Category Archives: Billiards Movies

The Billiards movies category is about movies that prominently feature billiards or that have plots focusing on billiards.

A Magic Stick

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A Magic Stick At the end of 2016, with seemingly no PR or marketing, mainland China officially released its first feature-length billiards movie with the airing of A Magic Stick (also known as One God Stick or in Chinese as Gēn shén gùn).[1] It’s a blessing to the country that the movie was met with complete silence, as there is next to nothing enjoyable or redeemable about this film. To say it’s a painful 71 minutes would be an understatement.

In the film, Guo Daxing is “The Billiard King,” a brash, cocky, libidinous, Bermuda-shorts wearing billiards prodigy, who is accompanied by a bevy of scantily-clad women that wait on his every word and movement. He is hesitant to risk his throne, though he also has special pool super-powers (??!) that enable him to manipulate the path of the balls. So, that’s kinda unfair, I guess.  And he brushes his teeth while his opponents take their shots, which is just plain rude.

His manager, Wu Yingxiong, has grand ambitions for the King, but the King treats him like a scorned puppy. Humiliated, Wu tricks the King into having a match with up-and-coming Zhou Bin, to whom he loses in a fluke match. This makes Zhou the new King. Guo, stripped of his title, is promptly tossed curbside, ejected from his mansion.

What could have been a mildly amusing down-on-his-luck, redemption story, however, descends into utter idiocy, as Guo tries to reclaim his title.  Helping him, sort of, is Miss Xinlan, the leader of the 3S Lady gang, who has her own reasons for trying to dispose of Wu and Zhou.  (She also tried to kill Guo earlier in the film, but that didn’t go anywhere.) Miss Xinlan is aided by her second-in-command, Teresa, a formidable billiards player, who initiates a game with Guo and then…disappears from the film.

There is also Master Huang, a retired gang leader, who is threatened by the ascendancy of the Wu/Zhou reign, but is narcoleptic, so keeps falling asleep during his moments of inspired rage.  Other characters that have the comic effect of stepping in dog shit include a blind monk, who referees the pool matches, and a salivating mermaid, who – I think – also runs some kind of an auto dealership.

I’ll be the first to admit there may be a cultural barrier too high for this Western viewer to overcome. The movie seems to be an example of mo lei tau, a type of slapstick humor popularized in late 20th century Hong Kong popular culture that includes “nonsensical parodies, juxtaposition of contrasts, sudden surprises in spoken dialogue and action and improbable and deliberate anachronisms.” A Magic Stick also makes early reference to the Chinese actor and director Stephen Chow (perhaps best known to US viewers for Kung Fu Hustle; Shaolin Soccer; and The Mermaid; as well as the billiards movie Legend of the Dragon), who helped popularize this form of movie-making.

With the story, characters, antics, and dialogue leaving me scratching my head, I was hopeful that the actual billiards sequences would compensate.  The opening credits even include a quasi-commercial for Ozone Billiards, which piqued my curiosity that Florian “Venom” Kohler would make a cameo or serve as a behind-the-scenes technical advisor. No such luck, as far as I can tell. As a result, there too, the movie failed miserably.  The pool-playing is unimaginative and often inaccurate. Little respect is given to the sport.

In the final game-winning shot, two flying kicks from opposite directions dislodge the 8-ball that had been stuck in Wuo’s mouth, causing him to vomit the ball into the pocket beneath him.

Yep, that pretty much sums up how I felt watching A Magic Stick start to finish.

[1]       This excludes Hong Kong, which has produced multiple billiards movies, including Legend of the Dragon and Equals Against Devils, as well as Taiwan, which released Second Chance.

Break (in production)

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Michael Elkin BreakLess than two weeks ago, billiards movie enthusiasts, such as myself, started geeking out, agog over the announcement that Rutger Hauer was going to star in the upcoming snooker film Break. Mr. Hauer had been cast to play an old-time gangster, but for fans of his oeuvre, and especially those who still memorialize him as Roy Batty from Blade Runner, the specifics of the role in Break were irrelevant. It was simply the fact that he would be returning to the silver screen – and in a billiards movie, no less.  Because let’s face it, the recent entrants into the billiards movie genre (e.g., 9-Ball, Massé, HeartBreak) have not exactly been overflowing with megawatt stars.

