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Alex Higgins: Life on Screen

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I am who I am. They call me the Hurricane. 

– Paul Norton, “The Hurricane” (1990)

It’s his game. | Brought him fame. | And his name is ‘The Hurricane’.

 – Georgie Fame, “The Hurricane” (1982)

The musicians’ names may not be familiar. Georgie Fame is an English R&B and jazz musician, who played with Van Morrison and had three number one hits in the UK.  Paul Norton is Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who fronted the short-lived pop rock band The Runners.

Alex HigginsBut, if their names don’t resonate, their subject surely does – The Hurricane, aka Alex Higgins, aka one of the most beloved, controversial, iconic, and influential figures in snooker history. His rocket-fast, daring style of play was as legendary as his unpredictable, bad boy persona. 

Historians describe with awe and zeal his history-making World Snooker Championship win in 1972 against John Spencer, forever changing the face and trajectory of snooker, or his come-from-behind match ten years later in the World Snooker semis against Jimmy White. Yet, his biography is equally riddled with stories of excess, such as head-butting tournament director Paul Hatherell or forever indulging in his “three vices – drinking, gambling, and women.”

In a sport that has had its fair share of staid, colorless personalities, the Hurricane, who died in 2010, was “an accident waiting to happen,” “a breath of fresh air,” and, for many years, “box office gold.” 

Since Higgins first won the championship at age 22, there have been at least seven efforts to tell his story on the screen. I found four of the seven films, and as expected, they vary in their tone and structure, based on their time of release. (Note: the other three films are officially WANTED; please let me know if you can help me to locate them.)

Hurricane Higgins (1972) – WANTED

Hurricane Higgins (1972)Until Higgins arrived from Belfast in 1972, snooker largely lacked panache or personality. Clive Everton once described it as, “a folk sport…a lot of people played, but the professional game was virtually dead.” The reigning champion was John Spencer, who had already won the World Championship in 1969 and 1971. Into this largely off-limits prim and proper world entered Higgins, who turned it upside-down by defeating Spencer 37-31. 

The Hurricane Higgins 27-minute TV documentary came out on the heels of that victory. In the book Alex Higgins: Snooker Legend: Eye of the Hurricane, author J. Hennessey suggests the filmmakers wanted to portray snooker as a “game on the dole,” with Higgins as its resurrectionist. He quotes Higgins, “They deliberately set out to show the seedy side of snooker. They filmed at this club where there was green mold running down the walls. When they saw it, they said, ‘Great – just what we want.’”

Hurricane’s Wake (1988) – WANTED

Other than a brief BBC Two listing, I can find no information about Robin Anderson’s 17-minute documentary about a “budding snooker player [who] shows his form.”

Alex Higgins: I’m No Angel (1991)

After losing his first-round match to Steve James in the 1990 World Snooker Championship, Higgins got utterly sauced, and then announced his retirement at a press conference, but not before punching tournament official Colin Randle in the abdomen. The day’s debacle led to a 15-month ban from the sport.

During that hiatus, Higgins authorized the 90-minute documentary Alex Higgins: I’m No Angel, created by Joe and Oliver Cox. It was Higgins’ attempt to claim his narrative, though the Cox brothers did a great job of ensuring the documentary was not adulatory toward its subject. Opening with the aforementioned Paul Norton song, the film includes multiple quotes from fellow hellraiser actor Oliver Reed, as well as interviews with promoter Barry Hearn (“he was major box office on the table, but unmanageable off the table”) and his ex-wife Lynn Higgins, who “knew [her] problems were going to start” (after Higgins won his second World Championship in 1982 against Ray Reardon). 

The film also highlights other historical highs and lows in the Higgins timeline, including his incredible 16-15 comeback against Steve Davis in the 1983 UK Championship; his “I will have you shot…I will blow your head off” threat against fellow Irish snooker star Dennis Taylor at the British Car Rental World Cup; and his “big penalty for a night out with the lads” when he fell 25 feet out a window. The film ends with Higgins’ promise to return to the sport in August 1991.

