Tag Archives: pool

Dirty Pool

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A common movie trope is the pairing of two adversaries who suddenly find shared ground against a larger enemy.  Thor and Loki uniting against the Dark Elves (Thor: The Dark World).  Rocky and Apollo partnering to defeat Clubber Lang (Rocky III).  Professor X and Magneto setting aside their differences to combat William Stryker (X2: X-Men). Maverick and Iceman channeling their testosterone to fight the Russians (Top Gun).

Dirty PoolThe list goes on and on. But one entry unlikely to be on your radar are the two pool players who star in the entertaining two-minute animated film Dirty Pool. Created in 2016 by Canadian animator Brent Forrest, the film was a finalist at the 2016 Los Angeles Cinefest and was a winner at the 2016 MindField Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Set in a pool hall with a cool jazz background track, Dirty Pool pits two men against one another in a game of pool. The film begins with all the standard pre-game rituals of billiards, including cue assembly, chalking, and racking.  One of the men exudes confidence, the other is nervous Nellie.  When one opponent sinks the 8-ball on the break, a minor tussle occurs, setting off a Rube Goldbergian set of escalating events. Bulbs break, cue sticks clatter, a fire extinguisher goes off, and a lone 8-ball hurls across the pool hall breaking the beer steins of a trio of (much) larger men. And, thus, a new shared enemy is born. The film, which Mr. Forrest worked for a year after hours and on weekends, is available to watch here.

I only learned about the film two months ago when Mr. Forrest contacted me about it.  He kindly responded to my questions via email.  Excerpts of that exchange follow.

Why did you create Dirty Pool?

When I was very young and people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was always a Disney Animator.  In my last year of high school, I got an internship at a small studio in Toronto. In time, I started assisting with shots and gradually learned the ins and outs of production and watched as the studio shifted from 2D to 3D.  Instead of going to college I stayed there for six years.

In the years since then I have been working “in animation” but mostly doing special effects, compositing, rigging, modelling, editing, basically everything but character work.  I still want to animate, but my demo reel doesn’t have much character animation on it, and no one is going to hire an animator without a strong reel.  So, I decided to make my own film – focusing strictly on animation.  That’s why I used the free Malcolm rig – this wasn’t about rigging or modelling or being a “generalist” (I hate that term), this was all about animation.  It’s a passion project, but with a set goal.

You said it’s largely based on a true story.  Can you elaborate?

​We spent so much time at the pool hall next door, the boss eventually bought a table for the studio.  We had our own team on the league, and the relationship between the two players is how I saw my own relationship to my old mentors.​  This was an idea that was born in the early days of my career, playing pool with other animators from that studio.

Why is the film dedicated to the Charlotte Room?

The Charlotte Room is the pool hall where we used to play.  It [closed in 2015], another casualty of the unending condo development in Toronto.  I tried to recreate the environment from photos and memory.

You indicated you improved the ending. What changes to the ending did you make?

Dirty Pool​Originally, the ball just went flying then we cut to the pint glasses being knocked over. My wife suggested I add a series of escalating events with the ball crashing around. Since it didn’t require any more character animation I set up a series of effects shots – a little bit of everything, shattering glass, soft-body dynamics, sparks, fluids, flashing red lights.  It took about three weeks to add.

Why do you describe Dirty Pool as a “timeless tale of good vs not so good”?

I see a lot of animated films described as ‘deep ​testament’ to this that or the other.  Mine is just a cartoon.  A pratfall, gag upon gag.  I wanted to take the piss out of the more serious short animated films. Mine wasn’t about the “duality of man” or the “perseverance of the human spirit,” it was just about fun.

What is your personal experience with pool?

​Always make sure everyone is watching when you attempt that huge cross table bank shot.  No one will care if you don’t make it but everyone will remember if you do.  Oh, and have a little dance prepared for when you sink it.

To learn more about Mr. Forrest or to contact him directly, visit his website.

Top 15 #FakeBilliardsMovie

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In honor of my 150th blog post, I must turn my attention to the less honorable, seldom discussed, near-underground genre of #FakeBilliardsMovie. Yes, these are the films that peddle in billiards imagery and idiom – pool tables, eight-balls, cue sticks, green baize – to lure in viewers, yet upon closer inspection, have little to nothing to do with the sport. The egregious members of this sinister club are movies that reveal a blatant disrespect for billiards, seizing upon the popular appeal of pool to bamboozle the unsuspecting cinephile.

#NotABilliardsMovieOn occasion, the storyline gives a fleeting nod to billiards, perhaps featuring a lone pool table as part of a billiards bar backdrop. Such is the case with Kevin Spacey’s 1996 directorial debut Albino Alligator, in which a New Orleans bar, pool table and all, provide the venue for a foiled robbery attempt.  But, far more often, the billiards is simply a siren’s call, a cinematic fool’s errand that leaves the viewer despondent and depressed.  To help rid Hollywood of this subterfuge, I present to you my meticulously researched list of the Top 15 #FakeBilliardsMovie movies, with each malefactor representing a decade of blog posts.  Let the countdown begin (and note that all summaries are courtesy of IMDB).