According to a recent article in Variety, Break is about Spencer Pryde (played by Sam Gittins), a talented kid snooker player from a rough neighborhood who is dragged into crime. A chance encounter with a Chinese billiards champion (presumably played by China’s currently number two ranked snooker player Liang Wenbo) gives Spencer a chance to turn his life around and escape his tough surroundings. Like many other billiards films (e.g., The Color of Money, Kiss Shot, The Baron and the Kid), the movie ends with a climactic billiards match, in this case, the World Snooker Championship filmed at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, the true home to professional snooker.

While Mr. Hauer’s casting is news, there has been buzz about Break for years.  In January, 2016, I had the opportunity to interview director and writer Michael Elkin about his forthcoming movie, which at that time, was quite early in its conception.  (Production is now underway with filming scheduled to occur in Beijing and London.)

Mr. Elkin shared with me his reasons for making Break:

I grew up on a council estate in West Norwood, South London and…we had several snooker halls in neighboring areas, such as Brixton, Crystal Palace and Tulse Hill. As a kid, I would often skip school and spend the day in one of them with a pal.

I am now 43 years old and sadly [those] snooker halls are all gone. Many were closed after complaints from local residents about late night drinking, drug dealing, fights and in Norwood’s case, a fatal shooting.

I first started writing Break in January of 2010 after reminiscing with a pal [about] one of the young guys there being a very good player, but he wasn’t interested in pursuing it. We wondered whatever happened to him and the seed was planted.

I started to think, what if this kid had wanted to make it, but was in to something he couldn’t get out of, or maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe he preferred the idea of being a crook, a bad guy. The idea, literally started with an image I had of a young guy in a smoky, dimly lit snooker/pool hall, brandishing a broken cue as a weapon.

I sat down and drew a picture of a kid in a hooded top, standing behind a table ready to strike anybody that came near him with the butt-end of a snooker cue. I stared at the picture a while, cogs whirring and decided on the idea of this troubled kid with a talent, but very little else in the way of guidance.

What this kid needed was a Break…I wrote the first draft in about two months, but wasn’t happy with it, so put it in a drawer and forgot about it for years. Recently I took it out of the drawer, gave it a polish and thought, okay this is pretty good now. Let’s do it.

Like many filmmakers who choose to make billiards central to their stories, Mr. Elkin was aware that too little snooker and the film loses its authenticity and narrative thread; too much snooker and moviegoers will grow restless with the slow pace.

Michael Elkin BreakRecent news developments, coupled with Mr. Elkin’s comments to me, indicate he intends to balance this deftly.

The movie’s realism is informed not only by the collaboration with the World Snooker Association, and the filming at Sheffield’s but also the casting of global snooker pros such as China’s Mr. Wenbo, Ireland’s Ken Doherty, and Britain’s Jack Lisowski. Mr. Elkin intends to focus especially on “a variation of pots such as doubles, long pots and plants rather than the cue ball being stuck behind the brown whilst a player deliberates how to get out of it. Clever shots mostly.”

But, at the same time, Mr. Elkin explains, “Although I love to watch [snooker], I am aware that film fans are not settling in to watch a snooker game. Break is an urban drama where snooker just happens to be our protagonists’ way out of a bad situation.  That said, there is of course plenty of snooker action to satisfy fans, but also enough drama to make it a film. Think ‘Rocky with a snooker cue’.”

Massé

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In an interview with IndieWire, Christian Blauvelt, the Deputy Culture Editor for the BBC, talked about the guilt he felt, when he worked Hollywood.com, giving a zero out of five star review to Paul Schrader’s The Canyons.  He shared, “I feel guilty for hating The Canyons so much because Schrader himself is not only a filmmaking legend but a delightful human being… truly honest and giving.”[1]

MasseAs I finished watching Jay Taylor’s Massé, which is a terrible movie, Mr. Blauvelt’s sentiment resonated with me.  Though I have never met Mr. Taylor, I suspect he’s a good person who, along with his wife Courtney Shumway, the film’s script consultant, put his blood, sweat, and tears (and probably a decent amount of money) into making this film.

I’ve never made a film, so how can I so audaciously tear apart this man’s opus? I don’t for a moment believe I could do better. But, at the same time, I have an obligation to my readers to provide my honest thoughts.  Otherwise, I’m just a rubber-stamper, endorsing any film with baize, balls, and cue, simply because billiards is so starved for attention and mainstream recognition.

