Tag Archives: pool movies

Malcolm in the Middle – “Water Park”

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Malcolm in the Middle - billiards sitcomMost billiards sitcom episodes are pretty light on substance and pretty glib in their treatment of pool.   (Among the top offenders: Married With Children – “Cheese, Cues, and Blood.”)  “Water Park,” the final episode of the first season of Malcolm in the Middle, is no different.  Aired in May 2000, this episode pits Malcom’s older brother Francis (Christopher Masterson), a cadet at the Marlin Academy, against Commandant Spangler (Daniel von Bargen) in a game of eight-ball. Francis’ predicament is that if he beats the Commandant, his fellow cadets will “torture him with hours of educational programming on PBS,” but if he loses to the Commandant, he will be suspected of throwing the game and his fellow cadets will have all their privileges revoked by the Commandant.  Oh, what a conundrum indeed.

For those not familiar with Malcolm in the Middle, the highly popular, award-winning series aired on Fox from 2000 to 2006, the show primarily revolved around Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), the middle child in a dysfunctional, suburban family, though side stories also focused on his siblings.  Unlike other sitcoms of that time, the series allowed Malcolm to ‘break the fourth wall’ and talk directly to the audience, abandoned the use of a live audience, and used a lot of contemporary music (in place of any laugh tracks) to set mood.

To call the series original a decade later seems almost comical (something this episode was certainly not, but then again, I’m hardly the target demographic).  However, in getting back to the pool, this billiards sitcom episode does have a particularly original, albeit utterly nonsensical, resolution.  Francis and the Commandant opt to compete to see who can lose in eight-ball the most times in the most spectacular fashion.  (You read that correctly.)  Set to Beck’s contagious song “Mixed Bizness” from the same year, Francis and the Commandant battle it out with a series of trick shots (some real, some edited) to scratch on the 8-ball.  Overall, it’s a pretty enjoyable billiards sitcom scene, though it’s deplorable that no credit is given to the billiards technical advisor behind the scenes who is the real masse maestro.

The billiard sitcom episode “Water Park” is available to purchase as part of Season 1, though digital sleuths can find it one some bit torrent sites, as well.

Bar Rescue – “Empty Pockets”

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“This bar will never be profitable if we don’t monetize those pool tables,” bellows Jon Taffer, the star of the reality series Bar Rescue, as he bemoans the disastrous condition of Zanzibar, the Denver billiards bar he has been tasked with saving in the March 2013 episode “Empty Pockets.”  “Real billiards operations monetize their tables in a number of ways.  First, they charge you for every hour then they play.  Then they often put in a drink minimum.  [Zanzibar is] making no effort to monetize these pool tables.”

Empty PocketsLike all episodes of Bar Rescue, the Spike TV hit show that first aired in 2011, “Empty Pockets” adheres to the series’ well-tread, and highly engaging, formula.  A desperate bar owner (in this case, Ami, the proprietor of Zanzibar Billiards) fears his establishment is on the verge of closing.  He calls Bar Rescue, which results in Jon Taffer, a long-time food and beverage industry consultant, descending upon the bar and doing a combination of reconnaissance and surveillance, before introducing himself to the owner to boldly proclaim his findings.  Tempers flair, egos are stomped on, initial training ensues, and then the bar is put through a “stress test” to see how well the bar’s employees handle a busy night.

Empty PocketsIn the case of Zanzibar, the stress test is an unmitigated debacle, exposing multiple failure points, including a dictatorial owner, an overworked kitchen, an illegible system for taking orders, wasteful bartending, and an absence of help on the billiards floor, which has 10 Brunswick Gold Crown pool tables that occupy 50% of the bar’s square footage.  Taffer’s pronouncement:  “This place is a disaster.  And the owner is the biggest disaster of them all.”

But, since this is reality TV, all invective ultimately furthers the end goal.  Ami and Taffer put their outrage (and near physical blows) behind them, and start planning for the future, specifically, the three-day turnaround in which Zanzibar will be transformed, physically, culturally, and thematically (to give greater emphasis to the billiards).

One fundamental set of changes is to the menu.  To create a “lot of fun in the billiard room” and enable the kitchen to deliver food in 10 minutes or less, Taffer and his team create a “sticks (cues) and balls” menu, which includes BBQ glazed meatballs, Polish sausages on a stick, and “rack spuds.”

Another overhaul is behind the bar. Taffer and his team created a list of six special, billiard-themed cocktails.  The potables include The Break (1.5 oz vodka + 1 oz orange juice + 1 oz pineapple juice, topped with club soda), the Hustler (1.3 oz 90-proof vodka + 2 slices jalapeno + 2 slices cucumber + .75 oz lime juice + 1 oz simple syrup), as well as the 8 Ball, the Scratch, the Corner Pocket, and the Trick Shot.

