Tag Archives: pool

Fratelli Breaks (billiards short film)

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Uttering a sentiment that could melt the phenolic resin off a billiard ball, Alex Scigliano explained to me the impetus for his 2007 short film Fratelli Breaks. “We made this film because we want to make the greatest pool movie ever made some day.”

Fratelli BreaksScigliano, along with his older brother Marcus, co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in this 17-minute movie, while he was a student in Boston University’s College of Communication.  Shot over 18 days in Boston and parts of New Jersey, the superbly filmed movie ultimately won the Best Film Award at the Sumner Redstone Film Festival and the Best Cinematography Award at the Boston International Film Festival.

The gritty story, which has no dialogue for the first 3 minutes, focuses on Carmine and Guy Bianco, two brothers (played by the Sciglianos) who play each other for $10,000 in nine-ball billiards on the anniversary of their father’s murder.  Jumping in time between the brothers at their current age and the brothers at a much younger age learning the hustler’s trade from their father, it’s a story that feels a bit crammed in the space of 17 minutes, but could make for a fantastic full-length film.  More on that later.

Interestingly, the origin of the story is based on truth.  According to Scigliano, “When my mother went back to school to get her Master’s degree, she could no longer shepherd us to church and left the responsibilities to my father. Little did we know of his disdain for organized religion.  Instead of taking us to church for two years, my father took us to a pool hall and taught us how to dead stroke. The ‘Cue Balls for Christ Ministry’ he called it. He taught us how to hustle. He taught us about life.”

That background is relevant for two reasons.  The first is for the film’s authenticity.  Half the film is shot in the Bunker, a Boston bar with a single pool table.  The place is populated by guys with names like Jimmy Feathers, Mike the Arm, Nicky Sausage and Joey Bananas.  And while those monikers aren’t real, “the Paisanos in the Bunker…they’re not actors,” Scigliano shared. “They’re real people and they really don’t fuck around.” The decision to shoot in black-and-white (a technique that equally benefited the billiards movie Chalk) also adds to the close-quartered realism.

The second reason is for the billiards cinematography (starting around 09:35). Scigliano told me that when he and his brother saw The Color of Money, “it changed our lives.”  That’s no surprise when you watch the pool-playing.  Similar to Martin Scorsese, Scigliano uses a lot of different filming techniques to capture the energy and beauty of billiards.  The brothers are also damn fine players, so it doesn’t hurt to watch Alex make a five ball run in one continuous camera shot.  And, again emulating their muse Scorsese, the pool-playing is anchored by some hard-rock, blues-pounding music from local Boston musicians Ernie and the Automatics, and James Montgomery and Johnny A.

In addition to winning some awards and being “the most fun he’s ever had,” Fratelli Breaks also caused Scigliano to “lose 20 pounds, almost fail out of school, and lose [his] job as a bartender,” according to a 2008 interview in The Phoenix .  On the brighter side, it introduced the brothers to a commercial producer in New York City that landed them some gigs a few years later.  And finally, it remains “the template of for the feature film we want to make.”  More on that now.

Scigliano tells me that he is currently re-writing a feature-length adaptation of Fratelli Breaks.  What will make the movie different than other billiards movies (and, more broadly, other sports movies) is the goal. “Sports movies usually focus on an outward goal of winning that is tied to an internal conflict – redemption.  Ours is different.  Winning is killing.  It’s not simply a sports movie.  It’s a true revenge film, where the goal is murder.”

In the full-length, the brothers will aim to avenge their father’s murder by finding his killer, O’Boy, and hustling him out of everything he has.  Scigliano adds, “It will be set in the ‘60s, during the zeitgeist of the pool renaissance that followed the release of The Hustler. The tournament the boys must find and beat O’Boy at is based off the legendary Johnson City Hustler’s Jamboree in Little Egypt, Illinois.  R.A. Dyer’s literature is a major influence…All the classic hustlers – Wimpy Lasseter, Jersey Red, Knoxville Bear, Cowboy Jimmy Moore, Boston Shorty, Tuscaloosa Squirrel, even the real life Minnesota Fats Rudolf Wanderone – will be present.”

So, watch Fratelli Breaks, and get a taste of what is hopefully to come in the future. In the interim, keep up with the Scigliano Brothers by checking out their YouTube page.

[Wanted!] A Paradise Without Billiards

In Monday’s “Battle of the Sexes” blog post, I lamented the fact that leading men in billiards movies almost always play the role of the brash, cocksure hustler.  A Paradise Without Billiards (original title:  Ett Paradis Utan Biljard), a 1991 comedy from Sweden and Italy, appears to be an exception to this rule.  I say “exception” because I have neither seen it nor been able to find it, which is why I inserted “[Wanted!]” into the title.  If you can help me locate this movie, please contact me directly.

Paradise Without Billiards

Ett Paradis Utan Biljard (Sweden)

Directed and written by Carlo Barsotti, an Italian who had lived in Sweden for 20 years when he made the movie, A Paradise Without Billiards is one among a number of movies that sought to depict the post-World War II immigration into Sweden as foreigners were lured by the prospect of plentiful jobs and a prosperous economy.