Mr. Taylor opted to name his film Massé because, like the famous trick shot in pool, his movie “has some twists and turns so [he] thought the idea of naming after a curve shot in pool appropriate.”[2] Alas, those twists and turns are just some of the many problems with the film. The characters are wooden, the acting is amateur, the scenes don’t effectively tell a story, and the billiards is largely irrelevant.

The story follows Jack Pappas (played by Johnny Alonso, who currently stars in Gotham as Kazz, bass player for the Penguin’s house band at Oswald’s Nightclub), who has had a troubled past.  He’s content to hustle pool for a living, but his life takes a turn when his ex-flame, Sara (Barb Myers) shows up.  His conflicting emotion leads to some anger-rich pool playing, an endlessly long sex scene, a ridiculous fight scene (including a cue ball to the head…take that, bad guy!), and a noir gun-shooting finale with bad special effects.

MasseBack to the billiards.  In an interview segment for Click On This Show, Mr. Alonso revealed that he “shot pool for 50 days…So I got pretty good. I got really good.  These boys (from APA) taught me a lot of stuff…some nights we were on set shooting until 2 in the morning.”

I don’t doubt that Mr. Alonso’s game improved significantly, but it’s a shame his newfound prowess didn’t translate to the screen.  There are two main pool scenes in Massé. Both exist to establish that Jack Pappas is a skilled player, whose go-to hustle involves his close friend Pete (Jonathon Ruckman).  But, the actual pool-playing lacks any excitement.  The shots are basic and the games are uninteresting. Moreover, they don’t advance the characters.  Other than establishing that Johnny is a risk taker, the hustling never goes anywhere. He might as well be throwing darts.

Mr. Taylor said, “Massé runs the gamut of emotions, from happiness to anger, fear to excitement, and lust to sadness.”   Unfortunately, he omitted boredom, perhaps the most prevalent emotion for this reviewer.

Massé premiered at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore on October 15, 2014.  The movie was produced by Bad Ferret Films, which no longer exists.  The billiards scenes were shot at Cobblestones Bar & Grill, which closed in 2017, in York, Pennsylvania.  The movie is available to rent or buy on Amazon.

[1]       “Critics pick the worst movies they’ve ever reviewed,” IndieWire, June 19, 2017.

[2]       “Interview with Director and Filmmaker Jay Taylor,” DC Metro, January 2, 2013.

Heartbreak

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Approximately 45 miles northwest of Orlando sits The Villages in Sumter County, Central Florida. The fast-growing city, a favorite among retirees, is home to the Old Mill Playhouse, which first opened its movie doors in 2004. And, on March 17, if you were among the 125,000 citizens of The Villages, or anyone lucky enough to be in the vicinity, you had the exclusive opportunity to go to the Playhouse and attend the world premiere of Heartbreak, the newest billiards movie to hit the silver screen.  Alas, the rest of us hapless ones — including myself — will need to wait until at least this summer to have a chance to see this film.

HeartbreakThe movie premiered with little fanfare.  There is a compelling trailer available here, and there is a summary available on IMDB from the film’s producer, Randy M. Dyer.  Heartbreak is “based on the life of a one-time award-winning professional billiard champion down on his luck who encounters a young Korean woman seeking to become the billiard champion to save her son’s life.  What ensues is an emotional and dramatic journey leading to a climactic event that will change their lives forever.”

Unable to learn much online, and frustrated by my own inability to make the trek from New York to Florida to see the premiere, I struck gold on Twitter when I successfully connected with, and subsequently interviewed, the movie’s two leading actors, Brett Rice and Jane Park Smith, and the Executive Producer (and former billiards pro and Pro Billiards Coach) “Coach” Wayne Catledge.

As it turns out, the seeds of Heartbreak have been germinating inside Mr. Catledge’s head for 10-12 years when he was first coaching female billiards players in Asia.  Observing the training regiments of billiards athletes like Kim Ga-young and Eunji Erica Park, Mr. Catledge considering producing a documentary about their approach to billiards and their work ethic.  Soon, that idea morphed into making a full-length movie.