  1. #NotABilliardsMovieSignage. In 2007, Rick Hammerly directed this 12-minute short film in which a receding hairline, the beginning of crow’s feet and a chance encounter with a young deaf man force the protagonist to confront getting older in today’s youth-conscious world. The poster proclaims, “When life calls the last shot,” while showing the bottom left corner of a pool table, but the game is a ruse, largely irrelevant to the film. #FakeBilliardsMovie

 

  1. #NotABilliardsMovieDestiny Stalled. When I first saw the poster to this short film from 2000, I was so keen to watch it that I reached out to the director Susan Johnson because the movie was unobtainable online. Ms. Johnson kindly sent me a password to watch the movie on a private video hosting platform. It’s a touching film about the connection forged between a man and boy at a hospital. But whereas the poster would suggest that billiards is critical to their interplay, the irritating truth is that pool is a transitory thread. #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieAngels with Dirty Faces. Good versus evil. The priest versus the gangster. Father Connolly versus Rocky Sullivan in a fight over the fate of a group of ‘dead end kids.’  Michael Curtiz’ 1938 drama sizzled on the screen, with James Cagney starring in an Oscar-nominated role as the magnetic local crime boss. So, what’s with the pool hall as the fateful setting for the head-to-head confrontation? Yes, our gang of street urchins frequent a pool hall, but this poster is a cheap shot, ya dirty rat. #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieBehind the Eight Ball. At times compared to the Marx Brothers, the Ritz Brothers (Jimmy, Harry, and Al) were an American comedy team making movies since the early 1930s. But, in 1942, they crossed the line with the musical comedy Behind the Eight Ball, which had the members of a summer theater group getting mixed up with spies and murder. The film featured a bullet-shooting clarinet, but the poster was cue stick crookery. #FakeBilliardsMovie

 

  1. #NotABilliardsMovie#NotABilliardsMovie8-Ball and 8-Ball. Given the plethora of authentic billiards movies unoriginally named “8-Ball,” it’s borderline criminal that these two foreign films felt compelled to exploit the popular term for no reason remotely related to the sport. The 2013 Finnish film, originally titled 8-Pallo, is about a single mother who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her life anew. And the 2012 short film from Argentina is about about a man having a personal crisis who seeks solitude in a park, when a passing stranger named 8-Ball takes an unwelcome interest in him. Really? Couldn’t the stranger have been named Agapito or Hecmir? #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieBelle Speranze. Visual skullduggery hit a new nadir when director Mike Leigh’s 1988 film High Hopes was released at the Venice Film Festival as Belle Speranze. Somehow, this “slice-of-life look at a sweet working class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who’s aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum’s ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril’s pretention sister and philandering husband” became about playing billiards in dimly-lit pub halls. As boring as the American movie poster is for this film, at least it’s honest. #FakeBilliardsMovie

 

  1. #NotABilliardsMovieBehind the 8 Ball (series). Also known as the So You Want… series, this collection of 63 black-and-white live action short films, released between 1942 and 1956, all starred Joe McDoakes as the protagonist. Each film humorously addressed an everyday problem (e.g., So You Want to be in Politics; So Your Wife Wants to Work; So You Want to be a Cowboy). But, no mirth could be found in the prominence of the large 8-ball that features repeatedly in the opening credits of each short. #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieQuarterlifers. Adam Fortner directed this 2011 drama about “four lifelong friends who are each struggling to learn what’s important in their lives through crazy, heart-warming, and hilarious situations.” OK, I guess with a plotline that insipid, I too might opt to bait a larger audience by featuring pool in the movie poster.  At least one of the four amigos buys a local billiards bar and tries to operate it.  It’s a start. #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieBlue Velvet. As much as I enjoyed David Lynch’s discomforting 1984 film, I’m disturbed that the movie’s Italian poster, illustrated by prolific movie poster designer (i.e., 3000+ movie posters) Enzo Sciotti, not only references a rape scene that does not exist in the film (although it is rumored the scene was shot), but trades on the visual iconography of the pool table (which is used in the movie when Frank beats a man senseless on the table while topless girls surround him) to create one of the most repugnant billiards images in cinema. And – again – the scene never even happened! #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieCarambolages. This 1963 French film from director Marcel Bluwal translates to “carom shots.” As if the cue stick in the top left corner was not sufficiently specious, then certainly the title’s translation into one of the most common strokes in billiards is an act of lexical jugglery, for this comédie noire is about climbing the corporate ladder, not banking in billiards. #FakeBilliardsMovie