Alex Higgins: Rebel Without a Pause (1997) 

Higgins did return to the sport, reaching the televised rounds of the 1994 World Snooker Championship, as well as making a 137 the following year, but his best days were long behind him. Alex Higgins: Rebel Without a Pause is primarily a 35-minute homecoming interview Higgins gave to Jackie Fullerton for BBC One Northern Ireland when he returned to Belfast for a nine-frame Sunday World exhibition match against Ken Doherty. 

The documentary toggles between the Doherty match and clips from Higgins’ life, including the 1982 Championship against Reardon.  Higgins is polite, soft-spoken, but obviously still bitter about the trajectory his career took following his ban from the sport. In one of the film’s more revealing moments, Higgins seethes, “Eight of ten people I’ve met are untrustworthy, thieves, felonious, pieces of shit.”

Like a Hurricane: The Alex Higgins Story (2001)

This hour-long 2001 documentary retells the story of I’m No Angel with a more robust cast of characters and without Higgins’ expressed permission. The film’s opening line makes clear its agenda: “Alex was an accident waiting to happen.” From there, Like a Hurricane brings us back to 1972, when the “urchin from Belfast” upended the establishment, “propelling snooker into the modern world and out of its dark excessive doldrums.”

Higgins the troublemaker was also Higgins the rainmaker; the more chaos he created, the greater the crowds grew. “Alex Higgins brought people into snooker who never had an interest in the sport – it elevated snooker from a backstreet sport into television entertainment.” His meteoric ascent was also intertwined with the rising popularity of Pot Black, the televised snooker tournament show that found its footing when BBC2 began broadcasting in color.  By 1980, every match of World Championship Snooker aired on TV for 17 straight days.

Like a Hurricane also digs into his rivalry with Steve Davis, who represented the new face and controlled style of snooker; essentially, “everything Alex was not.”  Barry Hearn, who created a stable of corporate, clean players (the Matchroom Team), but did not invite the volatile Higgins to join, commented, “It used to kill Alex inside when he lost to Steve Davis…Davis was the machine, Higgins was the heart” of snooker. 

Finally, the documentary probes deeper into Higgins’ troubled relationships with women. His marriage and divorce to Lynn is well-discussed, with the narrator sharing, “Away from drinks, [Alex] was such a nice person, but when he drank, he was terrible. It drove away his wife. And when his marriage was floundering, so was his snooker.” The documentary also digs into his subsequent relationship with Siobhan Kidd, 13 years his junior, who attempted suicide and left years later after signs of battery, and Holly Haise, a 26-year-old escort, who stabbed him three times.

Alex Higgins: Blood, Sweat & Tears (2005) – WANTED

Four years later, RTÉ, Ireland’s national public service media, released a True Live documentary on Higgins called Blood, Sweat & Tears. Though I’ve been unable to watch it, the show seems largely memorable for providing a rare interview with Higgins’ daughter, Lauren, who was one of the most famous babies in the world when Higgins insisted on having her in his arms to celebrate regaining his world snooker title in 1982.

Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion (2010)

Rounding out the cinematic septet is Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion, the 2010 BBC documentary that posthumously retells Higgins’ life story about two months after he died. No longer the ‘accident waiting to happen,’ the opening lines are more hagiographic. The narrator James Hesbitt refers to Higgins as “almost a god,” and Ronnie O’Sullivan, a self-described disciple of Higgins, calls him “ahead of his time.” It is no wonder that the “No Angel” and “Rebel” appellations of previous documentary titles have been replaced with the more endearing “People’s Champion.”

Much of the film obviously echoes the earlier documentaries; after all, there’s no telling the Higgins story without discussing the Championship match against Spencer (1972), the semi against White (1982), the Championship match against Reardon (1982), the UK Championship match against Davis (1983), the headbutt of Hatherell (1986), and the death threat against Taylor (1990).

But, interlaced throughout the footage, players give their respect, citing Higgins’ influence on the sport, the industry, and their individual game. Davis, Reardon, White, O’Sullivan, Taylor, Stephen Hendry – they’re all here with stories and platitudes. 

The documentary is perhaps most interesting in its assessment of Higgins’ final years, starting with his diagnosis of throat cancer in 1998. His daughter Lauren reminds us that Higgins said, “Cancer hasn’t got a chance. It doesn’t have a snooker cue.” And sure enough, he did beat the cancer, though he couldn’t truly recover, eventually deteriorating through a combination of respiratory problems, malnourishment, and financial distress caused by a long-term gambling addiction. 