Empty PocketsThe pool area is also reworked.  One of the tables is removed and replaced with a billiard counter so that the pool (formerly free) can be monetized, such as through the sale of the Billiards Special (4 beer well drafts + 2 appetizers + 1 hour of pool = $19.95).  The tables are re-felted and re-leveled (by Thin Air Billiards) and set up with detail lighting on the bottom (by LED Baseline Inc).  A final touch, and the grand reveal, is renaming Zanzibar as Solids & Stripes, a “Badass Billiards Bar,” that celebrates Ami’s love of America with his love of pool.

All these changes result in a glorious opening three days later, a motivated and recharged staff, happy patrons, lots of warm embraces, and a 50% increase in sales, including $1000 from just the billiards area.

Having never been to Zanzibar (either before or after the rescue), I was curious how the changes held up, as one criticism of Bar Rescue is that, in some cases, the results wane once the cameras stop rolling.

The most obvious post-rescue change is that the bar reverted back to its old name Zanzibar.  (Based on a Facebook thread on Zanzibar’s home page, it sounds like this reversal happened around the same time the episode aired.)  The second change, based on viewing the bar’s website and seeing it on Google Earth, is that it reverted back to “FREE POOL EVERYDAY!!”  and, apparently, added three additional Brunswick tables, bringing the total to 12.  The reviews on Yelp are pretty mixed, though most suggest a lot of the customer-facing changes didn’t stick. One “serious billiards and snooker player” recently described the pool hall atmosphere as “having plenty of space, [but] the [tables] by the wall have no space for the cue stick. This place feels like it can and has the potential to be a lot better, better decor, better quality, better atmosphere and slightly cleaner.”  That review was balanced by others that equate free pool with good pool.

If anyone has been to Zanzibar recently, please comment and share your thoughts.  I know I plan to shoot some billiards there the next time I’m in Denver.

The full episode of Bar Rescue – “Empty Pockets” is available to watch free on Spike TV.

“Break!” – Mission: Impossible

Trick shots are de riguer for billiards movies, ranging from the incredible (The Color of Money) to the preposterous (Equals Against Devils).  But, I thought I was one-and-done with techno-gadget guided shots when I watched the lamentable 1990 Quantum Leap episode “Pool Hall Blues,” in which Dr. Beckett becomes an overnight billiards ace through the use of Al’s Handheld, a super-computer that can show the precise angle to hit every shot.  Little did I realize that episode could trace its origins to the 1972 Mission: Impossible episode “Break!”

Mission: Impossible - Break!Like the Tom Cruise blockbusters of the same name, Mission: Impossible followed the exploits of a small team of secret agents (Impossible Missions Force) assigned to thwart dictators, evil organizations, and eventually crime lords.  The series aired on CBS from 1966-1973.  “Break!” was the opening episode of the series’ final seventh season.

In “Break!,” Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) must infiltrate a gambling ring to recover incriminating microfilm hidden in the wristwatch of a dead agent before the microfilm deteriorates.  The plan requires Phelps to pose as a pool hustler, win the attention and confidence of Press Allen (Robert Conrad), the crime syndicate’s number two man, and then convince him to unwittingly turn against his own boss.   The episode takes place in New Orleans, a frequent setting for billiards movies (see The Baltimore Bullet; Shooting Gallery; and the unfinished Ride the 9).

The plot has more holes than Mission: Impossible III, but that’s hardly the point.  The real kicker is how Phelps can overnight develop pool shark prowess.  That’s what tech wiz Barney (Greg Morris) enables in the form of an “inertial guidance system” hidden within a cue ball.   As Barney explains, “[It’s] the same kind that’s used to keep missiles on course. Our missile: one cue ball. The other balls will be radioactively marked so they’ll show up on the control screen.”  Then, from behind the curtain, Barney will help ‘guide’ the balls into the pockets.  As he explains to Phelps, “The computer guidance could only give you a 5% edge.  And deduct 5% from your opponent.  Of course if you weren’t a pretty fair pool shooter yourself, we wouldn’t have a chance.”

So, in other words:  swap out the real cue ball with the machine-guided cue ball, spread some radioactive lacquer on the remaining balls, mount your handy-dandy self-adhesive circuit board beneath the pool table (better not pick the wrong table), and cue Lalo Schifrin’s immortal theme song because, abracadabra, you’re performing 14-1 straight pool magic.

Mission: Impossible - Break!There is a lot of on-screen straight pool played in Break!  But, as any experienced player knows, most those shots are neither the result of Graves’ expert ability nor of any ‘inertial guidance system.’ Rather, they are a series of two- and three-ball frozen carom shots that dazzle on screen, but are actually far harder to miss than to make, once a billiards technical advisor has done the initial off-camera set-up.

Break! is enjoyable largely because it’s absurd.  After all, it’s one thing for Tom Cruise to repel down the side of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s largest building in the world, in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.  But, it’s quite another to achieve off-the-chart Earl Strickland ability levels through a radio-controlled cue ball.  Now that is absurd!