 

 

  1. #NotABilliardsMovie8 Ball Bunny. Look, I love the gray hare trickster as much as anyone, but there is no reason this 7-minute animation from 1950 needs to capitalize on billiards fandom with this inane image of a penguin sitting on an 8-ball. According to IMDB, in this short “Bugs helps a penguin go home via New Orleans, Martinique, the Panama Canal and finally the South Pole. But the penguin’s home is in New Jersey.” Maybe if the penguin is a metaphor for New Jersey-born Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductee Allen Hopkins, I could buy it.  Otherwise, this cunicular con needs to come clean. #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieRaja Natwarlal. The poster for this 2014 Bollywood drama, directed by Kunal Deshmukh, shows an attractive couple leaning on a pool table, but the film is actually about a small-time con man seeking assistance form his mentor with the intention of settling scores with a gangster. Apparently, the culprit for this visual deceit is prolific movie poster creator Bharat Devaliya. Shame, shame. #FakeBilliardsMovie

 

 

  1. #NotABilliardsMovieEight Ball. Rick Argall directed this 1991 Australian deception that not only traffics in eight-ball imagery and nomenclature, but also repurposes the sport’s argot with the tagline, “In life the trick is to get an even break.” Pity the uninformed viewer who expects some billiards bravado. This film is about a self-absorbed architect who befriends an ex-convict as they work on building a tourist attraction designed to resemble a huge fish. #FakeBilliardsMovie

 

  1. #NotABilliardsMovieMuzi v Nadeji. This 2011 Czech film (translated as Men in Hope) from director Jiri Vejdelek includes one of the most popular (and #NSFW) billiards scenes on the internet. Thousands of people have watched and shared it, likely with little knowledge of its origin. Indeed, the scene is the basis for the movie’s poster, which exploits the intended viewer’s love of both billiards and beautiful, buxom women. Yet, aside from the one scene, this two-hour comedic romance shows no interest in billiards. #FakeBilliardsMovie
  1. #NotABilliardsMovieNine Ball Diaries. Of all the #FakeBilliardsMovie transgressors, the top dog is this 2008 documentary on – wait for it – cyclocross, an extreme form of bicycling. Aside from the indignity that the film relies entirely on the softly haloed image of a 9-ball (and includes said ball in its title), the poster simultaneously snubs its own subject, as if to fatuously assume that cyclocross is well-understood.   And, lets’ face it, with the exception of Breaking Away, the bicycle-movie genre could probably use some good PR.

I hope this list has raised your mercury level a bit.  This sort of affront requires action. Perhaps, you’ll consider a boycott, or a hunger strike. Maybe join a sit-in or march to Hollywood to draw attention to #FakeBilliardsMovie.  Of course, if other domestic and global issues seem more important (which is remotely possible), then I encourage you to sit back down on the couch, grab a beer and some popcorn, and watch any of the 200+ legitimate billiards movies, short films, and television episodes I’ve cataloged.

Fresh Off the Boat – “Keep ‘Em Separated”

In my previous blog post, on the 2014 movie Second Chance, I highlighted that it was the first film to originate from Taiwan focused on billiards, which was ironic, given nearly 10% of the Taiwanese population plays billiards, second only to baseball in sports popularity.

Fresh Off the BoatFor this reason then, it’s hardly surprising that the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, about a Taiwanese family’s journey from Washington DC’s Chinatown to Orlando, Florida, prominently featured billiards in its March 2016 Season 2 episode, “Keep ‘Em Separated.”

Fresh Off the Boat, now in its third season, is the first American sitcom in more than 20 years to prominently feature an Asian-American family on a major network during a primetime slot. Starring Randall Park as Louis Huang and the comically sharp Constance Wu as his wife Jessica, the show highlights daily life as the family opens a cowboy-themed steak restaurant in 1995.

In “Keep ‘Em Separated,” the premise is that Louis now has a lot of free time because he’s no longer personally responsible for closing the restaurant. That’s creating a lot of tension on the home front, since Louis is continually interrupting Jessica’s ‘girl time’ with her next door BFF Honey.  Deciding that he should get back into pool, Jessica surprises her husband by unveiling his retired now re-tipped cue stick, Black Ball Betty, which Louis explains is “not a bo staff [but] a different kind of weapon…a two piece low deflection maple staff pool cue.”

Emboldened by the reunion with Black Ball Betty, Louis – aka Louis Short Pocket – heads over to the Cue Tips Pool Hall, where he has a great night: “Cheap beer, non-stop [George] Thorogood on the jukebox, the smell of Camel Lights and desperation.” This pleases Jessica silly, until she learns that Louis’ billiards partner is a woman named Toni.