Like many passion projects, Heartbreak had numerous starts and stops.  The script was the biggest challenge. “There were so many scripts that did not fit…that did not respect the industry. They were too focused on the “dark side [of billiards]…I wanted to prove billiards is an upstanding sport and not just [show] the underbelly…I was looking for hope and inspiration like in The Sound of Music,” said Mr. Catledge.

Heartbreak

Jane Park Smith as Mina Lee

According to Jane Park Smith, who plays the lead character Mina Lee, “billiards is such a vital part of the movie. Heartbreak shows billiards in a dynamic, redemptive, light.”  This required the perfect casting of actors, according to Mr. Catledge. And, given the amount of billiards in the movie, the actors needed to seem like real players.  (In fact, the actors perform every shot in the movie, except two.)

The decision to cast Brett Rice in the lead role as Harry Platt was an easy one. Mr. Rice, who has been playing pool for 50 years, elaborated, “I am a better pool player than I am an actor… My grandfather was a shark. We played one-pocket growing up. He taught me the game when I was 10 and told me if I ever beat him, I’d get a shot of bourbon.  Five years later, I finally took that shot.  I played all the time. I used to play in the Army. I even paid for my apartment through pool.”

For the casting of Mina Lee, Mr. Catledge knew Ms. Smith would be perfect, albeit she had never played pool.  “She was cast because of her martial arts and her long expanded fingers would make a great pool bridge. I knew I could train her.”

According to Ms. Smith, that instinct was well-founded: “I didn’t know how to hold a cue stick…I was a blank canvas.  [The training was intense.] If we weren’t shooting or resting, Coach had me do drills, bridges, stroke lining….All pool all the time, so much so that the first week, I would wake up in middle of night having dreams about making shots.  It turned out better than I could have imagined.”

Heartbreak

Ewa “The Striking Viking” Laurance

Adding to the authenticity of Heartbreak are cameos by some of the sports best-known female players. Ewa “The Striking Viking” Laurance has a key role because she is, according to Mr. Carledge, “a great ambassador of the game. [I] always loved her presence, how she handled herself.  She was all in.”  Dawn Hopkins and Shanelle Loraine also appear briefly.

As I’ve not yet seen the movie, I cannot yet comment on whether this trio achieved its goals and delivered a billiards movie that, at its core, is about “hope,” “redemption,” and “unity.”  However, even without yet seeing Heartbreak, I can attest to the passion for pool that is the connecting fiber of the film, as it pervaded each person’s interview response.  Nowhere is that passion more on display than in Mr. Carledge’s comments to attendees at the world premier:

Pool is a colorful world of dauntless personalities puzzling through an enthralling kaleidoscope of patterns.  You will face unpredictable facets of the game and wrestle with bold, nervy souls testing you in the crucible of solitude.  In such wrenching pressure where it is only you, without help from a teammate, can the greatest champions arise.  You and only you can achieve victory.  That is such a blessing for the elite, for victory seldom comes without much failure.

 Everyone has a unique story to tell and I truly love listening to the many colorful variances in the universals.  The grips, the stances, the strokes, the patterns, the breaks, the safeties, the preparation, the mantras, the drills, the diets, the cue, the cloth, the table, the rack, the bridge, the chalk, the powder, the gloves, the taper, the design, the joint, the shaft, the butt, the tip, the tip shape, the rails, the pockets, the balls, the slate, the diamonds, the lights, the air, etc. etc. etc., all lend tremendous variances in playing conditions before you ever face your opponent!  The odds are always stacked…

 And we haven’t even talked about gamesmanship or sharking.  What a colorful sport and treacherous discipline!

Bye Bye Baby

In theory, 85 minutes is not a significant amount of time.  After all, a typical day can be divided into almost 17 consecutive 85-minute blocks of time.

Bye Bye BabyYet, as I suffered through the 85-minute film Bye Bye Baby, I started to wonder about the power of that single chunk of time.  Unquestionably, I had ceded 85 minutes of my frenetic life for the higher purpose of ensuring the comprehensiveness of my billiards movie blog, but was the sacrifice worth it?  What else has been, or could have been, accomplished with the same amount of time?