Mission: Impossible – “Break!” is available to rent or buy online as part of the Season 7 collection.

“Pool Sharks Git Bit” – The Steve Harvey Show

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Pool Sharks Get Bit“Pool Sharks Git Bit,” an episode of The Steve Harvey Show that aired in December 1996 during the sitcom’s first season, is for the most part, pretty dreadful billiards TV.  The storyline is that Romeo and Bullethead, two students at Booker T. Washington High School where ex-funk legend Steve Hightower (Steve Harvey) is now the music teacher and vice principal, try to earn some extra cash for Motown field trip by hustling pool.

Bullethead, who is known inside the East Side Billiard Club as the “Goofy White Boy Who Got Game,” believes “it’s not gambling if you can’t lose, and you saw me, I can’t lose.”  And with that predictable set-up, he of course loses, not only the game, but also the school’s field trip money. Fortunately, Steve Hightower, along with his friend Cedric Robinson (Cedric the Entertainer) is able to get back the money by ‘hustling the hustlers.’  Yawn.

Now, obvious story aside, there are three aspects of “Pool Sharks Get Bit” that not only save the episode but also make it somewhat enjoyable, or at least, memorable.

The first is the hustlers who beat Bullethead.  Breaking with stereotype, the hustlers are women, specifically two ladies named Raven and Jody.  Lured by their looks and fooled by their miscues, Bullethead attempts to take all their money, saying “I do not discriminate against race, religion, or fineness,” and ends up losing everything, including his bus pass.  But, I must still celebrate the incorporation of female hustlers, as Raven and Jody join a select pantheon that today includes Kailey (Turn the River), Sara and Karen (Stickmen), Mary Beth Phillips (The Baron and the Kid), Kelly Bundy (“Cheese, Cues and Blood” – Married with Children) and, of course, Jordan ‘J.J.’ Jamison (Virgin Pockets).

The second aspect is the use of the “African pool scam.”  In order for Steve Hightower and Cedric to get the cash back, they must hustle the hustlers.  Thus, they don African clothing, come into the bar sounding like an extra from Coming to America, and pretend to be naïve Rwandan tribesman who are big fans of billiards and the new pool movie Cool Hand Luke. (Snicker, snicker.)   The scene is footnote worthy because I have otherwise yet to find a billiards movie or TV episode from any country in Africa.

The final aspect is the on-screen billiards shooting, which is terribly edited, but otherwise features some pretty amazing trick shots by Steve Hightower (but not really).  Though the full episode is below, make sure to watch the clip from 19:51-20:19.  You’ll see a series of billiards beauties, including a jump shot that pockets two balls cross-corner, a powerful backspin shot that knocks two balls into the opposing side pockets, a great masse shot, and a six-in-one shot.

http://youtu.be/yBuiWEMNKvY

I later learned that this six-in-one is called the “Pool Shark Git Bit” shot, according to Chef Anton, the behind-the-scenes billiards maven who is the real artist making the trick shots in this billiards TV episode.  In fact, Anton, whose distinguished career includes becoming the first two-time United States Trick Shot Champion of Pool, has been a regular technical consultant for television stations, such as NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox.

Well, at least we now know how the episode got its name.

The Color of Money

The Color of MoneyIt’s hard for me to imagine that more than a handful of my blog’s visitors and readers have yet to see the 1986 billiards movie masterpiece The Color of Money.  As this is my 50th blog post, rather than attempt to review this film, I thought I would commemorate it with an appropriately-titled quiz, “50 Questions about The Color of Money.”  Answers appear after the quiz, including some detailed explanations.   Though I anticipate a lot of you will be able to answer many of these questions, I suspect precious few can answer them all, as they range from the easy to the esoteric.   For those who can answer more than 40, you are truly Balabushka-worthy.  Enjoy!

Origins

  1. How many years occurred before The Color of Money was made as a sequel to The Hustler?
  2. Who wrote the book The Color of Money?
  3. In preparation for the movie, who said, “I know nothing about pool.”
  4. Why does Jackie Gleason’s character, Minnesota Fats, not appear in The Color of Money?
  5. Who convinced Martin Scorsese to make The Color of Money?

Actors

The Color of Money

  1. Which three actors have received Oscar nominations since the release of The Color of Money?
  2. Who won a Best Actor Oscar for his acting in The Color of Money?
  3. Who plays Amos, the young man who successfully hustles Eddie?
  4. What actor, who frequently appears in Spike Lee and Coen Brother movies, plays Julian?
  5. What actress from The Color of Money first appeared on-screen as an uncredited extra in another Martin Scorsese film, The King of Comedy?

Quotes

  1. Who provides the opening voiceover in which the game of 9-ball is described?
  2. What does Carmen tell Eddie he’ll be doing if he wins one more game (against Grady Seasons)?
  3. According to Eddie, what are the two things one needs to win?
  4. Who said the memorable quote, “It’s like a nightmare isn’t it?  It just keeps getting worse and worse.  The impossible dream.”?
  5. What are the final two words spoken in the movie?