In this film, Giuseppe (representing the Italian immigrants) becomes enchanted by the idea of moving to Sweden after receiving a letter from his friend Franco, who immigrated to Sweden a year ago.  While Giuseppe passes his time pleasantly eating, playing pool and having a little romance, he is poor and his existence is nothing compared to what Franco promises he’ll encounter in Sweden.

The Swedish film historian Rochelle Wright describes Franco’s depiction of Sweden in her book The Visible Wall: Jews and Other Ethnic Outsiders in Swedish Film:

Sweden is a virtual paradise. Wages are three times higher than they are in Italy, and housing and hospitalization are free. Unions and employers work together to solve conflicts, so there is no need to strike. In general, disagreements are settled amicably – Swedes only raise their voices when they are drunk. ..The girls are blond and beautiful, and they find dark men attractive…Only one thing is missing: Swedes do not play billiards.

But, as soon as Giuseppe takes the plunge and moves to Sweden, he finds it’s not quite the paradise he was promised.  He is rudely treated at the border, the living conditions for immigrants are barracks, the jobs are in grim factories, the locals don’t appreciate Italians pursuing their women, and adding insult to injury, there is no ability to play billiards. This combination of pains ultimately presents a difficult choice:  either conform fully or go back home.  Whereas Franco chooses the former, shedding his Italian identity acculturating fully, Giuseppe opts for the latter and returns to Italy.

Ironically, A Paradise Without Billiards is a billiards movie that focuses more on the absence of billiards, rather than the playing of the game.  According to Wright, this is because billiards is a “concrete manifestation of homesickness and what is missed in the homeland” and the billiards table, nonexistent in Sweden, is a “focus point…for fellowship and camaraderie,” the very elements that Giuseppe cannot find in the new country.

To return to my opening point, it is also a movie that makes no equation between billiards and hustling.  In a welcome break from the traditional billiards movie storyline, billiards is about friendship and simple pleasures.  Ultimately, billiards is about paradise.  Now, there’s a story that could be told more often.

As mentioned, I have not been able to locate this movie anywhere, so I welcome your help.  The trailer for the Italian version of the movie, Un Paradiso Senza Biliardo, is shown below.

 

Battle of the Sexes in Billiards Movies

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Pool is not a man’s world.  According to the National Sporting Goods Association, a full 40% of pool players are women in the US.  In honoring Jeanette “The Black Widow” Lee into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame this year, the BCA referred to Lee as “unquestionably the most recognizable contemporary pool player in the world.” But, when it comes to their depiction in billiards movies, the sexes couldn’t be more different.

Historically, billiards movies were movies about men, typically portrayed as cocky, brash hustlers, using their pool skills to be king of the mountain.  The supporting women in these movies were cast as non-pool-playing arm-candy or play-it-straight foils to their intractable men.  More recently, a number of billiards movies have cast women in the lead roles.  And while the women possess skills equivalent to those of the men, they exhibit none of the braggadocio of their y-chromosome counterparts.  Instead, they are portrayed as good citizens, trying to play it straight, or reluctant billiards players, who rely on their cue stick (and only if necessary) for the pursuit of more noble reasons.

Let’s start with the men of the Big Three.

The Hustler - Billiards MovieIn The Hustler (1961), “Fast Eddie” Felson, a small-time, fast-talking pool hustler, is out to prove that he is the best player in the world by beating the legendary Minnesota Fats.  Eddie’s love interest, Sarah Packard, the sole woman in the movie, tries to convince Eddie to leave his “perverted, twisted, and crippled” world, but he’s too headstrong to quit.  And we all know it doesn’t end so well for Sarah.

Twenty-five years later, The Color of Money (1986) introduces viewers to Vincent Lauria, a cocksure, undisciplined, small-time hustler with incredible skills and a “sledgehammer break.” He is managed by his girlfriend Carmen, but it’s really “Fast Eddie” Felson, reprising his role from The Hustler, who teaches him how to hustle significant sums of money. Brazen and big-headed to the core, Vincent ultimately dumps his own game to make the real money on side bets.  In contrast to Sarah Packard, Carmen supports her man’s habits, but her primary form of influence is sexual manipulation.

Finally, in Poolhall Junkies (2001), there is Johnny Doyle, a gifted pool player, for whom hustling is so ingrained that he is literally unable to escape the lifestyle.  He combines lies and deceit with his billiards prowess and silver-tongue to free his brother from jail, but more important, to prove he’s the best and capable of beating any professional player.  Barely registering in the film is his girlfriend, Tara, who, unable to discourage his hustling, ultimately endorses it by finding him a stakehorse.

This pattern continues in other lesser-known billiards movies:   Nick Casey and Billy Joe, the two hustlers who star in The Baltimore Bullet (1980). Billy Joe “The Cajun Kid” Stanley, the loudmouth hustler in The Baron and the Kid (1984). Billy the Kid, the cockney cocky snooker player, in Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1987).  The list goes on and on.

In comparison, billiards movies in which the lead is a woman have an entirely different narrative. I believe the oldest billiards movie with a female lead is the Japanese “pinky violence” movie Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972). Nami, a young woman released from prison who was taught by her uncle to hustle pool at a young age, wants to bury her past by getting a hostess job in Ginza.  But, when a local yakuza threatens to seize her uncle’s bar, she is left with no choice but to utilize her billiards skills (in a tense match of three-cushion billiards) to right an unfavorable situation.  And when that doesn’t work, she resorts to all out sword massacre (!!).  In this film, pool is a last resort, a necessary evil, just one step below all-out bloodshed.