Fresh Off the BoatThe introduction of Toni (Angelique Cabral) provides the episode’s funniest moments.  Entering Cue Tips to the sound of Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet,” a “song that can make everything sexy,” Toni struts out in stiletto heels, skin-tight black jeans, and a spaghetti strap top, then delicately blows billows of red chalk dust into the air from the tip of her cue stick.

Jessica, who subscribes to the When Harry Met Sally school of thought that men and women cannot be friends, immediately interrogates Toni, with both needle-sharp questions (“Why did your parents name you Toni?  It’s a man’s name.”) and over-the-top comments (“You have no power here, witch…you heard me, demon.”)

The madcap situation continues when Jessica insists that Louis drop Toni and make her his partner instead.  Expectations run high as Jessica then enters the pool hall to ZZ Top’s “La Grange” in red heels, black leather pants, and wind (?!) blowing her hair.  But, the fantasy quickly crash lands back on Planet Earth, with Jessica swapping the heels for Keds, missing simple shots, and using all the quarters on the table to put Amy Grant on repeat on the jukebox. She laments, “Pool is so boring, there is so much standing around…it’s worse than baseball.”

The episode comes to closure as Jessica ultimately concedes she doesn’t want to be a “wet blanket wife” and realizes that Louis will have far more fun shooting with someone who can play.  That said, she still insists, “no touching and always show the wedding ring.”

Unfortunately, while “Keep ‘Em Separated” provides its share of good laughs, it is completely lacking in good pool.  Admittedly, I was hopeful, as I first learned about the existence of this episode from Trickshot Tim Chin, who was the billiards technical advisor during filming.   But, as Tim posted in his December 2015 blog:

It came together real fast with the director calling me the week beforehand and I was glad I wasn’t busy. I got to coach Randall Park, who plays Louis Huang, and Angelique Cabral, who plays Tony, on how to look like a pool player. Unfortunately, the team didn’t really put my trick shot skills to great use due to the time constraints of filming, but the actors did quite well on their own and improved tremendously in the short time I had with them.[1]

The Fresh Off the Boat “Keep ‘Em Separated” episode is available to purchase through YouTube.

[1]      http://www.trickshottim.com/learn/trick-shot-tim-pool-ta/

 

[Wanted!] Running Out

On the IMDB Message Board, there is only one comment associated with the billiards movie Running Out.  “IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND!!!” wrote thejollillama. Similar messages have popped up on the AZBilliards Forum, such as Cuebacca’s post, “What’s the deal with that pool movie, Running Out? I keep checking the internet periodically, but it never seems to become available.”

Running OutFancying myself somewhat of a Sherlock Holmes of billiards-themed cinema, I typically love these laments, as I’ve been able to track down quite a few hard-to-find films and television episodes (e.g., Genuine Article – “Puzzles and Pool Cues”; the Swedish short film Nine Ball; A Paradise Without Billiards).  However, after much research and numerous dead-end explorations, all detailed below, Running Out, like the near-mythical treasure chest of Forest Fenn or the golden owl La Chouette d’Or, remains out of reach, a billiards Bigfoot.  So I beseech my readers:  If you have any information about this movie or the whereabouts of the people involved in its creation, please contact me directly.

Let’s start with what we know.  In October 2001, the billiards movie Running Out released at the Riverside Film Festival, followed shortly after at the Inland Empire Film Festival, and then at the High Desert Film Festival.  Directed by Byron Cepek for an estimated budget of $50,000, the film focuses on three pool hustlers:  Cindy (an upcoming Hollywood starlet), Tanya (a strung-out addict who makes money as a dominatrix), and Rex (a sex addict).  The players interact and compete, living with the consequences of their actions, and the playing culminates with an ending that online reviewers described as “incredible,” “intense” and “hard to watch.”

As expected, the film is not available to buy or rent through any standard retail channels or file-sharing sites.  Sometimes festival organizers have access to old releases, but not in this case.  The High Desert Film Festival no longer exists, nor does the original Inland Empire Film Festival.  And the Riverside Film Festival, which recognized Running Out with its Best of Show award, only had files dating back to 2003, according to the event’s Film Programmer Nancy Douglas.

Having exhausted the festivals, I pivoted to the director. Unfortunately, Mr. Cepek only made this one film.  No other info is available on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  While I found a Yahoo email for him in a response he made to a Google Group posting, the email bounced back immediately.

Eric James Niemi wrote the film and played the lead (Rex), though curiously, he has been removed from the IMDB Cast & Crew listing.   Apparently, Mr. Niemi studied film at California State University, Fullerton, with Professor Diane Ambruso. According to an article in The Daily Titan, Mr. Niemi had sold a script he had written in Professor Ambruso’s class to an Australian producer.[1]  When that deal fell through, Mr. Niemi revealed that he “started drinking and returned to playing pool for a living…and quickly fell into debt [from gambling].”[2] This confession seems to coincide with when he wrote and starred in Running Out.   Mr. Niemi’s story then takes an odd twist, in which he started selling bootleg copies of Adobe software to make money and protect his family from the loan sharks.  He was indicted in November, 2001.[3] No more information is available.