Critical Reaction

  1. What film critic panned The Color of Money, calling one of its pool sequences “gimmickry that looked like it had been set up for a TV commercial”?The Color of Money
  2. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a white Cadillac among the other mainstream American movies of the season”?
  3. How many Oscar nominations did The Color of Money receive?
  4. What film critic said, “If this film had been directed by someone else, I might have thought differently about it because I might not have expected so much.”?
  5. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a scratch, a contrived cliffhanger that sets us up for Hustler III”?

Music

  1. What famous Warren Zevon classic was used when Vince first plays Moselle and introduces him to “Doom” (the Balabushka in the case)?
  2. What song did Eric Clapton write and sing specifically for The Color of Money?
  3. What punk rocker makes a cameo as one of the many people Vincent hustles on the road?
  4. What famous musician produced the soundtrack to The Color of Money?
  5. What song is the lounge singer singing in the Atlantic City green room?

Pool Professionals

  1. Tom Cruise did all his own trick shots, except the shot in which he jumped two balls. Who made that shot?
  2. What professional pool player plays Vincent’s nemesis, Grady Seasons?
  3. What four pool professionals had speaking roles in The Color of Money?
  4. What two professional pool players served as the principal technical consultants in the movie?
  5. In 1996, what two professional pool players competed in an event called “The Color of Money,” a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of 9-ball?

Pool Playing

  1. What’s the name of the initial hustle that Eddie teaches Vince and Carmen?
  2. What type of pool cue was made to look like the famous Balabushka that Eddie gives to Vincent?
  3. As Eddie starts to regain his confidence, what kind of “trick” 8-ball shot does he successfully make?
  4. In contrasting the game of 9-ball to straight pool, what two games does Eddie mockingly compare 9-ball to?
  5. In which ball does Eddie see his reflection when he decides to forfeit at the Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament?

Locales

  1. What is the name of the real-life pool bar where Eddie first discovers Vincent and hears his “sledgehammer break”?
  2. To what restaurant does Eddie take Carment and Vincent for a meal and a lesson in “human moves”?
  3. What famous Chicago billiards hall is used in the scene where Vince first plays Grady Seasons?
  4. Where was the final Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament actually filmed?
  5. What former billiards hall was used for the scene in which Eddie is hustled by Amos?

Cultural Impact and References

  1. What comedic actor made a parody of The Color of Money called The Hustler of Money in which Vince is now an amazingly talented bowler?Color of Money
  2. What NBC comedy television show featured a spoof of the “Werewolves of London” scene, with both characters stripping out of their clothes?
  3. What first-person video shooter game got its name from a scene in The Color of Money?
  4. According to movie historians Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, what movie was a cross between The Color of Money and Dumb and Dumber?
  5. In the movie Poolhall Junkies, Mars Callahan’s character, Johnny Doyle, wears a black shirt with white lettering that is intentionally a reference to the shirt Vince wears in The Color of Money.  What does Doyle’s shirt say?

Movie Minutia

  1. What video game does Vincent play and describe as tougher than 9-ball?
  2. At what toy store does Vincent work?
  3. What is the license plate of Eddie’s Cadillac?
  4. What is Vincent’s last name?
  5. How much did The Color of Money gross domestically?

 NOW THE ANSWERS

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The Hustler of Money

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If you haven’t yet watched Ben Stiller’s 1987 trailer, The Hustler of Money, a parody of Martin Scorsese’s 1986 film The Color of Money, stop whatever you’re doing, watch the video below, and spend the next 5 minutes doubled-over in gut-busting laughter.  It’s that good.

Starring Ben Stiller (as Tom Cruise playing “Wince”) and Frasier’s John Mahoney (as Paul Newman playing “Fast” Eddie Felson), the trailer is for a film in which Tom Cruise plays a cocky but immensely talented bowler, who struts around the bowling lanes in a black “WINCE” t-shirt (itself, a mockery of the “VINCE” t-shirt Cruise wears in the film) with his slicked-black hair and perpetual ear-to-ear grimace, as he palms bowling balls and throws strikes with two balls simultaneously.  As Tom Cruise did in the original film, Wince challenges anyone to a game, including a group of octogenarians on walkers, when he is not otherwise slobbering all over his girlfriend.  Eric Clapton’s “It’s in the Way That You Use It,” a song written for and memorably used in the opening scene of the original The Color of Money, plays in the background.

Eddie, after failing to peddle Newman’s Own salad dressing to the bowling hall’s bartender (played by Ben Stiller’s real-life mother Anne Meara) takes an interest in Wince after seeing the “kid nail a 7-10 split.”  He agrees to teach Wince how to hustle in bowling, prompting a very funny spoof of the original dialogue about having the “flake down cold, but can he turn it on and off.”

With Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” playing in the background (the song famously used in The Color of Money’s “Doom” hustling scene), we watch Wince maneuver through a series of struts, dribbles, juggles, and throws, as he hustles local bowling patrons, including a young boy, mothered by Julie Hagerty (from Airplane).  Meanwhile, Eddie attempts to regain his bowling mojo, but breaks down after losing his bowling shoes, putting on an over-the-top display of sadness, blatantly designed to con the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences into giving Newman an award.  The trailer ends by lampooning the final scene of The Color of Money, but in this case, it’s with Eddie throwing a bowling ball and then screaming “My back!” (rather than “I’m back!”).

Ben Stiller made The Hustler of Money when he was just 22.  At the time, he was working on Broadway.  Having worked with John Mahoney on a satirical mockumentary, he followed it up with The Hustler of Money parody, which was picked up by Saturday Night Live and aired later that year.  Interestingly, SNL offered Stiller a job as a writer and actor two years later, but he quit after appearing on only four episodes.

While The Hustler of Money was the first time Stiller portrayed Cruise, it was not the last.  He portrayed Cruise on The Ben Stiller Show as part of a “Dress Casual” skit.  Then, for the 2000 MTV Video Awards, Stiller and Cruise joined forces in one of the best parodies of all time (shown below), with Stiller playing Tom Crooze, the stunt double for Tom Cruise, in Mission: Impossible.  In 2008, they teamed up in the Stiller-directed comedy Tropic Thunder.  And, they are allegedly working together on the development of The Hardy Men, an updated version of “The Hardy Boys,” suggesting more great laughs could be coming soon.

 

Fear Factor – “Billiards for Gross Eats”

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Tomorrow, many of us will participate in the Thanksgiving Day holiday, filled with family, festivity, football, and of course, food.  Lots of food.  In fact, the average American will consume more than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day alone, according to the Caloric Control Council.  Thus, in the spirit of gluttonous gorging, it seems only appropriate to focus my billiards TV review on the “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment of NBC’s sports/stunt/dare reality show, Fear Factor.

Fear Factor - Billiards for Gross EatsTo the uninitiated or ill-informed, Fear Factor aired from 2001 to 2006 (and had a brief revival in 2011). The show pit contestants against each other in a series of three stunts for a grand prize, usually of $50,000.  The first stunt often tested the players physically. And the third stunt often resembled a scene from an action movie, such as traversing moving 18-wheelers or jumping a race car off a ramp.  But, it was the second stunt, which was meant to mentally challenge contestants, that became the stuff of television lore. For these stunts often involved ingesting vile animal parts (e.g., raw ostrich eggs, sheep eyeballs, horse rectum) or eating live animals (such as the favorite Madagascar hissing cockroach); interacting with animals (e.g., getting covered with snakes); or occasionally enduring physical pain (e.g., walking on broken glass, outlasting competitors in a tear gas chamber).

In the “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment, which aired in April 2002 as part of the Season 2 episode, “Twins: Sky Surfing/Billiards for Gross Eats/Container Ship,” teams of twins were asked to “play pool Fear Factor style.”  As producer Rick Brown explained, “we set up a four-ball diamond formation at one end of the table. Each ball had one of four custom-made Fear Factor patterns: a chili pepper, a squid, an ant, and an egg. The contestants were given a cueball and five shots to sink the four balls into the pockets. Any balls left on the table would represent the food they would have to eat.”

In actuality, those four Fear Factor patterns depicted a far worse gastronomic fate. The “chili pepper” was a Habanero pepper, the hottest known pepper at the time.  The “squid” was shikoara, a very salty Japanese dish of fermented squid guts.  The “egg” was putrid duck eggs, or what is commonly known in some Asian communities as 100-year-old eggs.  And the “ant” was just that…a vial full of live ants.  Producer Rick Brown referred to this as the “Combo Meal from Hell.”

Though I was unable to find the full segment online, an excerpt of “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment is below.  But, I remember seeing the episode when it first aired and thinking to myself, ‘Five shots to make four balls?  That’s pretty damn easy.’  Let’s just say for these contestants, billiards is probably not their God-given talent.

But, if the contestants sucked at pool, one person on the show most assuredly did not:  Fear Factor host Joe Rogan.  For as many readers well know, Rogan is not only a martial artist, stand-up comedian, actor, and UFC commentator, but also a billiards enthusiast and crackerjack pool player.  (Check out Rogan running a 9-ball rack in this YouTube clip.)  Rogan’s appreciation of pool has been well-documented, and he has been lauded for appearing at and/or commenting on tournaments, whether it was the Efren Reyes IPT 8-Ball Challenge in April 2009 or, more recently, CSI’s “Swanee 17” where Jayson Shaw played Dennis Orcollo in the Hot Seat Match.