Before entertaining that question, let’s focus on the film. Directed by Erico Oldoini, Bye Bye Baby was released in Italy in 1988 and a year later in the United States. The movie stars former supermodel Carol Alt and Luca Barbareschi respectively as Sandra and Paolo, a couple from Milan whose marital troubles lead them through a series of fights, divorce, affairs, betrayals, abandonments, trysts, some escapades on the Mauritius Islands, more fights, more betrayals, and a near fatal car accident.  Along the way, Sandra falls for a dreamy doctor, and Paolo gets involved with Lisa, a professional pool shark, played by Danish model Brigitte Nielsen.

Essentially, this movie is a vehicle for two ‘80s models, Ms. Alt and Ms. Nielsen, to act quasi-sexy, bend over pool tables, wear revealing swimsuits, and engage in B-rated lovemaking scenes that lack even the suggested nudity.  For Ms. Alt, who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1982, and was on the cover of more than 500 magazines in the 1980s, Bye Bye Baby timed with her decision to start acting in European films around 1986.  For Ms. Nielsen, the timing was a less fortuitous. Having married Sylvester Stallone in 1985 and gained fame through her iconic tough-woman roles in Red Sonja, Rocky IV, and Cobra, by 1988 she was already divorced and starring in bottom-of-the-bucket films.

Bye Bye BabyBye Bye Baby did nothing to help these ladies’ careers. (In fact, the movie earned Ms. Nielsen a Razzie for Worst Actress in 1990.) The plot is hackneyed, the script is vapid, the acting is wooden, the attempts at humor are misguided, and the music, which includes tracks by Ms. Nielsen, is repetitive and misplaced. The critic for the Los Angeles Times said it well:

The plot is nothing more than an endless, deja vu -provoking cycle of cheating lovers; the profane and daringly banal dialogue seems almost wholly improvised…; and it seems designed as a sex comedy, though there’s not much sex and even less comedy. It might not be too egregious an example of crying “wolf” to warn at this point that Bye Bye Baby is just about as howlingly rotten as any movie ever made.[1]

But, hey, I’ve endured my share of lemons, since launching 8 Ball on the Silver Screen.  I can deal with low-budget cinema.  What I cannot tolerate is terrible on-screen billiards, and in this category, Ms. Nielsen is in a league unto herself.  Starring as a top-ranked player, who competes in a mix of regular billiards and the Italian game of 5-pins, Ms. Nielsen can barely hold a cue stick, never mind take a stroke. It is embarrassing watching her stumble her way through the various billiards sequences.  Even with the mediocre editing, and the occasional creative five-pins shot, it’s still painful viewing. (For a more engaging portrayal of 5-pins or the related game goriziana, check out the far more satisfying Italian movie The Pool Hustlers.)

Given this abomination of a film, one can appreciate the impetus for my original question about what else can be accomplished in 85 minutes.  It turns out a whole helluva lot.

Keeping with the cinematic milieu, a far better use of 85 minutes would be to watch Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981); the gut-busting mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (1984); Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952); or Fruitvale Station (2013), the racially charged film by Ryan Coogler based on the real-life subway shooting of Oscar Grant. Or, if music is your thing, spend the 85 minutes listening to Arcade Fire’s album Reflektor.

History can, in fact, be made in 85 minutes.  In 1908, the Tigers lost the final fifth game of the World Series to the Cubs in a game that lasted 85 minutes. A leatherback turtle set the world record for a marine dive by holding its breath for 85 minutes.

So, whether it’s the amount of time it takes to make an LL Bean Boot[2], the amount of time one person needs to make seven kid-friendly freezer meals[3], or the amount of time a quintet of British rotary clubs spent preparing 12,000 meals as part of a Stop Hunger campaign,[4] the evidence is everywhere that the time could have been better spent.

Bye bye Bye Bye Baby.  I want my 85 minutes back.

[1]       http://articles.latimes.com/1989-05-29/entertainment/ca-797_1_bye-brigitte-nielsen-film-review

[2]       https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/llbean-duck-boot-labor-shoes-maine/410863/

[3]       http://newleafwellness.biz/2015/05/20/seven-kid-friendly-freezer-meals-in-85-minutes/

[4]       Rise Against Hunger

Hagiga B’Snuker

In the mid-1970s, the mood was not light in the State of Israel. With a population at the time of about 3.5 million people, the Middle Eastern nation, which is only a little larger than New Jersey, had gone through the Six-Day War (1967); the War of Attrition (1967-1970); a number of Palestinian attacks, including the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics; and the highly violent Yom Kippur War (1973).

