-ball. I chose to ignore the purpose of the match, which was to see who would ‘win the boyfriend,’ and instead focused on the beautiful safety shots, trick shots, and cuts made expertly by both players. Ms. Andoni also has a wonderful straight pool sequence in Episode 5. And Ms. Barretta is elegant in her execution of the nine ball “L Drill” in Episode 6.

In short, so long as Sharks lets the players shoot billiards, there is beauty to behold. But, whenever that pool is suffocated by the bad dialogue, acting, and production, the series suffers to an unwatchable level.   That’s why the scene with Mr. Immonen is so rich. Like Jimmy White in Legend of the Dragon, it’s just a master with his cue stick, doing only what he does best: shooting pool.

9-Ball (billiards movie)

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Though 12 different billiards movies have been released since Poolhall Junkies in 2003 (Don’t believe me?  Check my list.), the only one that really catalyzed the billiards community with anticipation and passion was the most recent one, the 2012 billiards movie 9-Ball, written and directed by Tony Palma.

9-Ball with Jennifer Barretta - Billiards MovieIt wasn’t just that the film starred Women’s Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) pool professional Jennifer “9mm” Barretta as the lead, or that Allison “The Dutchess of Doom” Fisher and Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee, perhaps the two most famous women in billiards, were going to appear in the movie.  It wasn’t even that the American Poolplayers Association (APA), the world’s largest pool league, was a sponsor of the movie (though it significantly helped that the APA marketed the movie to its 265,000 members).   It was that the movie sought to show pool as a professional sport.  As Palma told me, “I wanted to take the essence of pool out of the smoky backroom bar scene and shine a bright spotlight on it…I wanted to focus on one woman’s dream of becoming a professional pool player.”

This proven, well-worn theme of an aspiring athlete overcoming obstacles to pursue a dream is so recognizable in cinema, from Rocky to Rudy, from Hoosiers to Hoop Dreams, yet it had never been done in billiards, a sport that is too often derided as a barroom game with professional players too often caricatured as hustlers.  (Yes, the movie The Hustler likely contributed more to the popularity of pool than any other single event, but it also did reinforce the stereotype.)

Under this lens, it’s clear why the APA sponsored the film, why the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) endorsed the film, and why interest and enthusiasm abounded from all across the globe, years before the film even began shooting.  Similarly, it’s why individuals like Allison Fisher and Jeanette Lee lent their name.  According to Palma, “[Jeanette] felt the movie would be beneficial to pool…She felt it would get people interested in playing in an organized league…she felt it told a very positive story about pool and about women in pool.”

For those not familiar with the movie, it follows the life of a young Gail (played by Barretta), who is left in the care of her creepy uncle Joey (played by Kurt Hanover), after her father is murdered.  The uncle, sensing great pool skills in his niece, turns her onto the life of hustling and uses her as a way to make money for himself.  But, as Gail gets older, she aspires to break out of that lifestyle and join the APA to become a professional 9-ball champion.

(Interestingly, Poolhall Junkies also is about a skilled billiards player who dreams of becoming a professional, but has his plans sabotaged by his mentor/trainer, also named Joe.  Of course, that’s where the similarities between the two movies stop, and as we all know, Poolhall Junkies ultimately presented a far less positive portrayal of league play/players.)

9-Ball took Palma almost 5 years and a budget just under $1 million to make, such was the challenge of “independently writing, casting, directing and producing a dramatic, contemporary, character-driven feature film.” Financing was a big issue.  Fortunately, Palma produced a trailer from some of the original scenes that generated excitement and ultimately landed him an angel investor.

With all the anticipating mounting for so long, it is not a surprise that when the movie was finally released in November, 2012, reviews ran the gamut (as you can clearly see on IMDB or Amazon).  Regardless of whether the movie is a little too “feel-good,” my primary criticism of 9-Ball is the sheer lack of pool.  In my interviews with both Palma and Barretta, they dismissed this criticism.  “It’s really a character-driven story more than it’s a story about pool,” said Palma.  Barretta also said, “It’s not a movie about pool, it’s a movie with pool in it.  I don’t think a montage of fancy shots will help tell the story.  Nobody is impressed by them.”  But, given the movie’s noble purpose, I wish the movie had emphasized and shown in much greater detail the beauty, skill and art of an exceptional game of billiards.  Of course, Martin Scorsese did this exceptionally in The Color of Money, as did Mars Callahan in Poolhall Junkies.  But, even a little known film like Carambola (2005) figured out how to weave in incredible examples of three-cushion shots.  In 9-Ball, Barretta’s final rail shot is a stunner, but it’s a rare treat.

On the other hand, I think too many of the movie’s harshest critics did not understand Palma’s underlying objective to “shine a bright spotlight on pool…and to talk about a sport that is deserving of being in the Olympics.” Measured against this goal, I give the movie high marks, and I join the thousands of others around the world who, according to Palma, have sent emails and Facebook messages saying how much they appreciated the portrayal of billiards in 9-Ball and its obvious respect and love for the sport.

To conclude, I want to share the sentiments expressed by Michael J’s Cues in Toledo, Ohio. “Overall in my opinion this movie promotes the game and that is great for the business of billiards…An honest reflection of the game as it stands today!! The game of billiards needs to be shown more as a game the whole family can enjoy.”.

To watch or purchase 9-Ball, go to Tubi or Roku.  You can also join the 9-Ball community on its Facebook page or follow 9-Ball on Twitter (@9Ballthemovie).