In fact, just a few months ago, Rogan created a mini-buzz on the AZ Billiards Forum by responding to an online thread, saying “I’ve entertained several billiards ideas for TV shows [including one like the Late Show with Johnny Carson adding a pool table to the set and guests gather around the table and talk pool.]  The problem with that idea, is that most celebrities SUCK at pool. The numbers that can get out at all are pretty small.  I think there may be 6 celebrities all told that are capable of breaking and running a rack of 9 ball.  My favorite idea was one involving me traveling around to pool halls playing local shortstops and local pros in a sort of impromptu game show type scenario where I just show up and play the best guy/girl in the house.”

Given how much personality, passion and humor Rogan brings to everything he does, let me add myself to the choir and say, “Joe, if you can make any of these billiards television or internet series happen, I’ll be watching from the front row.”

The Story of One Billiard-Room

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The Story of One Billiard-Room

Years ago, I stumbled across posters for the 1988 Russian billiards movie The Story of One Billiard-Room (original title: Istoriya odnoy bilyardnoy komandi). The posters, available through Pop Culture Graphics, were unusual and memorable, striking in comparison to the more typical movie posters seen across the billiards movie landscape.  But, aside from the posters, my research uncovered very little about the film.

The script is by Alexsandr Adabashyan, who has written, acted in, directed, or helped produce well over 40 movies and television shows.  It also features an all-Russian cast, including Sergei Gazarov and Semyon Farada, both of whom are stage and film veterans. But, for all three of these gentlemen, this particular movie seems to have been largely ignored.

The only path that was not a dead-end was researching the movie’s director, Sebastián Alarcón.  Mr. Alarcón is a native of Chile, who left his homeland after graduating college to attend VGIK, a film school in Moscow.  Though he planned to return to Chile to make movies, his efforts were thwarted by a political coup and he was forced to remain in Moscow living in exile. Thus, he then began making movies for Mosfilm, the largest and oldest film studio in Russia.

One of the first films Mr. Alarcón made was a 1977 documentary Night Over Chile, which became immensely popular.  Its success spurred the director to continue making films about Chile, often about dictatorships and political struggle.  It was not until the late ‘80s when Mr. Alarcón turned to lighter subjects.  This is the time when he made the black humor comedy The Story of One Billiard-Room. The only reference I could then find to the movie was from a 100-year retrospective on Chilean cinema that described the movie as follows:

A sports team faces its toughest match: the danger of the degradation and dissolution, to lose the sense of their existence by the transformation of the town in which they live. The arrival of consumerism causes loss of consciousness and competition team that for years has called and given the identity. It is a metaphor both what happened in those years in the Soviet Union, but also to Chile molded in the ’80s.

The Story of One Billiard-RoomHaving otherwise struck out on learning more, I marked the film as “Wanted,” and moved on to other billiards movies. Luckily, in September 2021, a reader of this blog, Leonardo O, learned about my search and shared that he had gotten an .avi file of the film, without subtitles, from a Russian site two years ago. He then extracted the sound and used a service to generate an automatic transcription in Cyrillic. This allowed Google Translate to generate an automatic translation to English. He shared the file with me, while admitting the English subtitles had mistakes in translation and synchronicity. 

I am so thankful to Leonardo for reaching out and sharing the film. Unfortunately, the auto-translation was too butchered to make much sense, so my understanding of the movie remains only nominally better than the aforementioned description.

That’s too bad, as there’s some unusual imagery in the movie. For starters, the billiards team all wear numbered red jerseys and bicycle helmets. They also congregate around the billiards table, which is – wait for it – round with four pockets along the perimeter and a pocket in the middle.  When a ball falls into the middle pocket, smoke shoots up from the center, and the team’s captain uses a small handheld fishing net to retrieve the ball. 

There’s no actual playing in the movie, though the captain takes the team through some dexterity drills and mathematics practice. It seems he had grand ambitions for how the game could raise the global profile of his village and his athletes, but those plans fall apart as his team is lured to the surrounding material attractions of Coca Cola, music, television, and hot rods. By the end of the movie, the billiards table sits unused beneath a dusty cover, and the team is garbed in punk clothing, lollygagging with local ladies, and acting reckless. From the broken translation:

We together created a new game that demanded wild efforts of energy with self-sacrifice, energy, discipline… my friends and what kind of people, who they are, what they want,  what I personally do not know. But in general it seems that they are not interested in our game at all.

Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats

It’s been almost 18 years since his passing, and an incredible 45 years since his television show Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats first aired.  But, watching the three episodes just released last month on DVD by VCI Entertainment, one instantly recalls his larger-than-life presence, both in his physical girth (at times as much as 300 pounds) and in his verbal swagger and elocution, to say nothing of his pool-playing bravado.