Kiss Shot - Billiards MovieKiss Shot (1989) features Whoopi Goldberg as Sarah Collins, a single mother who loses her job and is at risk of losing her house if she can’t come up with $7500 in the next four months.  Literally, to save her family, she starts hustling pool at a local billiards hall, and then competes in a tournament.

In the low-budget Up Against the 8 Ball (2004), Krista and Monique, two cash-strapped girls at a historically black college, want nothing more than to complete their undergraduate education.  But, unable to come up with the necessary $10,000 of tuition and unwilling to drop out, they take their pool-hustling skills to Las Vegas to compete for a $50,000 prize.  Pool then is a  means to a noble end, namely, a diploma.

In Turn the River (2007), Kailey is an immensely talented billiards player who takes no joy in the sport.  Initially, she hustles pool and poker for gas money; later, she reluctantly hustles a local shark into playing one-pocket and then nine-ball for $60,000.  But Kailey is not looking for the big score.  Rather, she’s looking for just enough money to rescue her 11-year old son from an abusive father and flee to Canada to start a new life.  Turn the River is the story of an anti-hustler, the reluctant samurai, seemingly forced to play a role, but only to escape a fate.

9-Ball with Jennifer Barretta - Billiards MovieFinally, the most recent addition to the canon is 9-Ball (2012), the story of Gail, who is left in the care of her creepy uncle after he father is murdered.  The uncle, sensing great pool skills in his niece, turns her onto the life of hustling and uses her as a way to make money for himself.  But, as Gail gets older, she aspires to break out of that lifestyle and join the APA to become a professional 9-ball champion. In 9-Ball hustling is an evil, a psychopathic trait, a nightmare that Gail can’t wake up from.  For Gail, pool is not a last resort (like it is for Nami or Kailey) or a way to avoid economic hardship (like it is for Sarah, Krista and Monique), but a path to salvation, and specifically, a path to camaraderie, respect, and joy that comes from joining an amateur pool league.

Writers, directors, producers, lend me your ears!  It’s time for some new billiards stories to be told.  This is not intended to be a criticism of the aforementioned movies.  Some of these films are fantastic; others are atrocious.  But, this genre will benefit from some out-of-the-box thinking.  Not every male pool player is a headstrong hustler.  Not every female pool player has unduly suffered.  Let’s not just break the rack.  Let’s break the stereotype while we’re at it.

 

Married With Children – “Cheese, Cues and Blood” (Billiards TV)

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During the 11 years that Married With Children was on the air, I never understood the appeal of the show or the humor in watching the dysfunctional Bundy family, with the deadbeat father (Al), the obnoxious wife (Peggy), the dim and promiscuous daughter (Kelly) and the girl-crazy, wiseass son (Bud). Watching and re-watching the billiards TV episode “Cheese, Cues and Blood,” which aired in September 1991 as part of the show’s sixth season, did nothing to make me feel I had missed out.  Its poorly-staged and imbecilic treatment of pool only furthered that discontentment.

Married With Children - Billiards TVThe premise of this particular billiards TV episode is that Kelly (played by Christina Applegate, who actually does have the comedic chops, as evidenced by her terrific role in Anchorman), needs “only $1,000” for a gown so she compete for the “coveted title of Miss Cheese.”  She can’t wear one of her other gowns because they “smell like pork and old men’s hands.” When Al won’t give her the money, she “gets a night job,” earns $1000 and buys the dress herself.  Al isn’t sure how his dim-witted daughter got the money, but he rules out his neighbor’s suggestion that it was from “spanking elderly gentlemen in a tight leather outfit.” Cue the laugh-track, as lo and behold, Kelly then leaves for the night in a lava-hot black leather outfit.  Still confused, Al finally suspects she’s whoring when he gets a call for Kelly and hears a guy “has the money and can’t wait to learn if she is as good as the guys say she is.”

http://youtu.be/FgSapuep_7M

It’s not the worst premise, but the show deteriorates when he realizes that, rather than prostituting, Kelly is “hustling pool.” At the pool hall, which looks more like a campus rec center, the patrons gaggle and ogle, watching Kelly hustle.  EXCEPT, it’s a total mystery to me what possible game she is playing or how she is hustling.  She’s shooting stripes into solids, there is no 8- or 9-ball on the table, and the game suddenly ends when she pockets the 5-ball, though both solids and stripes remain on the table.  It’s like my 7-year-old came up with the rules of the game.  Granted, I realize it’s a sitcom and therefore not best to over-analyze, but really…wasn’t there one person on the set who played pool and could have said, “Hey guys, this might work a tad better if we at least pretended to inject a dose of reality into the game?”

The laughs hit an all-time low when Kelly is challenged by Slick Stick Jackson, who enters proclaiming he’s got “$10,000 that says he can beat any girl in the house.”  (Doesn’t that happen all the time?) To back the bet, Al sells nine pints of his blood (i.e., the “blood” in the title “Cheese, Cues and Blood”), becomes delirious, hallucinates, and inadvertently sabotages the game.  All I can say is given how stale the jokes were and how badly the pool was represented, I’m glad the game was over.

The full episode is available to watch above on YouTube.