The final scene is the Belfast funeral procession, attended by a slew of snooker celebrities and seemingly most of Belfast’s 350,000-person population. As his sister says, “He was the people’s champion, and the people were letting them know on that particular day what they thought of him.”

Double Down South

“You come to shoot pool?”

“I didn’t come to adopt a puppy.”

That opening, sharp-tongued retort suggests viewers may be in for two hours of ratatat pool-playing. And that wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Double Down South, which premiered at the 2022 Newport Beach Film Festival, is very much a billiards film, full of bank shots, hotshots, cheap shots, and potshots. But, if you’re expecting eightball, nineball, straight pool, three-cushion billiards, sixball, goriziana, Russian pyramid, tenfold carom, or any of the other myriad forms of the sport which have populated the billiards film genre, then pencils out and take a seat: you’ve got a new billiards education coming. 

Double Down South movie posterWritten and directed by Tom Shulman, the Oscar-winning writer of Dead Poets Society, Double Down South takes place in the rarified world of keno billiards. Now, I’ve been writing about billiards and film since 2013, and for the record, I had never heard of the sport either. Keno billiards has a certain mythical folklore surrounding it. Even within diehard online billiards communities (e.g., AZBilliards), few have played it, some dismiss it (as largely a game of luck), and many have not heard of it. But, it’s most definitely real, and one requiring real skill. As someone once said, “If ya want to know how to turn a big stack of cash into a little stack of cash….start playing [keno billiards].”

The game is played on a pool table, with the two far corner pockets covered by a keno game board, consisting of rows of numbered holes. Players then trade shots, attempting to hit the billiards balls into corresponding or predetermined numbered pockets on the keno board. Rules are almost always local, but generally involve lots of betting and doubling of bets based on making the shots. 

Keno billiards likely began in the early 1900s, during a wave of billiards board games, with names such as Amos and Andy, Hatta Boy, Pigeon Pool, Roulo, Scotch Pool, Star, and Turf. Keno billiards was among the most popular, though today there are only a couple of manufacturers of the board, and you’d be hard pressed to locate a (legal) game.

Double Down South 21 500x300.jpgBut, if you wanted to find an illegal game circa 1998, travel to (the fictitious town of) Kingsville, Georgia, the “keno capital of the world,” and head to Nick’s, an antebellum, dilapidated plantation house that now acts as a pool hall and diner for many bearded, beer-bellied, bubbas.  

Into this Southern backwoods fraternity enters Diana (Lili Simmons), a bomber-jacket-and-beanie-cap wearing, belly-ring sporting stunner, whose drop-dead looks and slo-mo Southern drawl could raise Stonewall Jackson from his grave. Diana is the one who didn’t come to adopt a puppy, though it’s pretty obvious she didn’t randomly show up just to shoot pool, either. 

Double Down South 11Allegedly, she’s come to get good at keno. It’s a paper-thin story, but that doesn’t bother Nick (Kim Coates), the racist, misogynistic, proprietor, who’s only too glad to have such a hot piece of action as the main roadside attraction at his establishment. Indeed, Diana’s not two bites into her catfish sandwich, before Nick is propositioning her with a rednecked, blueballed, plan that’s all about making some green. In exchange for room, board, and teaching her the game of keno, Nick will promote Diana and stakehorse her for a percent of her winnings. It’s a harebrained proposal, all the more absurd given it’s based on watching her pocket only a few shots. With minimal deliberation, Diana accepts, setting in motion a dangerous and tense partnership.

So begins Diana’s tutelage, under the one working eye of good-natured Little Nick (Igby Rigney). In record time, she masters the game’s nuances and defeats a rogue’s gallery of high-stakes keno billiards bad boys, including Nick’s former show pony Douche, a lecherous “basement psycho” named Harvey Block, Tulsa, Rebel, and even Tony “Rooster” Rose. Along the way, she wins the warmth and admiration of Little Nick, the father Old Nick, the mansion matron Sheila, and all the local yokels, who are as impressed with her skills as they are mesmerized by her curves.