Celebrity BilliardsRunning for four seasons, from 1967-1971, Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats was, quite literally, celebrities playing billiards (for charity) with Minnesota Fats.  Until VCI released the DVD, I had never seen a full episode, though partial clips existed online.  The low-budget set, even by late ‘60s standards, featured a single pool table surrounded by a horseshoe of audience members a few rows deep.  Each episode featured Minnesota Fats, the “world’s most accomplished billiards player” (or some variation of such hyperbole), playing a form of billiards against one of the popular comedians or actors of that era.  The celebrity was given an agreed-upon handicap, and if the celebrity won, s/he got $1000 (about $6700 in today’s dollars) toward the charity of her/his choice; if s/he lost, then $500. At the end of the game, which was shown in its entirety, “Mr. Fats” then demonstrated a series of trick shots, sometimes successfully, other times not. Most of these shots felt impromptu and intimate between him and his celebrity guest, and in all the episodes I watched, the credits rolled even as he was continuing to share shots.

Before delving into the three specific matches on the VCI DVD, it’s worth providing some context around this show, and its master impresario.  To start, in 1961, the movie The Hustler was released, which had two notable effects.  First, participation in billiards skyrocketed. “Sales of equipment soared. The number of pool halls doubled. Organized billiards boomed. Even television sports began to cover straight pool matches,” according to one Chicago Tribune article.

Bank Shot and Other Great RobberiesSecond, in introducing the world to the fictional Minnesota Fats (played by Jackie Gleason), it enabled Rudolf Wanderone Jr., a traveling pool hustler from New York City, to claim the name as his own, forever mixing fact and fiction.   And with the Minnesota Fats moniker, the former Wanderone, a decent but largely unknown billiards player, became a household name, parlaying his fame into every facet of media, from magazine articles (Sport Illustrated) to autobiographies (The Bank Shot, and Other Great Robberies) to instructional books (Minnesota Fats Plays Pool) to television (The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) and later, even to movies (The Player).

Also, it had been more than a decade since Ten-Twenty, the last billiards game show.  And with the popularity of bowling shows, such as Jackpot Bowling, on the air, it was the perfect time to try the billiards game show format again, this time with its own superstar, who used to pass out stamped autographed trading cards proclaiming himself “the greatest pool player ever.” Pairing the portly propagandist with celebrities equally made sense, given the success of game shows prominently featuring celebrities, like Hollywood Squares, which debuted in 1966. On top of it all, pool had emerged at this time as the “number one sport in Hollywood, according to some news media.

In the four seasons of Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats, a who’s-who of the era’s A-listers came on the show, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Bill Cosby, Mickey Rooney, and Phyllis Diller.  Apparently, in the show’s pilot episode, James “Maverick” Garner came on, allegedly a reputable pool hustler in his own right, and actually beat Fats, winning the $1000 charity prize.

The newly-released VCI DVD features three episodes from 1971.  In the first episode, Fats plays the comedian Groucho Mark (sans cigar) in 9-ball, giving him the break plus three subsequent shots.  Marx’s game is okay, but his one-liners, such as “It wouldn’t hurt you to practice once in a while,” are classic.  After Fats wins, he reveals to Marx a number of trick shots, though he misses a handful, prompting Marx to reply, “You want to apologize?”  Some of this episode is available to watch below on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/tZFqhx0Aymo

In the next episode, Fats plays the folk-singing comedians, the Smother Brothers, in a game of “Last Ball,” in which players take turns pocketing balls, but the winner is the one who sinks the last ball.  The Smother Brothers played as a team, effectively getting two turns for every one turn Fats got.  Though the games were presided over by commentator Tim Travers, it’s Fats who provides the real play-by-play, such as describing Dick Smothers’ narrow miss as a “good boy who got in some bad company.” Fats also showcases some beautiful trick shots, including a “kiss, bank, kiss three-cushion” shot.

In the final episode, Fats plays “Mr. Television” Milton Berle in a game of three-cushion billiards, in which Berle is given a three point head-start.  Berle admits to picking this lesser-known variation of billiards because he thought Fats lack of familiarity with the game would give Berle an advantage. This episode tends to lag, as both players struggle to earn points.  Though it is rather amusing when Fats attempts to explain the diamond system to Berle in what comes across as near-dizzying calculus.

The DVD with these three episodes is available to buy on Amazon.

A Billiards Education in the Movies

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When many people think about billiards, they are really thinking about pool (also known as pool billiards or pocket billiards), specifically one of the numerous variations of pool, such as eight-ball, nine-ball, straight pool, or one pocket, that are played on a 6-pocket table of 7-, 8-, or 9-foot length.

billiards moviesA simple Google search verifies this billiards bias.  A search for “8-ball” and “9-ball” yields 909 million and 870 million results, whereas a search for “snooker” yields 44 million results, and a search for “carom” (as in carom billiards) yields less than 3 million results.  And, if we start narrowing our search to some of the more regional variations of carom billiards, such as Balkline or Goriziana, there are less than a few hundred thousand search results.

Certainly, in North America, one reason people commonly equate billiards with pool is because pool is the only game they’ve played.  According to research done 10 years ago by the Billiards Congress of America, about 90% of billiards players in the US primarily play pool; the rest play snooker or carom billiards.