Turn the River

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In the 1986 film The Color of Money, there is an outstanding scene in which Tom Cruise’s character, Vince, slowly reveals his Balabushka cue stick to his opponent, a small-time hustler, and, referring to the cue as “doom,” proceeds to methodically and smugly trounce his competitor in 9-ball.

In fascinating contrast is Kailey, the pool hustler played by Famke Janssen in Chris Eigeman’s 2007 movie Turn the River.  An immensely talented billiards player, Kailey takes no joy in pool.  She has no cue stick of her own, instead using house cues to hustle for gas money, and later in the movie, to raise the necessary funds to rescue and flee with her son.

The Color of Money presents the pool-playing hustler as a cocksure warrior, brandishing a cue stick like a katana, deftly twirling it like a bō and stabbing at the air. Turn the River is the opposite.  It’s the story of the anti-hustler, the reluctant samurai, seemingly forced to play a role, but only to escape a fate.

Turn the RiverAs an individual movie, viewed entirely on its own merit, Turn the River is passable, at best.  The gorgeous Janssen, a former fashion model and best known as Jean Grey/Phoenix in X-Men, is decent in the role, but it’s a little hard to accept her as a worn-down single mom from the school of hard knocks.  Divorced from her husband and without visitation rights to see her 11-year old son Gulley, she hatches a plan to take her son away from his father, who she believes has been abusing him.  To succeed, she’ll need $60,000 to flee to Canada with fake passports.  So, with the help of her friend and pool-hall proprietor Teddy Quinette (played by the awesomely-named Rip Torn and similar in every way to Rod Steiger’s friend and pool-hall proprietor role in Poolhall Junkies), a high-stakes pool game is organized. If the logic is a little questionable up to this point, it gets downright absurd in the last quarter of the movie, once Kailey wins the non-suspenseful pool match and proceeds to “steal” her son.

But, as one of the better-known members of the billiards movie canon, Turn the River presents a number of interesting themes and cinematic choices that are worth discussing in more detail.

First and foremost, as mentioned above, is the creation of an ‘anti-hustler.’  Kailey has no pool ambition like “Fast” Eddie Felson in The Hustler.  She employs no braggadocio, there are no taunts, like those quipped by Johnny Doyle in Poolhall Junkies (e.g., “You watch my mouth, Chico. ‘Cause you sure as hell don’t wanna watch me play pool. Unless, of course, I’m blind-folded and hand-cuffed with a pool cue stickin’ out of my ass.”).

In fact, she seems to barely understand the game of hustling, as she is caught off-guard to learn one of her adversaries, Ralph (played by Tony “Silent Assassin” Robles, one of the top 10 billiards professionals in the world and the movie’s pool technical advisor), is throwing games, or that for her to win $60,000, she’ll need a “stalking horse” (i.e., someone who can lose well to an opponent to encourage him to bet large).  She doesn’t even appreciate that her opponent, Duncan, will “try to fuck with [her], knock [her] off [her] rhythm.” All Kailey has are her formidable billiards skills.

Tony Robles - Raising the Hustler

Director Chris Eigeman and technical pool advisor Tony “Silent Assassin” Robles

Variety Magazine made this interesting observation: “In casting a woman in a traditionally male role, Eigeman subtly shifts both genre and gender.  His heroine adopts the iconography of the hustler movie, but feminizes it.” And, in this sense, Kailey is first a mother, and only second a pool player.  This is dramatically different than the famous male billiards hustlers, for whom pool-playing is their sole identity.

Eigeman’s approach to filming pool is equally interesting. In an interview with IFC, he said, “I was always interested in how much [pool] I had to show. It can get really uninteresting watching balls fall into pockets — it’s a lot like sex scenes, here [what’s] going is infinitely less interesting than [the expressions on] people’s faces.”

In the DVD commentary, he added, “The goal was to show as little pool as possible because it was never just a movie about pool.  We had to show just enough to keep the movie moving.” But, the pool had to be compelling and feel authentic, while still adhering to a very limited budget.  To achieve this, the cast and crew took over a pool-hall for six non-stop days of shooting pool.  They were able to shoot 360-degrees, filming everything with the hope that the shots could be edited together in post-production to form a coherent story.

Turn the RiverEigeman expanded in the same IFC interview: “We were very controlled and very loose…the controlled was we built 20 or 30 pool shots — we took pictures of them, put them in a notebook and named them: Ann, Betty, whatever…all the way down. So we had these shots, and the last shot that Famke makes — Zelda — and we knew that was the shot that we would end all the pool with.”  (“Zelda” being a reference to the four-bank carom shot that Kailey makes to win the match.  Janssen, who did all her own pool-shooting in the film, made this shot on her first attempt, though a full half-day of filming had been budgeted to get it right.)

Finally, it’s intriguing that for most of the movie, the game played is one-pocket, a type of pocket billiards in which “the player making the break chooses a foot corner pocket for the rest of the game; all of that shooter’s balls must be shot into that pocket. All of the opponent’s balls must be made in the other foot corner pocket.”  To my knowledge, Turn the River is the only billiards movie to feature one-pocket, though the final match consists of a race to seven in the more widely known 9-ball.  When her opponent opts to switch to 9-ball, Kailey retorts by referring to 9-ball as “a chumpy game…that’s beneath us.”   Presumably, this is her way of mocking 9-ball, a game that can involve some luck, compared to one-pocket, a game that purists would argue involves almost no luck when played expertly.