Double Down South posterBut, the real target is Beaumont DuBinion (Justin Marcel McManus), a Black keno champion, who allegedly once cheated Nick and paid with a beatdown and the loss of both kidneys. The hatred runs hot, and Nick wants nothing more than to beat Beaumont once more (and maybe for the South to rise again). 

Beneath the baize there’s a lot happening in this genre-bending Southern Gothic, Western, Sports drama thriller.  While the “surprise” ending is more predictable than a muggy Mississippi summer, Double Down South works primarily because of the intense characterizations and cat-and-mouse dynamics between the film’s two leads, Diana and Nick. 

Ms. Simmons, largely a TV actress known for recurring roles in Banshee and Ray Donovan, imbues Diana with mystery and feminine toughness, while also showing complexity and vulnerability, as her motives are continually questioned. Her precarious alliance with Nick, played with hotblooded, unpredictable volatility by Mr. Coates, keeps the tension high. Viewers who enjoy Mr. Coates as Tig Trager, the fearless motorcycle club sergeant at arms from Sons of Anarchy, will not be disappointed.

As for the keno billiards, credit likely goes to cinematographer Alan Claudillo, who ensures the game playing, with its dull-but-difficult shots, does not turn into a putt-putt snorefest, but rather maintains some level of dramatic tension.  It’s a challenging feat, and the lack of single continuous shots demonstrates how hard it is to film expert keno billiards, but ignoring any purist outcries, the sequences do not distract from the tempo.

Double Down South is having its live, digital premiere on February 24. To learn more about the movie, visit its website. A special thank you to Kim Dixon for providing me with advanced access to write this review.

Top 10 Billiards Movie Posters

The impetus for the creation of this blog in 2013 was a rash decision to decorate my basement, home to my Olhausen pool table, with framed billiards movie posters. A short-list that started with The Hustler and ended with The Color of Money ultimately extended to more than 200 full-length and short films, albeit most are not represented on my walls.

So, it’s only fitting that ten years later, for my 250th blog post, I am honoring the cinematic garniture that adorns my cellar with my list of the Top 10 Billiards Movie Posters.  

Most assuredly, this is not a list of the top billiards movies; some of these movies were terrible, and some never escaped pre- or post-production. But, each of these posters superbly achieves its goals of marketing its movie. It previews plot, tone, and visual aesthetic; more important, it creates a memorable imprint on the intended audience that hopefully sparks interest, conversation, and of course, viewership.

One additional note: where possible, I have credited the designer of the movie poster. However, this information is often not known. The substantial majority of movie posters are created and designed by marketing agencies. Sadly, the art directors or graphic designers behind this iconography are rarely recognized; their achievements are subsumed behind the corporate doors of their employers.

10.  8 Ball

8 Ball billiards movie posterCreated by graphic designers Cindy Conklin and Tina Lowry, the poster for 8 Ball foregrounds an eight-ball, which sits at the center of shattering glass to reveal the side profile of an unidentified gunman. The numerical character on the ball also doubles as part of the movie’s title. The poster screams urgency, instability, and the promise of darkness and danger. It’s not surprising that similarly-themed posters have been used to promote a variety of horror, suspense, and supernatural films. Unfortunately, 8 Ball never made it to the theaters. When I first interviewed David Barosso, the film’s executive producer, in 2014, his film had already been 10 years in the making. Now, almost 10 years later, it seems any interest drummed up by the poster will have to look elsewhere for its billiards suspense mash-up.

9.  Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (Czech version)

Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire billiards movie posterAlan Clarke’s loopy, snooker musical, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, is unlike any movie you’ve seen. The same, however, cannot be said about the film’s original release poster or its more popular DVD cover; both are woefully unimaginative and confoundingly forgo the opportunity to showcase the film’s protagonist, a snooker-playing vampire! Fortunately, the poster for the film’s Czech release more than compensated. Designed by Věra Nováková, an icon of the Czech art scene, the poster mixes styles, colors, and perspective, to create a memorably compelling invitation to the film.  And while the snooker is visually present (with the seven balls on the baize), it is Alan Armstrong’s vampiric character that unabashedly consumes the poster’s real estate.  More of Ms. Nováková’s posters are viewable here.