The other two film leads, Suzy and Tanya, were played by acting unknowns Sarah Davis and Vanessa Davis, respectively.  Sarah Davis never made another movie.  Vanessa Davis, on the other hand, stopped starring in films, and instead, turned to doing makeup and hair for movies.  Nominated for a Primetime Emmy in 2005 for her hairstyling work on Warm Springs, Vanessa may be able to shed light on the film’s mysterious history.  Unfortunately, she has been unresponsive to my attempts to reach her at the Atlanta phone number she lists at the top of her online resume.

Most of the remaining actors in Running Out were unknowns who never appeared in another film or who had very limited film careers.  There is some speculation that the Tony Watson who played Fat Tony may have been the North Carolina billiards player “Little” Tony Watson, though I’ve been unable to get confirmation.

As for the production companies associated with Running Out, both Reaction Machine LLC and Knight Pictures are no longer in business.   Mr. Niemi, who used the alias Eric Knight, was the likely owner of Knight Pictures.  Reaction Machine lists Erin Niemi, presumably a relative of Mr. Niemi’s, as the Managing Partner.  But, those companies’ dissolution coincides well with Mr. Niemi’s U-turn from screenwriting to software pirating.

I also hit an impasse when I started to sift through the technical and production team.  There is no available information after 2003 on the producer Katherine Shattuck, the composer Cody Tyler, or the film editor Jason Blackwell.  At the other end of the spectrum, David Eichhorn, the film’s dialogue editor, who has a filmography with 150 credits including three primetime Emmys and numerous Emmy nominations, told me via email that he couldn’t even remember working on Running Out.

The second unit director, Diego Martien, now goes by Diego Porqueras and is the President and CTO of Deezmaker, a California-based manufacturer of 3D printer kits. Mr. Porequeras promptly responded to my inquiry, but only to share that he “lost touch with the person that did [Running Out] and never really saw a cut on it. (It got a bit messy with production).” However, he did share with me a music video he made at that time to test certain concepts from the film.

Having run out of people associated with the film to contact, I considered tracking down the three user reviewers who graciously shared their thoughts on IMDB.  But, whiningfilmcritic has not posted since 2002, and hollyhills and rocker247 were one-and-done film critics.

Running Out may lack the recognition of The Player, a better-known “missing” billiards movie that has confounded billiards enthusiasts for more than 40 years.  But, if the recent discoveries of the Franklin Expedition Ship or the remains of the U-26 are proof that mysteries can take at least a century to solve, then there is a smidgeon of hope that time has not “run out” for finding this missing movie.

[1]      

[2]       http://misc.writing.screenplays.narkive.com/0ojQQtRC/eric-james-niemi-on-his-felony-conviction-please-read-this[Note: this link is no longer active]

[3]       https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2001/niemi_indict.htm

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.

A Minute with Stan Hooper – “The Hustler”

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Stan HooperThe Fox sitcom A Minute with Stan Hooper pretty much came and went in about that much time. Premiering in late 2003, the series was cancelled after the first six episodes aired. That’s too bad. Based on the third episode, entitled “The Hustler,” the sitcom had some comedic promise, attributable in no small part to the offbeat humor of the show’s creators and writers Norm MacDonald (Saturday Night Live) and Barry Kemp (Newhart).

For those who blinked and missed this series, A Minute with Stan Hooper featured Norm MacDonald in the titular role as a famous newspaper columnist turned television commentator, who moves his family from New York to (fictional) small-town Waterford Falls, Wisconsin, where he hopes to connect with middle America in order to grow the viewership of his weekly minute-long television commentaries.

Stan HooperIn “The Hustler,” Stan is invited out by Lou Peterson (Garrett Dillahunt from Raising Hope), one of the locals, to “shoot a little pool, drink a little beer” at Jimmy’s Tavern, where they will play billiards for “nickels and dimes.” Feeling this will give him a chance to connect with the town’s denizens, he readily agrees and goes to the bar, where humorously everyone is named Jimmy. But, when he sees Lou unsheathe his cue stick and go through his routine of polishing and chalking, he questions if he is being hustled.

That suspicion increases after Stan sees Lou miss wildly on his shot after the break. Yet, the gaffe elicits “oohs” and “aahs” from the bystanders, and Lou’s good friend Jimmy consoles him with, “That was close.” Stan, who has already admitted he is not very good, botches his next shot, prompting Fred (the ever reliable Fred Willard) to share, “Gents, this has all the making of a great one.”