Turn the River is widely available for rent or to purchase online or on DVD.

8 For Vegas (billiards web series)

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Ah, the “mockumentary,” that malleable film genre in which fictional events are presented in a documentary format as a form of parody.  While dating back to at least the late ‘60s, the format became immensely popular when Rob Reiner released This is Spinal Tap in 1984.  Ever since, topics of all niches, from Mormon boy-bands (Sons of Provo) and Dungeons & Dragons (Gamers: The Movie) to hairdressing (The Big Tease) and darts (Good Arrows) have been lampooned through mockumentaries, occasionally successfully (e.g., Best in Show; Borat; Man Bites Dog), but more often, terribly.

Unfortunately, 8 For Vegas, John Painz’s 2011 9-part web series about an NYC amateur pool league team, Show Your Balls, and its quest to win a trip to a national pool league tournament in Las Vegas, is one of the less successful mockumentaries in its un-funny portrayal of pool league players as vapid drunks, lecherous sloths, and one-dimensional sex-starved cardboard cut-outs.

8 For VegasAccording to Painz’s blog, the original script was written in 2002, and then it was dusted off and turned into a mockumentary ten years later after a little soul-searching and a desire to “get [his] name out there and at least have something to show people.”  In his yen for authenticity, Painz made some questionable decisions to cast a number of people who obviously don’t play pool and to create “realism” through having the boom microphone get in the way and shaking the camera a lot, among other annoying auteur preferences.

Painz also explains that “one of the challenges of writing the script [is that] after a while, pool is BORING. Not, you know, watching pros and all… but when you have a 2 playing against another 2, and they take 2 hours to play two or three games, you pretty much want to kill yourself.”  For this reason, he “made it a goal to make sure that the characters are what stood out in this project. Sure, you get to see some pool play. You have to. But the majority of it is really a comedy about friends getting together every week, and the things happening in their own lives, outside of pool.”

Now, call me cynical, but if he believes pool is that “boring,” it’s probably not the best topic for one’s coming out party, film opus. Moreover, if the series is really about the friends, then, good lord, why is this octet of losers so odious?  You can meet each of them in the first episode show below, but here’ my rundown:  (1) John, the team captain, who can’t get dates; (2) Walter, the lazy wannabe comedian who uses his iPhone to take upskirt pics of (3) his teammate,  Jennifer, the “whore” who hates her ad copy job; (4) Ian, the super-gay guy who was once caught “trying to deep-throat a bratwurst”; (5) Leslie, the failed author who drinks constantly; (6) Nicole, who seems to puke constantly; (7) Heather, who wears shades, says nothing and knits; and (8) George, who we never meet because he’s in jail.  Quite the posse, eh?

The first season of 8 For Vegas consists of 9 episodes, each 10-12 minutes long, that each represent one week in the team’s quest to win the city championship and go to Las Vegas.   Most the episodes focus on a particular character, followed by 1-2 minutes of pretty bad eight-ball, shot on location at Society Billiards & Bar in Manhattan, against teams, such as Stroke This, Ball Breakers, and Stick It In.  I won’t give away the ending, but the team does it make it to the city championship, after winning the division finals against Balls to the Wall…but not before most the team had zogged out on Xanax.

You can watch the entire first season on YouTube.  Amazingly, there was also a second season that wrapped in March, 2013.

Raising the Hustler – A Billiards Documentary in Production

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In the United States, there are approximately 11.5 million baseball players of all ages.  How many can name at least one professional player?  75%? Certainly, at least half, with many citing team rosters, wearing the jerseys of favorite players, collecting memorabilia about the pros, and/or talking about the legends of yesterday.

In the United States, approximately 40 million people played pool at least once in the last 3 years.  How many can name a professional billiards player? 1%? Not a chance.  The American Poolplayers Association (APA) has about 265,000 members.  Can even 10% name one of the sport’s legends besides Willie Mosconi or Minnesota Fats (no, not the Jackie Gleason character from The Hustler)?

Raising the Hustler - Billiards DocumentaryIf you’re wondering where I’m going with this jeremiad, I’m channeling the very spot-on sentiments of Angel Levine, the director and producer behind the highly anticipated documentary Raising the Hustler. It has already taken Levine 7 years to film, costing her “every dime [she] ever had and maybe some dimes [she] hadn’t” to collect more than 600 hours of footage about the legends of pool so she can help them tell their story in their own words to a generation that is perilously close to forgetting their existence.

“I got tired of watching my legends die broke and penniless.  They need to be heralded,” Levine told me in an hour-long interview in late August.  “[Pool players] are looked at so poorly in this country.  They’re looked at as gamblers, hustlers…Compare this to the Philippines, parts of Asia. Pool players there have a fan base.”

In a 2003 article in the Asia Times Online, Levine’s point jumped off the page: “Mention the sport of pool or billiards [in the Philippines] and you’ve tapped into something much deeper in the Filipino soul, something that is a part of the very fabric of this society…Filipinos of all persuasions will be able to tell everything you need to know about a kick shot, the break, a billiard shot and a safety shot… If a Filipino emerges victorious [at the World Professional Pool Championship], expect a ticker-tape parade in Manila.”