8.  Bred in Manila

Bred in Manila billiards movie posterAnother movie that unfortunately ran out of funding before it could get made, Bred in Manila was a passion project for director Phil Giordano. In 2019, a post on the movie’s Facebook page said he had been “working on the script for the last three years and has done countless hours of research, location scouting, interviews, late night anecdote-filled drinking sessions, script revisions, pitches, meetings, begging, crying, cheering, and overall filmmaking heartache to make this film possible.” Based solely on the film’s poster, I held high hopes for this movie. The poster, which was created by Karen Abarca Giordano, is creatively bifurcated to show two intersecting environments. On the top, the movie’s protagonist, back to the viewer, passively competes in a billiards game. But, her body seems to continue, past the gun and the caution tape, into the poster’s bottom half. There, her legs are replaced by overgrown tree roots that extend into the slums, where people are passed out, lying in filth.  The poster enforces the movie’s tagline about “gambling with her life” by visually reinforcing the player’s delicate straddling of a world of possibility (top) and a world of deadendness (bottom).

7. Metal Billiards

Metal Billiard - Chinese Billiards Movie posterIn Bai Xinyu’s 2019 Chinese billiards drama Metal Billiards (or Alloy Billiards), the main character is an industrial design student who creates a robotic arm that he uses to advantage his billiards game and ultimately to avenge his father. Along the way, he befriends a group of hipsters and competes against a rogue’s gallery of opponents, who look like they might have stepped out of Smokin’ Aces or The Suicide Squad. Similar to the posters promoting much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Metal Billiards poster acknowledges its comic book-like cast by making them the focus and cramming them all around a pool table. Heck, the main character even looks like Marvel’s Winter Soldier. I still have yet to locate the complete film to watch, but based solely on the power of the poster, Metal Billiards remains at the top of my must-see list.

6.  The Baltimore Bullet

Baltimor Bullet billiards movie posterThe Baltimore Bullet should have been a much better billiards movie. Aside from starring two past Oscar nominees (Omar Sharif, Ronee Blakley), the film also featured a who’s-who of billiards professionals:  Mike Sigel, Willie Mosconi, Steve Mizerak, Jimmy Mataya, Lou Butera, Irving Crane, Allen Hopkins, Pete Margo, Ray Martin, James Rempe, and Richie Florence. How did this film flatline? Well, you can’t blame Jack Davis, a founding cartoonist of Mad and the creator of the original artwork for the film. His wonderful, madcap, kitchen-sink style poster, featuring his signature cartoon characters with big heads and distorted anatomy, captured the movie’s aspirational rip-roaring zaniness. It’s a shame the movie couldn’t deliver on the promise.  Interestingly, the posters for the European releases considerably toned down that harebrained bravado. Perhaps they resonated more with their international audiences, but in my mind, those posters (e.g., France, Italy, Spain) were far less original or effective. 

5.  Kisses & Caroms

Kisses and Caroms - Billiards Movie posterI watched Kisses & Caroms in 2013 thinking I had discovered the Porky’s of billiards entertainment. The titillating (pun intended) poster, suggesting a woman’s private parts covered by a perfect rack (pun intended?), lured me in like an adolescent horndog. The movie promised humor, billiards, and sex (or at least sexual innuendo), none of which was remotely present in the actual movie.  Though I found the poster effective (especially in the billiards movie genre, where the posters are rather light on both sex and humor), I acknowledge the artwork also falls into stand-up comedian Marcia Belsky’s poster category of “Headless Women of Hollywood,” a problematic trend that crops out women’s faces completely in favor of butt and boob shots. Perhaps not surprisingly, this treatment extended into multiple promotional posters for the film, including the “uncensored director’s cut” and the originally-titled American Balls version.

4.  Death Billiards

Death Billiards movie posterThis psycho-fantastic, mindfuck of a billiards movie will leave you reeling in a hallucinogenic poppy field. Directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa and produced by Madhouse Studios, Death Billiards is a 26-minute Japanese anime film from 2013 that not only had audiences spinning in a whirlwind of WTF-ness, but also took the billiards movie genre through the looking glass. (In addition, it spawned a follow-up anime TV series called Death Parade.) To tee up this pilgrimage to pool purgatory, the promotional poster needed to be particularly wild. And, on this front, Death Billiards did not disappoint. Created by Long Beach-based graphic designer spencerlinds, the stained glass-like poster shows the film’s two competitors beginning a death game of billiards, while other, larger eerie characters hover disinterestedly in the background. The poster asked more questions than it answered, which is exactly the sentiment I had emerging from the movie.