Special congratulations to Jeanette Lee, who appeared in 9-Ball, for her induction just days ago into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame.

Jennifer Barretta: A League of Her Own

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Here’s a pop quiz.  Name a professional athlete who appeared in a movie.

There have been a considerable number over the years, ranging from the highly indelible (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane) to the highly forgettable (Shaquille O’Neal as the title genie in Kazaam).  And the list goes on… Jim Brown, Carl Weathers, Ray Allen, OJ Simpson, Michael Irvin, Jason Lee, Howie Long, Michael Jordan…

OK, now name a professional female athlete who appeared in a movie.

Wow.  That’s much tougher.  Well, there’s the former mixed martial artist Gina Carano from Haywire.  And, there’s Esther Williams, the competitive swimmer who starred in films in the ‘40s and ‘50s.  Umm…

Fortunately, also at the top of that short list belongs Women’s Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) tour professional Jennifer Barretta, the star of last year’s highly anticipated movie 9-Ball. She not only appeared in the movie, but headlined it.  And, she did it while continuing to play professional pool, rather than the more common path of retiring to pursue an acting career. This puts her in a very small pantheon of athletes, male or female.  (Interestingly, she is joined by one other professional billiards player, Efren Reyes, who starred in Pakners, a 2003 movie from the Philippines.)

The irony is that Barretta’s starring role almost never happened.

A week ago, right before she departed for the 9 Ball Women’s World Championships in Shenyang, China as one of only 4 Americans representing the USA, I had the distinct pleasure to interview  Barretta about her experience filming and starring as Gail in 9-Ball.

“[Director] Tony [Palma] had asked [professional billiards player] Karen Corr to do a walk-on. He then asked her if she knew other players.  She thought of me.  So I came expecting to do a walk-on.  But, when I got there, Tony said he wanted me to read for the role of Gail.  Like now…And the next thing I knew, I had gotten the lead role as Gail.”

As excited as Barretta was to have been chosen, she was also skeptical. “Not everyone can get a pool movie made,” she said.  In fact, that skepticism was initially well-placed, as it was years between the audition and the actual filming.  “I had actually given up on the role.”

It was to Barretta’s great surprise then when she got a call from Palma years later saying he was proceeding with the movie.  “I thought I was going to show up in Maryland and he would maybe have a handy-cam.  But, I got there, and there was set design, grips, gaffers…it was a real movie.”

9-Ball with Jennifer Barretta - Billiards MovieFor those not familiar with the movie, it follows the life of a young Gail, who is left in the care of her creepy uncle, after her father is murdered.  The uncle, sensing great pool skills in his niece, turns her onto the life of hustling and uses her as a way to make money for himself.  But, as Gail gets older, she aspires to break out of that lifestyle and join the American Poolplayers Association (APA) to become a professional 9-ball champion.

For Barretta, playing a pool-player was not the challenge.  In fact, as someone who had started in the APA, Gail’s quest was familiar.  “The real challenge was playing someone who had been so emotionally abused…It was exciting to act and be somebody so different.  I got to test the limits of what I was capable of.”

The real challenge in playing Gail (or simply committing to star in the film) was the potential disruption to her own practice and tournament schedule.  In 2012, Barretta was the 7th-highest ranked player on the WPBA tour.  As one would imagine, that level of excellence requires constant practice.  For Barretta, it’s typically 5-8 hours a day, including honing particular self-defined weaknesses each year.  “I study pool like an education,” she says.  “I set goals.  Every year, I pick one thing.  This year, it’s my break. I’ll do just breaks for 2 hours straight.  I have a break trainer.”

Fortunately, when it came time to shoot scenes, director Palma was very sensitive to Barretta’s schedule.  “Before he booked shots, he would make sure I was free.  We would be away for 2 weeks tops over the 2 years.  Otherwise, when I’m home, I practice.”  Of course, that’s not to say the shooting never interfered.  “There was one time when we filmed and then I got home and went to Vegas the very next day [for a tournament].  But, it’s worth it…how many times in a life can you do a movie?”

Critical reaction to the movie was mixed, but for Barretta, the film has had a tremendous personal impact, including among her peers. “I was recently out in Vegas for the biggest amateur and professional pool event.  I could feel the difference.  I was treated like a movie star.  So many people came up to me.  I had professionals come up to me, asking me to sign a copy of their movie.  I think a lot people [in the billiards community] have seen it.”

Jennifer Barretta

Carlos Luna Photography

Whether the movie has had a broader impact on the popularity of billiards, similar to what occurred after The Hustler and The Color of Money were released, is harder to gauge.  “It’s tough to say if it had an impact.  Either way, people are playing, and it’s available in millions of households.  It’s like when Poolhall Junkies came out.  This is a movie available worldwide with a touch of a button.”

For Barretta, it was an incredible experience that has gotten her more interested in acting.  Fans should expect to see her in a couple of small roles in some upcoming films, and she’s more than eager to reprise her role as Gail if Palma films a sequel. But, otherwise, she won’t be trading in her cue stick for the big screen any time soon.  “It’s not like I’m going to run out and get an agent.”

To learn more about Jennifer Barretta, visit her website.  To learn more about the movie 9-Ball, read this blog for my upcoming review in 2 weeks that includes an interview with the director Tony Palma.  You can also like the movie on Facebook.

A version of this article will also appear later this week on About.com in the highly engaging Pool and Billiards section.