But, another reason for the global association between billiards and pool is because of popular culture.  Conduct any informal survey in which you ask people to name “billiards movies” and the most common responses are The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986). Ask billiards players and other common responses are Poolhall Junkies (2002), Shooting Gallery (2005), Turn the River (2007) and maybe Stickmen (2001).  Each of these films has its own merits, and some are much better movies than others, but a common link is they all feature variations of pool:  The Hustler (straight pool), The Color of Money (9-ball), Poolhall Junkies (9-ball), Shooting Gallery (9-ball), Turn the River (one-pocket), Stickmen (8-ball).

Fortunately, there have been a handful of billiards movies that don’t focus on pool.  So, if you’re looking to expand your familiarity with some of the other cue sports, get your Netflix or Amazon Instant Video queue ready and read on.

Snooker

Snooker is a billiards game played on a 12’x6’ table using a cue and 22 snooker balls (one white cue ball, 15 red balls, and 6 balls of different colors and point values).   The object of the game is to score more points than one’s opponent by potting the object balls in a predefined order.  Red balls must be potted in order to attempt to pot one of the colored balls.

Billy Kid and Green Baize Vampire - billiards moviesOne of the most interesting movies to feature snooker is Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, a 1987 film from the UK that revolves around a snooker showdown between a cockney named Billy Kid and a seven-time world snooker champion who wears clip-on fangs and relaxes in a coffin named Maxwell Reardon, aka the Green Baize Vampire.  The two main protagonists are modeled on real-world legends Ray Reardon (whose nickname was “Dracula”) and Jimmy White, who battled it out in snooker championships in the early 1980s.

The movie is actually a musical, composed by George Fenton, a 5-time Oscar-nominated composer, and includes the song “Snooker (So Much More Than Just a Game).”  If you liked The Rocky Horror Picture Show, you’ll enjoy this film based on its camp/cult value alone.  But, even if musicals are not your thing, you’ll get a thrill out of watching the exceptional snooker playing, particularly in the final showdown.

Other snooker movies you might wish to check out include Legend of the Dragon (1991, Hong Kong), which actually features snooker champ Jimmy White, and Number One (1985, UK), a made-for-TV movie starring Bob Geldof and Alfred Molina.

Three-Cushion Billiards

Three-cushion billiards, one of the most popular and challenging cue sports in the world, consists of three balls and a pocketless pool table.  The object of the game is to carom the cue ball off both object balls, but to make sure the cue ball hits the rail cushion at least three times before hitting the second object ball.  A point is scored for each successful carom.

Carambola - billiards movieA humorous, tongue-and-cheek film that prominently features three-cushion billiards is Carambola (2003, Mexico).  In this low-budget drama, shot entirely in one location, the character “El Vago,” having won a carom-billiards saloon from the character “El Mexicano,” must now figure out how to restore honor and popularity to the game of three-cushion billiards.  A lot of mishaps occur, especially in his decision to recruit “El Perro” (the fabulous Diego Luna) as the manager, who feels three cushion billiards is an old man’s game.  Amazing three-cushions shot are scattered throughout the movie, and there is a comedic skit in the beginning, in which El Vago attempts to make an instructional video about the rules and nuance of the sport.

Another movie you might wish to check out is Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972, Japan), a “pinky violence” film in which an outlaw heroine tries to save a bar through a three-cushion billiards competition.

Goriziana

Goriziana (or 9-pins) is a form of carom billiards especially popular in Italy. Nine pins sit in the center of a pocketless table. Two cue balls and a red ball are used. Each player attempts to hit the opponent’s ball and, from there, scores points by striking the red ball, or by making the opponent’s balls or the red ball knock over the pins. Play continues until someone reaches or surpasses a pre-set number of points.

Pool Hustlers - billiards movieThe best way to visualize Goriziana is to watch the romantic comedy The Pool Hustlers (1983, Italy), also known by its Italian name Io, Chiara e lo scuro.  The story focuses on Francesco, a skilled Goriziana player, who never plays for money.  He challenges Scuro, the reigning Goriziana champion (played by real 9-pin billiard legend Marcello Lotti), for a “spiked cup of coffee” wager.  When Francesco wins, his newfound confidence leads him to break his own no-betting rule, and he quickly falls into significant debt, losing his rematches to Scuro.   This debt leads him to steal money, and ultimately, to compete in the International Single Set Goriziana Championship as way to pay off his financial obligations, preserve his relationship with his girlfriend Chiara and avoid jail.

The Pool Hustlers was followed by a sequel Casablanca, Casablanca (1985, Italy), which continues Francesco’s love of Chiara and of Goriziana, and then much later by Il signor Quindicipalle (1998, Italy), which is also about 9-pins but with different characters.

So the next time you’re asked to think about billiards, consider the larger universe of exciting cue sports that exist.  And, if we’re lucky, maybe there will be some billiards movies about Russian Pyramid or Balkline in the near future.  We could all use some more educating.