Tag Archives: pool short films

Billiards Short Films Around the World (Part 1)

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I’ll be honest. As my comprehensive list of billiards movies, TV episodes and short films surpassed 250, I thought I had probably hit a ceiling.  But recently, late one evening, I had a head-slap, do’h! moment research idea that had not occurred to me in six years. Rather than searching IMDB by keyword (e.g., “billiards,” “8-ball”), I would search by plot summary.

Plot summary search results from IMDB.com

Wow. That one change shattered the roof, surfacing no less than 35 new entries. The majority of these new discoveries are billiards short films from around the world that were made in the last 15 years.  Talk about rolling double sixes!

Having unearthed so many new short films, I am going to devote several upcoming blog posts to reviewing trios of these local movies. Today’s threesome: Biljar (Croatia), Biljardkundgen (Sweden), and Penance (Canada).

Biljar

Purists may deride my decision to call Biljar a billiards film, but I think the 7-minute Croatian film is worthy of inclusion. Released in 2018 by writer/director Dina Cvek, the movie occurs in a nondescript bar.  Asking “are you open?,” a couple enters and proceed to order beers and play billiards. Though the bar is otherwise empty, the billiards scene injects levity, especially because it’s powered by the high-energy sounds and whimsical lyrics of “The Accident of 1993” by Austin, Texas rockers Poly Action.

But, when the bartender temporarily steps out, everything gets topsy-turvy. Playfulness is replaced with dread thanks to the sudden music shift to the heavy metal of Regular Gonzales. The couple mysteriously disappears and reappears, and the bartender winds up on the wrong side of a gun. The film concludes by the bartender seemingly waking up, only to have the same opening scene and inquiry repeat. (This motif about the fleetingness of time is reinforced by a question asked in the film, “Why is the rabbit always running in Alice in Wonderland?” As Lewis Carroll readers know, the White Rabbit represents the pressure of time and the fear of missing a deadline.)

The film is available to watch here. Billiards fans: please don’t lose sleep over the cringey 30-second billiards montage. Biljar is not intended to be about pool.

https://youtu.be/7_m5MLUGzaA

Biljardkundgen

Translating in Swedish to “The Billiards King,” this 12-minute film from 2011 is about a youth center worker whose talent for billiards does not live up to his boasts about the sport.  Handsome and muscular (but oddly sporting a good bit of armpit sweat), Matte fancies himself a billiards hotshot. He likes to quote the opening lines of The Color of Money, he has a poster of The Hustler over the pool table, and he is fixated on shaping his cue tip while he giving creepy glances at the underage girls who frequent the center.

Trying to impress a new girl, he promises to defeat Ali, who is currently on the table, so he can teach the girl how to play. After losing the first game, he demands a rematch on a technicality. He then loses the second game, which prompts him, temper rising, to wager 100 krona (about $107 USD) on a final match. This too he loses after botching a gimme-shot on the 8-ball.

Aside from the novel location (I haven’t discovered any other billiards films that use a youth center as the battle arena of choice), Biljardkundgen is pretty unmemorable, and the pool playing is terrible.  The movie is available to watch here with English subtitles.

Penance

Certainly, of these three films, Penance is the closest to a traditional billiards film.  Directed by Ivet Koleva, this 12-minute film, shot in entirety at the beautiful Top Shots Billiards in Alberta, Canada, is about two seemingly unrelated characters, Lydia and Jimmy, reconciling their history over a 9-ball race to 15. Penance is available to watch on FilmFreeway.

Lydia, a mysterious young woman with a mounting reputation for running tables, seems to know a lot about her opponent. “You’re the famous Jimmy O, pool hall owner, tournament player, money game player, pool ambassador.” Jimmy does not recognize her, but gets his first wind that they have a connection when he recognizes her pool cue as one he used to own. Unable to undermine her confidence, the tête-à-tête leads to a 9-ball competition with Jimmy’s pool hall as the grand prize. I won’t spoil the story, though it’s neither hard to predict the outcome of the match nor the relationship between Jimmy and Lydia.

Given the centrality of billiards to the movie, I was surprised to learn that Ms. Koleva is not a player herself. In an email interview, she explained to me that she likes to “go out of her comfort zone to portray various subjects” and that she was inspired by the “love and lifelong dedication to billiards” from some people she knew.

Penance has received a mixed reaction from the billiards community. Some veteran players have been quick to categorize it as another movie that gets the details wrong when it comes to billiards.  It’s clear from their bridges and ways they jump after shooting that the actors don’t know how to play pool. It’s ridiculous that Jimmy would constrict his mobility by wearing a heavy leather jacket or that he would make such a high wager against a complete unknown.