3.  The Hustler

The Hustler - Billiards Movie posterOne film that needs no introduction is The Hustler, which 60 years later is still the beau ideal of the billiards movie genre. However, 20th Century Fox blundered with its initial promotional poster for the 1961 release. It showed a hand-drawn Paul Newman cradling and kissing Piper Laurie beneath a cringeworthy tagline –  “It delves without compromise into the hunger that lies deep within us all!” – that feels more appropriate on the cover of a Kozy Books novel. Fortunately, the movie’s popularity warranted a re-release in 1964, and this time, the studio (credit unknown) nailed it. The new re-release poster eschewed the pulpy sensationalism of its predecessor. Jumping on the Pop Art bandwagon that had recently kicked off in the US, the new poster creatively bisected the space with a cue stick and then featured tinted stills from the movie inside of abstract billiards balls. The chartreuse background, a sickly substitute for the baize of a billiards table, accentuates the primary colors of the balls. And thankfully, that original ill-begotten tagline was now replaced with the instantly quotable, “They called him ‘Fast’ Eddie.”

2.  The Hustler (French version)

The Hustler (France) - Billiards Movie posterDisappointment with the first release poster for The Hustler was not limited to the United States; across the Atlantic in France, moviegoers were equally underwhelmed by the initial French poster for the film (aka L’arnaqueur). Created by Boris Grinsson, the hand-drawn poster is oddly disconnected from the film’s subject matter. While visually interesting, it’s baffling that the poster focuses on three faceless individuals attempting to subdue Fast Eddie. Thankfully, in 1982, French artist Jean Mascii corrected the problem with a positively brilliant reissue poster.  Mascii, who designed more than 1500 cinema posters and 250 book covers, recognized the centrality of billiards, both as a driver of the plot and as a metaphor for the characters’ precarious situations. Building on the American poster’s concept of putting the characters in the balls, Mascii’s art is both more dynamic (with Fast Eddie bouncing off the table) and more focused on the arcs of its characters. Thus, Bert Gordon comfortably sitting inside the red ball, or Sarah Packard bleeding out the crack of her ball’s exterior.1 Within Mascii’s poster, the whole film comes to life in magnificent fashion.

1.  Petrichor

Petrichor - billiards short film posterAs noted in my original review, there is so much to like about Louis Jack’s 2020 short film Petrichor. The director said his film is about the “psychological warfare on the billiards table, a life lived from a suitcase and relentless losses that have left [the main character] a shell of a man.” Everything – the acting, the music, the pacing – all create an intentionally unsettling and spookish experience. The film’s movie poster (credit unknown) is no different. Simply by rotating the table’s angle 90 degrees from horizontal to vertical, the player’s world – and therefore the viewer’s world – is thrown topsy-turvy. Every shot becomes a literal uphill battle, and the full 2500 pounds of the sport is visually and metaphorically close to crushing the pool player. The jet black background further enhances the effect. The player is losing his corporeal identity, fading into a billiards abyss.  While The Hustler is the unparalleled leader in billiards movies, the little-known Petrichor wins my top spot in the Best Poster category.

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  1. To my knowledge, The Hustler was not the first artwork to situate characters inside billiards balls. That honor seems to belong to a 1940s “Put Them Behind the Eight Ball” WWII billiards war poster. However, since The Hustler, it has become a periodic metaphor, most often used on magazine covers (e.g., Sinteza, 2014; India Today, 2013).

A Nonet of Nineballs

9-Ball in The Color of MoneyWhile the masses know the game of 8-Ball, the fanatics know the game of 9-Ball. Often characterized as a more difficult, more demanding game, 9-Ball exudes a heightened exclusiveness. It’s the cool kids’ clubhouse, the hipsters’ hideaway. Is it any wonder that Rihanna’s character in Ocean’s 8 is named Nineball?