Hagiga B'SnukerConfronted by such hate and immersed in such carnage, perhaps it is not surprising that a group of Israeli filmmakers tried to inject some escapism and levity into the times with their introduction of Bourekas films, a genre of “comic melodramas or tearjerkers… based on ethnic stereotypes” that proved highly popular at the box office. [1] Included in this peculiar genre is Hagiga B’Snuker, the sole billiards movie to originate from Israel.

Also known as Snooker or Festival at the Poolroom, this 1975 film was directed by Boaz Davidson, one of the pioneers of Bourekas (and likely the creator of the term). Today, Mr. Davidson is better known as a prolific movie producer, with films ranging from Rambo to The Expendables, though he is also the director behind a streak of ‘80s sex comedies, such as The Last American Virgin, Hot Bubblegum, and Private Popsicle.

Hagiga B’Snuker is about two estranged twin brothers, Azriel, a shy and religious Jew who works in a village fruit store, and Gavriel, a hustler who operates in a pool hall called Moadon Snooker, where unsuspecting victims are roped by his friend Hannukah and then conned out their money. (Both brothers are played by Yehuda Barkan. Hannukah is played by Ze’ev Ravach.)

The act works well until Gavriel makes the mistake of hustling Mushon (Tuvia Tzafir), a nebbish dolt, who happens to be the son of Salvador (Joseph Shiloach), a mobster once known as the Israeli King of Snooker.

Fleeced by Gavriel of the money intended for his tooth replacement, which was to make him more attractive for his upcoming arranged nuptials, Mushon returns to the pool hall with his father, who pretends to be an easy snooker mark.  Hannukah and Gavriel approach him for a game of 3 Reds (essentially a faster version of snooker, with only three red balls instead of 15).[2]  Overly confident, they increase the bet to 60,000 Israeli lira, which equals about $10,000 US dollars (or $46,500 in 2017). But, the moment the bet is sealed, Salvador unlocks his briefcase, and begins to assemble his cue stick. Hannukah and Gavriel, mouth agape, stare incredulously, as Salvador subsequently pots every ball without missing, therefore winning the wager.

Hagiga B'SnukerHagiga B’Snuker then follows the duo’s foiled attempts, first to avoid paying the debt and then to secure the money.  Ultimately, with no options remaining, Gavriel is forced to renew contact with his brother, who could conceivably provide Gavriel with the money if they sell the family estate. But, their parents’ will specifies that the property can only be sold if Avriel is married.

More hijinks ensue, especially as Hannukah impersonates a rabbinical matchmaker and Gavriel pretends to be his twin brother in order to win the heart of, and marry, a local rabbi’s daughter, Yona (Nitza Shaul).  But, in a bizarre coincidence, Yona is also the bride-to-be for Salvador’s son Mushon.

[SPOILER ALERT!] At last, the only way Gavriel and Salvador can settle both the monetary debt and the competing love interest for Yona is, predictably, through another game of 3 Reds. Even this game, however, is compromised when Azriel accidentally shows up at the pool hall.  Seeing Azriel (and mistaking him for Gavriel), Salvador forces him to play the game. Azriel, never having played snooker, quizzically picks up the cue stick and, mistakenly using the butt of the stick, miraculously pots all the balls on one shot, thereby unknowingly winning the bet and the heart of Yona.

Though not an overly memorable film, Hagiga B’Snuker is nonetheless a welcome addition to the billiards movie canon because of it humorous setup, as well as its Israeli representation and portrayal of the game 3 Reds.

Hagiga B’Snuker is available to buy with English subtitles on DVD from the Israel Catalog.

[1]       “And Then There Was One,” Uri Klein, Harretz, 2008.

[2]       Thank you to my colleagues at Snooker Potcast for helping me to identify the 3 Reds variant of snooker.

Top 15 #FakeBilliardsMovie

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

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

Second Chance

Allison Fisher.  Pan Xiaoting. Kim Ga-Young. Kelly Fisher. Jennifer Barretta.  Chieh-Yu Chou. Jasmin Ouschan. Cha Yu-ram.  All in one movie? The last time so many billiards pros appeared in a single film was probably 1980 for Robert Ellis Miller’s The Baltimore Bullet.