Confused? So is Stan. The television viewer’s vantage shifts from eye-level to birds-eye, hovering over the pool table, as simple shot after simple shot is horribly missed.   When Stan finally makes a gimme in the side pocket, the locals go crazy. Stan dryly retorts, “I’ve made three balls in 90 minutes.”

Finally, as the game hits the three-and-half-hour mark, according to a clock in the tavern, Stan lines up to shoot the 8-ball. Lou, drenched with sweat, shudders, “He’s not going to sink the 8-ball. That’s the hardest one.” And Fred, with an inside reference to Minnesota Fats’ character in The Hustler, says to all, “You are watching an artist. Watch that fat man [Stan] shoot with his fat hands.”

When Stan wins the game by five balls, he is owed “two dimes and a nickel,” which he learns does not equal 25 cents, but is equivalent to $2500, an enormous sum that will force Lou to close his diner to pay the bet. Stan later inquires why they play for such high stakes. The answer, according to Fred, is “they’re simple folks. It makes them feel important. And because no one plays well enough to finish a game, no one has ever lost. Until now.”   The remainder of the episode focuses on Stan’s ill-conceived attempts to return the $2500 to Lou. The full episode is available to watch here.

“The Hustler” is not the first television episode to focus on pathetic pool.   In the 1996 “City Slackers” episode of Boy Meets World, Eric challenges an opponent to a game of pool to win the heart of a girl, but his plan fails after “15 hours of someone yet sinking a ball.” A far more interesting spin on bad pool is the episode “Water Park” from Malcolm in the Middle, in which Malcolm’s older brother Francis competes with his Commandant to see who can lose in eight-ball in the most spectacular fashion. But, perhaps, the most hilarious take on bad billiards is from the 1984 “The Hustler” skit for The New Show, in which “Fast” Eddie Felson (Kevin Kline) challenges the Fat Man (John Candy) to $200/games of pool, and both proceed to shoot horribly.

Perfect Break (in production)

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Perfect BreakUntil very recently, the “snooker movie” was considered by many to be extinct, a sub-genre that disappeared in 1991 after Legend of the Dragon pitted fish-out-of-water Stephen Chow against snooker sensation Jimmy White in a yakuza-backed tournament. But, propelled by the success of the BBC iPlayer 2016 biopic The Rack Pack, which details the tempestuous rivalry between ‘80s snooker stars Steve Davis and Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, the snooker movie has been resurrected and is making headlines once more.

Certainly, the surge in interest bodes well for Perfect Break, a British snooker-themed comedy that is in post-production and seeking a distributor for an anticipated 2016 summer release. Produced by Len Evans and directed by Ian Paterson, Perfect Break is a low-budget, family film about the once great snooker player Bobby Stevens (Joe Rainbow), whose humiliating loss has led to his current career nadir performing trick shots wearing a luchador mask. Through a chance encounter with a young girl, he regains his appreciation for the sport – and his nerves – enabling him to compete in the Jimmy White Invitational Cup. The full trailer is available to watch here.

According to Mr. Evans, a snooker player who admits he is “not very good,” the impetus for the film’s creation was the straight-forward desire to make a billiards movie. (Amen!) Feeling pool had been portrayed well on the silver screen (Mr. Evans’ favorite billiards movie is The Color of Money), Mr. Evans opted instead to focus on snooker – a sport that, per his research, had never been addressed on film. (His research appears to have overlooked Legend of the Dragon as well as Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire.) That decision was also well-suited for the selection of his director, Mr. Patterson, who is a member of the Romford Snooker Club.

Perfect Break

Jimmy White and John Virgo

For Perfect Break to succeed, it was critical to cast some household snooker names in a few key roles. Fortunately for all of us, Mr. Evans thinks big, and working through the Snooker Association, he secured Jimmy White and John Virgo. Mr. White, of course, is not only one of the sport’s greatest as a six-time World Championship finalist and a 29-time tournament winner, but also brings with him a large fan base, as evidenced by his 102,000 Twitter followers. (He is also a veteran of snooker movies, having starred in The Legend of the Dragon.)   Mr. Virgo is known within the snooker community for his ability (he was once ranked 10 in the world) and commentary, as well as his 11-year run as co-host of the famous snooker game show Big Break. According to Mr. Evans, the duo had quite the good time on set, and there are “some excellent outtakes of the pair messing their lines up and having a great time laughing and joking.”

Cineastes can also look forward to a decent amount of billiards: 18 minutes of Perfect Break is devoted to on-screen snooker, including the filming of a full maximum 147 break. According to Mr. Evans, the team insisted that no CGI was used, so instead they recruited Jamie Rous, an excellent Pro player (once ranked 128th in the world) who is relatively unknown, to shoot the scene, with seven cameras filming simultaneously to ensure perfect continuity.