In fact, Levine’s lament goes beyond recognizing just the great old-timers.  “Pool is dying in the US. ESPN won’t work with the men anymore…Women have to pay ESPN to be on TV.  Nobody watches, nobody cares.  The amateurs don’t even know who Johnny Archer is.  They only know the Asian Woman [Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee].

Raising the Hustler - Chris's BilliardsSo, Levine set out to make her documentary not only to honor her idols, but to honor her sport.  And, fortunately, she is the perfect person to do it. “I grew up playing with legends of the sport in Chicago.  All of the greatest players have come through or lived here, and I know most of them and could go where most couldn’t with a camera, which is why I have carte blanche access to the industry…Initially I decided to focus my documentary only on the stars around my room at Chris’s Billiards (where The Color of Money was partially filmed).  It was on a smaller scale.  Only after I started peeling the onion did I realize I had to start traveling.  And the more I did, the more I fucking cried.”

The more stories Levine told me about the pool greats, the more self-aware I became of my own pathetic lack of knowledge about them.  Leonard “Bugs” Rucker.  Santos Sambajon.  Riley “Jet” Johnson.  Sang Lee.  Freddy “the Beard” Bentivegna. The interview became a history lesson and my own personal wake-up call.

Raising the Hustler - Billy Incardona

“Pittsburgh Billy” Incardona

Unfortunately, we will all have to wait a little longer to view the complete fruits of Levine’s efforts, as she recently announced that she has postponed the release of Raising the Hustler until 2015. On the positive, she just submitted a 10-minute documentary to Sundance entitled Chasing Wincardona, which is all about the great one-pocket player “Pittsburgh Billy” Incardona.  (I look forward to reviewing that film in a subsequent post.)

If there is a tragic irony to Levine’s story, it is that since she started filming, 31 of her interview subjects have passed away.  When she told me that, I nearly collapsed, incredulous that so many greats could fade from the annals of billiards history.  But, then I also smiled, grateful that someone like Angel Levine could be so passionate and committed to make sure their stories were documented and their tales will have the chance to inspire and educate future generations of pool players.

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5 Billiards Short Films in 16 Minutes

My “billiard movie” definition is rather simple:  billiards, whether literally or metaphorically, must be the focus of the film, and the film must be for the purpose of entertainment (and possibly education), but not instruction.  There are no requirements around quality, length, distribution, or commercial success.  As such, I share with you 5 Billiards Short Films in 16 Minutes.  Special thanks to Pool & Billiards Online for introducing me to each of these.

A Game of Pool

Created by Stan Prokopenko in 2004 when he was just a junior in high school, A Game of Pool is a 6-minute 3D animated short film about a rack of billiard balls that split into two teams – solids and stripes – and proceed to “battle” by knocking one another into pockets, with the last ball standing facing off against the 8-ball.  It took 4 months for Prokopenko to complete the film, doing everything from teaching himself the Maya animation program to using editing software like Sound Forge and Adobe Premiere. The film is both tongue-and-cheek, yet also clever in its battle scenes, including the 6-ball committing suicide for illegal biting; the 3-ball and the 13-ball squaring off to Ennio Morricone’s instantly recognizable tune “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”; and the 13-ball fighting the 8-ball in a bullet-time effect action sequence to The Propellerheads “Spybreak!” from The Matrix. The film subsequently won some awards at the International Student Media Festival, and was later featured on all American Airlines flights in September through December of 2004.

Boogie Billiards

Another animated billiards short film is Dayle Lange’s 2005 Boogie Billiards, which she submitted for the 2005 Governors School of the Arts scholarship program, and which won best overall film in the 2005 Ocean County Film Festival.  This 2-minute stop-motion animation film features a rack of billiards ball dancing, swinging, and spinning to Duke Ellington’s “Cottontail.” It’s mildly humorous how the balls all freeze when the boxer comes down the stairs to check out the sound (similar to the toys freezing in Toy Story when a human enters the room), but otherwise not that interesting.

Pool Talk

Far more humorous is Max Nicholson’s 2-minute billiard short film Pool Talk from 2009.  This short film centers on a debate between the 9-ball and the 3-ball about whether it’s better to “end all hunger and disease or bring about lasting world peace.”   Using a mix of close-up and long-shots with alternating camera angles, the two balls engage in a discussion that harkens to the movie Clerks, with witty banter, such as “I’m just saying people got to eat.  I’d rather end starvation than war.  You ever skip lunch? It’s horrendous.  I did that once.  Plus, if everyone is stuffing their faces, it’s kind of balances out the whole overpopulation thing.”  Pointedly absurd, the best line is at the end when an observing ball remarks, “It’s round-the-clock with those fuckin’ guys.”   Max Nicholson is currently a writer/reviewer for the entertainment website IGN, and he is also a freelance videographer and video editor.

http://youtu.be/2udVIsk3mZc

Pool and Life

On the serious side is Toby Younis’ Pool and Life from 2011.  This 3-minute short film uses the game of pool as a metaphor for overcoming the obstacles that life places in front of you.  With the cue ball breaking the rack, it starts, “Without warning, something came along and changed my life, transforming it from a neat package into chaos and shambles.”  It then proceeds to show some easy shots (“I took on little things”), harder shots (“Slowly but surely, my confidence returned”), and even carom shots (“Others were willing to help if you let them”).  Younis is the owner of Videotero and an independent producer, director and editor. (For a very different use of pool as a metaphor, check out the short film 8-Ball.)

http://youtu.be/wLb98fG4814

Rack ‘Em Up

Finally, there is the disappointing Rack ‘Em Up, filmed some time in 2008 by Jared Kowalcyzk as his final “Introduction to Film” project at Emerson College.  Shot in B&W on 16mm film on a Bolex and cut and spliced using a Steenbeck and guillotine splicer, this 3-minute short largely consists of a person making basic pool shots while a narrator provides trite voice-overs such as, “Pool is about luck.  The more you play, the luckier you get.”