Second ChanceBut, this is no Baltimore Bullet.  The all-star packed film is Second Chance, formerly known as Nine Ball, as well as A Girl Got Her Cue. And that octet of billiards legends is not even the film’s biggest celebrity draw – it’s Wen Shang-Yi (aka the guitarist “Monster” from the Taiwanese mega-watt rock band Mayday – once dubbed the “Chinese Beatles”[1]) in the lead role as Hsieh Shuang-Fong.

I first heard and wrote about Second Chance in April 2014, when I added it to my “Wanted!” list of movies, since there was little information available on the film.  Over time, details emerged about the film, largely in Asian press, including eventually a trailer and music video, in preparation for the film’s release in Taiwan in November 2014. Originally titled Ni zhuan sheng, the film adopted the English title Second Chance as it moved across the globe in early 2015. Finally, late last year, the film became available on DVD (with English subtitles) thanks to its distributor Edko Films. You can buy it here.

Second ChanceThe movie begins with Shuang-Fong, a washed-up, drunk, former billiards champion, who now scrapes by selling Rice Wine Stew Chicken, drawn out of his decade-long retirement by his niece Hsieh Jen-hsiang (Peijia Huang). She recently lost her parents, one of whom was Shuang-Fong’s elder brother, in an auto accident.  Lacking a proper guardian, Jen-hsiang is at risk of being sent to a foster home, as well as losing her family billiards hall, Champion Billiards, to Hsu Che-yung (Jason Wang), a loan shark, and the reigning world men’s 9-ball champion.

Like Rocky Balboa begrudgingly coming out of retirement to train Apollo’s son in Creed, or more to the genre’s point, like Fast Eddie Felson training the cocky Vincent Lauria in The Color of Money, the besotted Shuang-Fong is initially reluctant to get involved with his niece’s life.  But, sensing the headstrong schoolgirl will stop at nothing, including gambling in pool, to save the family pool hall, he ultimately relents.

Second ChanceAt first, he merely observes her playing style: “The shot is too weak…the wrist is too stiff…precision is high, good control over the balls…attack but no defense – too ambitious…bad at long straight shots.” Predictably, such perceptions soon translate into a billiards practice regiment, complete with solving jigsaw puzzles under time constraints (to build concentration), shooting a cue ball narrowly between two glasses (to increase accuracy), and taking early-morning jogs (to build endurance and strength). The over-familiar practice montage (cf. Rocky; The Karate Kid) is absurdly hokey, yet nonetheless enjoyable, particularly when powered by Monster’s cover of Roxette’s 1989 song “The Look” with Taiwanese pop stars Luantan Ascent and Jia Jia on vocals.  (Though this song does wear out its welcome after excessive use in the film.)

Even for non-billiards enthusiasts, the movie hits its groove when Jen-hsiang is on the baize. Some exciting playing occurs when she is vanquishing amateur opponents, but the best play comes once she decides the only way to save her pool hall is to compete in the New Century Women’s 9- Ball Championship for the multi-million dollar prize (cf. The Baron and the Kid; Kiss Shot).

Second ChanceIt’s at this point, more than halfway through Second Chance, when our billiards stars appear, entering the tournament hall in file form to the deafening sound of their names and nicknames:  The Duchess of Doom. Kwikfire. The Queen of 9-Ball. Little Devil Girl, etc. And in the caboose position, the hitherto unknown Jen-hsiang.

Once again, cue “The Look.”

In rapid order, Jen-hsiang beats her first opponent, Jasmin Ouschan, the World Games 2005 gold medal winner, and her second and third opponents, Kim Ga-Young and Kelly Fisher respectively, both women’s WPA world 9-ball champions. Bewilderingly, very little of the games are shown, so it’s hard to appreciate these miraculous upsets.

In the semi-finals, Jen-hsiang competes against Chieh-Yu Chou, winner of the 2012 Amway Cup. There is, at last, a decent amount of billiards play, including a fine masse shot, and after a near snookering, a great jump shot 2/9 combination to win.

That leaves her to play the final match against China’s Pan Xiaoting, the 2007 women’s WPA world 9-ball champion.  Director Wen Yen Kung heightens the tension in this match through a mix of slow-motion, rapid editing and amplified sounds (of balls connecting, falling in pockets), as well as numerous dazzling combinations, masses, and jump shots.