So, if you love snooker and want to take the family to a film that promises “no swearing, guns, or violence,” then be on the lookout for Perfect Break.

Note: Since this movie’s release in 2020, I have posted a review.

Black Balled

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A few days ago, the United States celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a federal holiday that for the past 32 years has commemorated the life of the slain civil rights leader. However, for many Americans, the day, in practice, is a celebration of not having to go to work; the historical significance of the holiday is understood, but easily overlooked in light of many civil rights advancements.

Watching the nine-minute short film, Black Balled: The Story of Pool During Jim Crow, I wondered if race relations within billiards occupied a similar mental space among those enamored with the sport. The entire film is available to watch here.

As the movie’s creator and narrator Mark Ewings notes, 1962 marked the first time an African-American, Javanley “Youngblood” Washington, a “self-proclaimed Negro bank [pool] champion,” was allowed to participate in any large-scale US billiards competition, the Johnston City Tournament.[1] Prior to that time, blacks were barred from competing in such tournaments. Such exclusion was the writ of Jim Crow. Alabama, for example, said it was “unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards.”

In 1965, James “Cisero” Murphy, a Brooklynite who only started playing pool because a sports injury at an early age made ruled out baseball, became the sport’s version of Jackie Robinson by competing in – and ultimately winning in a 3-day match against Luther “Wimpy” Lassiter” – a Billiards Congress of America (BCA) regulated event, the Burbank World Invitational 14.1 Tournament. (Mr. Ewings shares that Mr. Murphy tried to compete in the inaugural 1961 Johnston City Tournament, but was allegedly excluded based on a majority vote of the participants.)

Black Balled

Ebony (September, 1966)

Mr. Murphy won the Burbank pot ($19,800) and the world champion title on his very first attempt. More historically important, this victory led to the Billiard Room Proprietor’s Association of America (BRPAA) reluctantly inviting Mr. Murphy to compete in the organization’s New York tournament. As billiards historian R.A. Dyer notes, once this happened, it “effectively ended all official race-based barriers to entry in major professional pool tournaments.”[2]

Today, there is little chatter about race relations and billiards (though there is a hilarious rant from Martin Lawrence in the 1982 comedy Boomerang about the symbolic racism between the white cue ball and the black 8-ball in pool). As legendary pool hustler and scholar Freddy “The Beard” Bentivegna tells Mr. Ewings in Black Balled, “If you seek racism stories, you are in the wrong venue. Pool is the least discriminating life area I have ever experienced.” Billiards is purportedly color-blind, tournaments are integrated, and the majority of players (in the US) are both cash-poor and unrecognized, black or white.

Black BalledLess clear, however, is why there are so few African-Americans competing in the top echelons of billiards today. Perhaps, history is not so simple or so long ago that we can disregard the African-American trailblazing pool players that helped get us to this point in time. Mr. Murphy, who was inducted into the BCA Hall of Fame in 1995, a year before his death, is the most famous, with the ultimate digital recognition of a Wikipedia page and a mural in the Flatbush neighborhood of New York. Some of the other legends – Mr. Youngblood, Melvin “Strawberry” Brooks, Leonard “Bugs” Rucker, John “Cannonball” Chapman – deserve more acclaim, but have fortunately at least been recognized by the One Pocket Hall of Fame. Yet others, such as James Evans, a man Minnesota Fats once described as the “greatest Negro player who ever lived” and a mentor to Mr. Murphy, are barely footnotes in today’s billiards annals.

This is a tragedy.

I give a lot of credit to Mr. Ewing for Black Balled, a film project he created while in college. No one else, to my knowledge, has even attempted to tell the story of African-American pool players before the modern civil rights era.

Still, I can’t help feeling the film falls so far short of what it could have been, had it truly tackled the topic. While the movie’s title suggests it’s about the racial segregation of billiards in the Jim Crow Era, which was roughly from 1890-1965, the film really is about the (white) Jansco Brothers, who launched the Johnston City tournament in 1961 (and integrated it in 1962), and Mr. Murphy, who vanquished the color barrier in billiards.

There is no reference to billiards racial conditions prior to the mid-20th century. For example, when black YMCAs opened in the 1920s, most included billiards tables in response to Jim Crow laws. And since segregation prevented black players from competing in tournaments, the Colored Billiards Players Association was created in 1914, though sadly very little remains documented about its history.[3]

Equally problematic, the film only briefly touches on the sport’s early pioneers, such as Mr. Evans, who pre-dates Mr. Murphy and helped contribute to his fame. Other players from the 20th century’s first half are completely omitted, perhaps because they are unknown..?

Black BalledIn past blog posts, I have criticized some of the missed opportunities to tell the story of African-American billiards. The Quantum Leap episode “Pool Hall Blues” which cast pool professional Robert “Rags” Woods as Charlie “Black Magic” Walters, is a particular flagrant offender. So, I consider Black Balled mandatory viewing. But, don’t convince yourself this film suffices as the telling of that history. The real stories must still be told and shared.