Perhaps not surprisingly, the billiards movie genre’s most famous members – The Hustler, The Color of Money, and Poolhall Junkies – all focus on 9-Ball, even if it’s not spelled out in the title.

But, what happens to the mystique when everyone is obsessing over it? As it turns out, nineball is the focus of more than just the above billiards trifecta; in fact, 9-ball (in all its lexical variants) is in the title of nine different films and TV shows! So, chalk your cue, and get ready for a Nonet of Nineball-Named movies.

Nine Ball (1995, 2023)

Nine Ball (2023) movieThe newest addition to this cinematic ennead is Nine Ball, which has a history considerably more interesting than the movie itself. Shot on Super 16 in 1995 for a budget of approximately $30,000, the movie was an alternate for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. Unfortunately, the opening at Sundance didn’t emerge; moreover, with no offers for distribution, the producer Rich Grasso, who also acts in the film, could not raise the additional $250,000 to finish the movie. The unfinished negative sat in a closet for 25 years, until the boredom of COVID prompted Mr. Grasso to give Nine Ball another look. With advances in technology, and streaming options that didn’t exist a quarter century ago, Mr. Grasso was able to complete his billiards opus, which is now available to watch on Amazon Prime. The movie stars Kenny Johnson (S.W.A.T.; The Shield) in his first feature film, though some of the other actors (e.g., Eugene Williams, Steven Benjamin Wise), who did not remotely achieve the same subsequent level of stardom, were far more compelling.

Nine Ball’s storyline is fairly rote. A quintet of friends in a small town find joy in their weekly get-togethers at a local dive bar. They have free access to alcohol and the pool table, where 9-ball is not a game, it’s a “religion.” But, beneath the booze-infested bonhomie, there is tremendous tension: economic, racial, relationships, dead-end ambitions. For all the talk about 9-ball, very little is actually shot, as players’ turns keep getting interrupted by drunken rage, scatalogical jokes, and bro-bonding. Most of the movie feels more like a play, with the five characters joshing and jostling for space in the single barroom. There are peaks of entertaining or dramatic dialogue, but they are undercut by the annoying narrative technique in which ghosts of the characters cut between past and present or hover in the scenes’ backgrounds.

Special thanks to director Victor Bevine and producer Rich Grasso for their interviews.

9 Ball (2012)

9Ball movieThe grand poobah of nineball-named movies, or at least the most well-known, is this APA-sponsored, Jennifer Barretta-starring film, with special appearances by Jeanette Lee and Allison Fisher.  The movie broke ground for casting a professional player (Baretta) as the main character, rather than in a supporting role to assist with the technical shots. It also focused on a female protagonist, which is a genre rarity. And, not surprisingly but most unusually, 9 Ball sought to portray pool as a professional sport. The actual movie was rather polarizing for audiences. In my original review, I rated it meh but acknowledged its obvious love and respect for the sport of billiards.

9 Ball (2012)

Directed by Isabel Logroño Carrascosa, this unimaginative Spanish short film is instantly forgettable. The movie revolves around a trio of characters, who are involved in an insipid game of 9 ball, while they seek to double cross one another. I don’t know what was a bigger distraction: the hair metal t-shirts the two players sported or their infuriating inability to make more than two shots in a row. The film is available to watch here.

9-Ball (2015)

9 Ball (2015) short filmA life of decadence. The ultimate price to pay for those sins. A game of 9-ball to decide it all. Blah, blah, blah…yeesh, that sounds like trope overload. Nonetheless, I’ve been searching for this Australian short film on-and-off for close to three years. I even successfully connected with the director, Darwin Brooks, in 2020, who committed to tracking down a copy for me.  But, his email is no longer active, nor is BMC Productions, the company behind the film. This movie is officially WANTED. If you have any information on it, please contact me.

Nine-Ball (2004)

Nine Ball (2005) tv seriesStretching across 20 episodes, the Taiwanese television series Nine-Ball (aka Billiard Boy) focuses on You Li, a country boy / billiards hustler, who falls in love with a girl on the internet, thereby provoking the rage of her jealous ex, Kuai Da. Kuai Da happens to work for Shao Shi Enterprise, a company that has a reputation in acquiring pool halls using violence. Not surprisingly, Kuai Da seeks to leverage his commercial power to destroy You Li and the things he loves. Resentment, bad mojo, and lots of billiards ensues, but unfortunately, I’ve seen none of it because I can’t locate the series. The only discoverable relic is a music video for the series’ theme song, “I’m Not A Hero,” by David Chen. This series is officially WANTED. If you have any information on it, please contact me.