But others, and I would lump myself into this latter category, believe that the movie tried to get it right and succeeded, especially through Greg Waggoner’s beautiful cinematography, in showing a respect for the sport.  As Ms. Koleva told me:

I have tried to come up with new scenes, colors and shots so that Penance can have different elements to it. Some of the shots within the match scene were unique and had to be planned out with billiard players. The specific scene where the final ball hits the corner rather than going in took quite a few shots to get right, which is part of the reason why we framed the shot so tightly (that, and it turned out more impactful when the camera is so close).

Ultimately, I think Geoff Bradshaw at Bradshaw Billiard Service, said it best, “If you want a movie that is about pool, with perfect attention to every detail of the game, watch an instructional DVD. I believe that this short film was beautifully produced. Nice story, nice lighting, nice camera work, decent acting, and a gorgeous pool hall. [They] did a great job.”[1]

[1]      https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=489623&page=2

By the Baize

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Arnab Sengupta, the star of the November 2015 Indian short film, By the Baize, proudly exclaimed that the film was “the first movie of any kind based on snooker to come out of India.”[1]

By the BaizeIndia makes more movies than any other country – about 1,500 to 2,000 annually.[2] And, as with American cinema, sports play a fundamental thematic role in those films, whether it’s cricket (Azhar; Sachin, etc.), rugby (Sye), auto racing (Ta Ra Rum Pum), basketball (Vallinam), swimming (Koni), running (Bhaag Milkha Bhaagi), field hockey (Chak De! India), wrestling (Dangal), boxing (Irudhi Suttru), or the local contact sport of kabaddi (Kabaddi Once Again).

But, Mr. Sengupta was not kidding. In fact, aside from the 1971 documentary biopic Wilson Jones about one of the greatest Indian billiards legends, there is a near pan-cinematic absence of billiards (and/or snooker) across all genres and formats of Indian film, excluding the very rare cameo, such as in the 1985 Bollywood film Sauda.

Perhaps, the conspicuous void is because of India’s somewhat bumpy history with the sport.  As billiards historians know well, snooker can trace its origin to the the city of Jabalpur in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India.  British armed forces began playing the game there around 1876.  But, as acknowledged by the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI), the central authority overseeing the growth and development of cue sports in India, snooker (and cue sports more broadly) has struggled to gain acceptance due to the popular notion that the game is elitist and not meant for common people.

The irony of this perception is that the country has produced a number of billiards powerhouses, including Michael Ferreira, Ashok Shandilya, Geet Sethi, and the aforementioned Wilson Jones. More recently, “The Prince of India” Pankaj Advani has electrified the sport, holding the World, Asian, and Indian National Championship titles simultaneously, in three different years: 2005, 2008 and 2012.  And while Mr. Advani has seesawed between billiards and snooker (“billiards is my wife and snooker [is my] mistress”[3]), Aditya Mehta has emerged as India’s international face and standard-bearer of snooker.[4]

All of which brings us back to By the Baize, the five-minute film, directed and written by Debapriya Sengupta and produced by her company Kairos Productions. Released at the Delhi Shorts International Film Festival and winning multiple Indian film awards, By the Baize tells the fictional story of a young boy, Ricky Sharma, watching his father compete in the World Snooker Championship.  Believing his father could never lose, tragedy strikes.  Sixteen years later, an adult Ricky (Arnab Sengupta) now has the chance to put the accident behind him and honor his father by winning the same Championship. The full film is available to watch here.

Relying on the narrator’s voice-over and the interweaving of the musical composition “Time for Chopin” by Belford Hernandez, the film’s opening has an elegiac, albeit somewhat maudlin, tone as we watch the father (played by former professional snooker player Lucky Vatnani) compete in his final match.  (For snooker enthusiasts, it’s hard not to smile during the scene, as we know the father’s opponent is of course Peter Ebdon, the renowned world snooker champion with more than 350 century breaks to his name.)

Fast-forward sixteen years and Ricky steps into the “world [he] remembers” to compete in the finals (against snooker pro Cao Yupeng from China), though we continue to toggle back in time through flashbacks and the ongoing use of “Time for Chopin.” This time, Ricky is victorious.

And so too, to a moderate degree, is By the Baize. Like a poignant haiku, the film is an ode to snooker, nothing more and nothing less.  To paraphrase Ricky’s final words:  Today, this game matters.

[1]   https://www.snookerisland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6549

[2]   http://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2015/10/23/indias-film-industry-a-10-billion-business-trapped-in-a-2-billion-body/#75a91d6b1005

[3]   http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140227/sports-other-sports/article/pankaj-advani-return-his-first-love-billiards-after-pro-season

[4]   http://www.inside-snooker.com/snooker/2015/3/11/mehta-still-the-standard-bearer-for-india

Help Me Find These Three Billiards Short Films

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

billiards short films

An uncredited Willie Mosconi in The Hustler

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

Take a Cue

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

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

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

Champion of the Cue

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

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

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

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

Nineball

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

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

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

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

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

Three short films.

Three BCA Hall of Famers.

Three missing movies.

Please help me find them.

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

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