Oh, and about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…he was reportedly a pretty sharp pool player.

[1]       Technically, this honor belongs to the late, great James Evans. As Mr. Ewings details, Mr. Evans was allowed to play in a 1961 tournament because he was “light-skinned enough to pass, so long as he signed his ethnicity as Italian.”

[2]      http://untoldstoriesbilliardshistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/celebrating-black-history.html

[3]       http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/billiards-pool/

Behind the Nine

Often before I blog about a particular movie, I’ll skim whatever user reviews I can find to get a temperature read on past audience reaction. For the 2003 billiards movie Behind the Nine, the reviews were particularly virulent and condemnatory. Nolan Canova bemoaned the “f*%king lifetime it took to sit through this movie.”[1] Kris Langley decried the film was “one of the worst examples of transparent attention-whoring I’ve ever seen in my life.”[2] And Fast Larry excoriated, “It’s so stupid, so bad, it is a disgrace. Just a bunch of ding dong nincompoop morons with a nice camera.”

Behind the NineHere’s the truth: these reviews are spot-on accurate. The film really is that bad.

For a suffocating, molasses-paced, 78 minutes, Behind the Nine, directed by Martin Kelley, focuses on an underground two-week, 9-ball tournament that pays $500,000 to the winner and $500,000 to the organizer, Alex (Derek Seiling), who puts on the tournament to “make ends meet.” The tournament has 200 players, but by the time the film begins, “192 gamblers, hustlers, and hacks have hit the streets empty-handed.” The movie’s audience is subject to watching the remaining eight players compete in a single elimination, race to seven games.

Though the premise is reasonably intriguing, Behind the Nine collapses under the weight of terrible acting; a boring and distasteful script riddled with racist and homophobic language; unimaginative cinematography and direction; and – the coup de grâce – a preposterous and stultifying approach to billiards.

Let’s start with the concept of the 200-person, single elimination tournament. Mathematically, that’s impossible, as the total number of people needs to sum to a power of two (e.g., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256).

Even if there were 200 players, the math is still borderline questionable. A single-elimination tournament with 200 players equals (roughly) 198 matches (100 matches in 1st round, 50 matches in 2nd round, 25 matches in 3rd round, etc.). Since it’s a race to seven, assume the average match lasts one hour, with 15 minutes in between each match. Do the math and it adds up to 247 hours of tournament play – equivalent to 18 hours/day for the two weeks. Possible? Sure, with a full tournament staff. But, with just an organizer (Alex), a bouncer (Mouse), a bartender (Beth), and a hot girl (Wendy) whose job is to rack and make out with the female players (?!), I’m dubious.

Behind the NineMaybe I wouldn’t harp on the math if the opening lines of the movie were something other than Alex’s voice-over: “Three things I love: statistics, baseball, and pool. My dad wanted me to be an accountant, but as I said earlier, that’s for suckers.”

Speaking of statistics, the movie’s viewers are frequently shown Alex’s “files” on each player, which includes his computed odds of each person winning the tournament. But, given it’s a winner-takes-all pot, and there is no apparent side-betting, then there’s no conceivable reason to calculate a player’s likelihood to win, as it doesn’t impact any person’s financial outcome. This “love of stats” shows a blatant ignorance about its actual use.

Putting down the calculator, this tournament occurs in the basement of Alex’s house on a single, cheap-ass, red-clothed pool table. Call me cynical, but I don’t imagine there are too many players with $5000 of dispensable cash that are going to jump at the chance to play competitive pool on some twenty-something’s hobby table.

Behind the NineMore to the point, betting $5000 on a single elimination tournament is no paltry entry fee, considering a typical tournament fee might cost but one-tenth that amount. One would think the players must be pretty decent (especially if my assumptions about a race to seven lasting one hour) to risk that kind of moola. However, judging by the level of billiards shown among the eight finalists – i.e., the top 4% — these players are outright awful. Only the most basic straight-on shots are attempted, and many of these shots are missed. I don’t know what is more bat-shit crazy: the bonkers notion that any viewer would believe these borderline actors are pool players or that any viewer would wish to endure watching so many minutes of piss-poor pool.

Is there anything positive to say? Yes, Ted Huckabee, who plays the muscleman Pigman in the film was able to survive being cast in this cinematic dreck and now portrays Bruce on the mega-hit television series The Walking Dead. The rest of the Behind the Nine cast? Not so lucky.

Behind the Nine was once available to purchase on DVD, but no longer. It can be watched in its entirety online here.

[1]          http://www.crazedfanboy.com/npcr/popculturereview194.html

[2]          http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317135/reviews?ref_=tt_urv