Second ChanceIt’s hardly a SPOILER ALERT to share that Xiaoting wins the match 9:8, dashing Jen-hsiang’s plan to retain control of Champion Billiards.  And that’s because the movie opened with Shuang-Fong preparing for a match, before flashing back nine months.  So, that loose end still dangling, the audience knows that the real fate will be decided in this final match, which I won’t reveal here.

As one reviewer correctly noted, “Second Chance is hardly going to win points for originality…It’s a film that plays by the rules – you’ll recognize the same moves we’ve all seen a million times.”[2] But, it’s also a movie that goes down easily, fusing its positive themes of redemption and family with a geek chic passion and well-trained visual eye for billiards and its beauty.

[1]       http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/19/he-chinese-beatles.html

[2]       http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/second-chance

[Wanted!] Running Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1]      

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

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

Three Card Monte

Three Card Monte.v2Three Card Monte barely counts as a billiards movie.  But in oeuvre with very limited Canadian representation (i.e., The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II; Behind the Eight Ball; Manitoba Sharks; Hiccups – “Car Pool”), the decision to relax the definition for a little more inclusion from the Great White North seemed straightforward.  Unfortunately, the fact the film is also barely watchable has now led to some second-guessing on my end.

Released in 1978 at the Toronto Film Festival, Three Card Monte tells the story of Busher (Richard Gabourie), a gambling drifter, who begrudgingly allows Toby (Chris Langevin), a 12-year old orphan, to accompany him in his hustling and flimflammery, and builds a close relationship with him in the process.

Directed by Les Rose (Gas; Hog Wild – never heard of them?  Neither had I.), shabbily written by Mr. Gabourie, and starring a pack of unknowns and amateurs, the movie limps along across a too well-tread path of familiar tropes and clichéd two-dimensional characters.   There are two half-witted grease monkeys who chase Busher around Toronto seeking revenge for getting scammed in pool; a gaggle of equally dull-brained craps players who fail to notice Busher is playing with loaded dice; a loose hitchhiker who sleeps with Busher but is pulling her own con; and a well-intentioned hitchhiking friend who eats Twinkies and unwittingly lets a 12-year-old feel her up (?!). And, then there is Busher, who, for all his negative tendencies (e.g., lying, conning, hustling, thieving, drinking, having sex in front of a minor, kidnapping a minor, etc.), is portrayed as a genuinely good-natured guy, just trying to gain a little edge and get back on his feet.

Credibility is not the film’s calling card.

A cardinal problem with Three Card Monte is the complete lack of originality.  The film feels like a mishmash of – or maybe a paean to – superior works about the grift, specifically the movie Paper Moon (1973) and the book Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game (1978).  In Paper Moon, Ryan O’Neal stars as a Depression Era con-man who develops a partnership with a girl (Tatum O’Neal), who may be his daughter. The film had multiple Oscar nominations and won Ms. O’Neal a Supporting Oscar.  In Billy Phelan, the future Pulitzer Prize winning author William Kennedy tells the story of a young pool player and hustler who lives on the edge, making a living in Albany pool halls and card parlors.

(For what it’s worth, Mr. Gabourie won the Canadian Film Award – aka the Etrog – for Best Actor in Three Card Monte. That’s hard to believe until one is reminded by film critic Jay Smith that this particular award is “given by presenters no one knew, to recipients no one recognized, to films no one had seen.”)

Three Card MonteAs for the billiards, Three Card Monte begins on a promising note.  Busher enters a snooker hall and begins practicing on a table.  For viewers accustomed to seeing American pool on the big screen, the snooker table looms large and it’s a welcome reminder how different the game is.  Soon, two local bozos think they can make a buck off Busher and challenge him to a game.  They quickly lose their money, then their car keys, in a rapidly edited snooker sequence, consisting mainly of potted balls.  Tempers rise as Busher leaves, and the players vow revenge (though it was not clear if they were hustled or simply sucked and lost).

That opening scene sets up the whole film, as Toby allies himself with Busher (by racking his balls), and Busher (along with the voluntarily abducted Toby) goes on the lam to escape his post-snooker hustling fate. Unfortunately, though Busher is frequently carrying his cue stick and seems to be looking for his next sucker match, there is no more billiards; the subsequent hustles shift to craps and finally three card monte.  So much for that “hot cue” notably highlighted in the movie’s tagline.