 

Poolhall Junkies

“Poolhall Junkies is a porno movie for billiards fiends.”

Alas, I can’t take credit for authoring that beautiful sentiment (it belongs to the staff writer Purple for Movie Magazine), but it’s a zinger of truth.  From the opening scene, as the camera methodically, seductively explores the baize of the billiards table, the interior of the pocket, the smoothness of the rail cushion, the length of the cue, and even the symmetry of the rack, one feels they’ve entered a world of pool fetishism.  It’s no wonder that this is the mise-en-scene of the 2003 billiards movie Poolhall Junkies and the home of its star, Johnny “Sidepocket Kid” Doyle, a pool player so good that “the cue was part of his arms, the balls had eyes, and the thing that made him so good was that he thought he could never miss.”

Poolhall JunkiesIt’s also then no surprise that Doyle is played by Mars Callahan, the movie’s director and writer, and an incredible pool player in his own right.  In making the film, Callahan clearly wanted to make a billiards movie.  He used his own life growing up fatherless in Los Angeles, hustling and playing pool starting at the age of 12, to form the basis of the movie, though it would take him 10 years to get it to the silver screen.

The storyline for Poolhall Junkies is pretty simple (and often criticized for being a retread of better movies such as Rounders).  Johnny is a teen billiards prodigy who aspires to be a pool professional.  But, his “mentor” uncle Joe (the excellent Chazz Palminteri) has bigger plans to “educate” him and turn him into a pool hustler.  Fifteen years later, when Johnny breaks from his mentor, he tries to start a new life away from pool-sharking.  But, Joe, hell-bent on revenge, won’t let him leave, and sics his new protégé Brad (the head-scratchingly cast Rick Schroeder) on Johnny’s friends and family, creating for Johnny a world of debt and problems that can only be resolved in a – wait for it…you guessed it – 9-ball showdown.

Okay, so the plot is beyond predictable.  Can we move on now?  Let’s talk about the pool!  The movie is a billiards bonanza of rapid-fire strokes, rail assist jumps, table-length draws, absurd masse shots, double-bank carom shots, with some of the most eye-popping shots performed by billiards legend Robert “Cotton” LeBlanc, who not only was a technical pool advisor for the film, but also makes a cameo in the film at the Olhausen $100,000 9-ball Shootout, along with trick-shot maestro Mike Massey (as St. Louis Louis).

But, Poolhall Junkies does not just rely on professionals to dazzle.  To the contrary, the movie is notable for creating an aura of authenticity through its use of continuous wide-angle pool shots, taken not just by Callahan, but also by the other players in the movie.  Perhaps, the most famous shot in the movie is the frozen cue-ball carom kick shot shown below that Johnny uses to hustle his girlfriend’s boss at a party.

In Poolhall Junkies, this shot, which immediately inspired thousands of audience members to try to recreate it at their local pool halls, is done – on the first take, no less – by Johnny’s partner and bank-roller Mike (the scene-stealing Christopher Walken).  The shot is then repeated by Callahan…with one hand! (For a full explanation of the physics of this shot and others in the film, check out the article from Dr. David Alciatore in his series, “Billiards on the Big Screen.”)

Billiard movie aficionados will also note Callahan’s clear homage to The Color of Money in everything from the use of pool shot montages and the selection of recognizable pop songs to power the pool scenes (e.g., “Werewolves of London” in The Color of Money;  “The Payback” and “Use Me” in Poolhall Junkies) to the overt Color of Money poster in the local pool hall. More subtle tributes include the use of a deafening crack of the break to signal a one-of-a-kind pool player, as well as Johnny’s pompadour and white-on-black HUSTLER t-shirt that are reminiscent of Vince’s (Tom Cruise) bouffant hairdo and white-on-black VINCE t-shirt.

And yet, as an ode to billiards, Poolhall Junkies carries with it a negative underbelly, namely the close equation of pool with hustling.  While the movie opens with the line, “I don’t want to be a hustler. I want to be a professional,” it so romanticizes the pool-shark, with its short cons, sang-froid and hyper-masculine lifestyle, that it comes dangerously close to tainting the sport in the process.

As skilled as all the pool players are in the movie, they ultimately rely on deceit and even an old-fashioned ass-stomping to succeed.  Johnny lands a mobile-home sales job by tricking the company owner into making a bet he can’t win.  Another character wins a fast $200 by duping two guys in a drinking game.  Johnny’s brother attempts to beat Brad by only playing him on a pool-table he rigged with a crooked leg.  Brad, allegedly the 13th ranked player in the US, must resort to a cheap “four balls off the table” hustle to win money in 8-ball.  And, the most egregious example of all, in the final $100,000 showdown between Johnny and Brad, Johnny only wins because he cons his opponent into letting him take the otherwise “impossible” shot.

In this respect, it’s interesting to compare Poolhall Junkies to Anthony Palma’s 2012 movie 9-Ball.  Both movies start with a pool prodigy who wants to pursue the professional path, but is held back by a manipulative uncle intent on exploiting their skills for financial gain. In 9-Ball, league play is the path to nirvana, and the billiards professionals are portrayed as angelic messengers to aid in that pursuit.  On the contrary, in Poolhall Junkies, the professionals lie, intimidate, and even physically attack, and hustling, as evil as it may be, is the ultimate magnet and the only way to win over the girl, free the brother, and take the $100,000 pot.

Poolhall Junkies is widely available to rent or watch online or on DVD.

Poolhall Junkies

Quantum Leap – “Pool Hall Blues”

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Remember the NBC series Quantum Leap that featured the time-travelling Dr. Sam Beckett (played by Scott Bakula), forever body-hopping into history to “put right what once went wrong?” Well, whatever you thought of the show’s five-season run, make sure to steer clear of the 1990 Season 2 billiards TV episode, “Pool Hall Blues – September 4, 1954.” It is both an insult to billiards and a squandered opportunity to provide some real history on the game’s overlooked African-American greats.

The storyline is that Sam leaps into the body of Charlie “Black Magic” Walters, an African-American pool player and one of the greatest pool hustlers in America, who must try to help his granddaughter save her Chicago nightclub before it is seized by Eddie Davis, a criminal loan shark.  Unable to help his granddaughter get a loan, he acquiesces to playing the loan shark in a first-to-seven game of 9-ball, with the nightclub as the winner-takes-all stake.  The full Pool Hall Blues episode is available to purchase on YouTube.

Let’s start with the basics…if you’re going to make a billiards TV episode, get your facts chronically accurate.  It is impossible in 1954 for one of the patrons to liken Charlie to Minnesota Fats, when Walter Nevis didn’t create the fictional character until 1959, the movie The Hustler (with Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats) didn’t come out until 1961, and Rudolf Wanderone, Jr. didn’t adopt the name until sometime after the movie debuted.

Also, there are a frightening number of pool playing errors.  There is a scene when Eddie Davis breaks a 9-ball rack and we watch the 5-ball sink.   He then calls the 3-ball, a script gaffe, both because one doesn’t call shots in 9-ball, and unless he’s caroming the 1-ball into the 3-ball, this would be an illegal shot.  But then it gets preposterous.  Eddie next makes a shot in which he sinks the 5-ball (yep, the same one he already sunk) before the cue caroms into the 9-ball.   Apparently, this 5-ball has more lives than a cat, as it then re-appears on the table seconds later.  Let’s just say I’m aghast Pool Hall Blues won the 1990 Primetime Emmy Award for “Outstanding Cinematography for a Series.”

Mistakes aside, the real insult in this episode is the assumption that the mechanics of billiards – the grip, the stance, the stroke, the bridge – can be mastered overnight.  That’s the necessity since Dr. Beckett can’t shoot pool.  Fortunately, he is ludicrously assisted by Al (played by Dean Stockwell) and his Handheld, a super-computer that can show Dr. Beckett the precise angle to hit every shot.   And there you have it!  Apparently, billiards is nothing more than geometry, and that with a little help from a magic blue guide-line, one can ignore all the other mechanics and become a world-class billiards player in a day.  [SPOILER ALERT!] Even better, when the Handheld goes on the fritz, Dr. Beckett is still able to make a four-cushion rail shot to win the series.

My other disappointment with Pool Hall Blues is the squandered opportunity to educate viewers around African-American billiards players.  First, there is the character Charlie “Black Magic” Walters, who is personified (when Dr. Beckett sees his reflection in the mirror) by the very real Los Angeles pool hustler Robert “Rags” Woods.  Too bad we only see Rags in the mirror and never on the table.  Blown opportunity.

But if Charlie Walters is one of the greatest pool players ever, is he based on a real person?  We’re told he has played the greats and “beat (Willie) Mosconi in Detroit.”   But, to the best of my knowledge, Charlie Walters is both imaginary and not based on a real person.

History has not been kind to African-American billiards players.  Too few are well-known and so there are only a couple of notable candidates to contemplate.  Cisero Murphy is perhaps the most famous, as he was the first black player inducted into the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame.  Mosconi, in fact, played Murphy, but he would have been 17 in 1954…a little young for a granddaughter.   Another well-known player was Leonard “Chicago Bugs” Rucker, who was in fact from Chicago, where Pool Hall Blues is set.  But, he also would have been a teenager in 1954, and his game was one-pocket, not 9-ball.  Then there is James Evans, who Minnesota Fats deemed the “greatest Negro pool players who ever lived” in his book The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies.  While Evans certainly played in the 1950s, there is a lamentable dearth of information available about his life. There are a few others from that era that get occasionally mentioned, but their stories are poorly documented.

So, if Charlie Walters is based on a real player, it’s not clear to me who it was, making it certainly a missed educational opportunity.  But, then again, maybe that person wouldn’t want to be associated with this terrible episode anyway.