Nineball (2007)

Why does the film’s narrator, a self-described “billiards junkie,” cover his face with a rag and get called a “monster” by the local children? Why does he use his spoon as a cue stick to pocket raw potatoes? And, why does he introduce us to a crew of 9-ball players who compensate for their missing arms by using other parts of their bodies (or others’ bodies) to support their cue strokes?

billiards short filmsRicky Aragon’s hilarious, crude, and jarring 14-minute film rapid-fires the questions, continuously disorienting the viewer with ever-changing music and characters. For a moment, we’re doing mathematics with billiards balls. Then, our narrator is at the 2006 Phillipines World Championship, having a Forrest Gump moment, as he appears behind winner Ronato Alcano or takes a selfie with referee Michaela Tabb. Then, it’s on to the narrator’s true love, Donita, the girl with the “billiard boobs.”

What is going on? Hold tight. It all resolves with a 9-ball match, where our narrator’s puerile attempts to distract his opponent cause a freak accident – a lodging of the nineball in the narrator’s nose. He is a victim of his own obsession, deformed by his passion. Yet, the film’s true punchline comes in the final 30 seconds. As the befuddled doctor struggles to select a tool that might remove the ball, a cue stick magically descends from above. It is the narrator’s hero and savior – (the very real) Efren “The Magician” Bayes, who shoots the nine, grossly dislodging the ball, along with the surrounding nasal gelatinous membrane. It lands on a billiards table with a thud, but no one stops. The grotesque ball becomes part of the game’s action, proving there is nothing that can interfere with the indefatigable relationship between billiards and Filipinos.

A special thank you to director Enrico “Ricky” Aragon and the Cinemalaya Foundation, which secured a copy of the film for me to watch.

Nine-Ball (2008)

This Swedish short film is very unlike the others in this group. Directed by Nikolina Gillgren, the movie is about neuropsychiatric disorders, such as ADHD, Asperger’s and Tourette’s Syndrome, and how people who have these disorders, like the film’s lead character David, struggle with social dysfunctional behavior and social exclusion. A pool hall, and some awkward games, provides the milieu for discussing the fear, loneliness, and the discomfort that comes from social exclusion. My full review of Nine-Ball is here.

Ride the 9 (defunct)

Fingers were crossed, wood was knocked on, and stray eyelashes were wished upon that Ride the 9 would make it to the silver screen. Blake West and Jordan Marder first started teasing YouTube audiences in 2011 with a trailer (seen below) for this billiards movie that sported a Guy Ritchie vibe, a killer soundtrack, gritty New Orleans set locations, and jaw-dropping trick shots courtesy of Florian “Venom” Kohler. While there were many fits and stops, as late as 2016, hopes were still high that the film would find funding and get made. But, unfortunately, this one rode the 9 to the cinematic graveyard. My original write-up on Ride the 9, based on interviews with Mr. West and Mr. Marder, is here. 

Behind the Nine (2003)

Behind the NineA great cruelty of the industry is that Ride the 9 could not get made, but Behind the Nine found its way into home theaters. This suffocating, molasses-paced film focuses on an underground two-week, 9-ball tournament that pays $500,000 to the winner and $500,000 to the organizer, who puts on the tournament to “make ends meet.” The movie collapses under the weight of terrible acting; a boring and distasteful script riddled with racist and homophobic language; unimaginative cinematography and direction; and – the coup de grâce – a preposterous and stultifying approach to billiards. My full review of Behind the Nine is here.

Someone once said, “In 9-ball, the only thing harder than the shot is trying to hide your smile when you sink it.” That may be true, but it seems equally difficult to come up with a movie title that does not call out the nine.  Maybe change the focus to 8-ball? Oh wait, that’s not a good idea either…

Coming Soon: Mr Doom

Every few months, I’ll commence my ritual of scrubbing IMDB for billiards movies using every possible permutation, combination, and amalgamation of keywords to hopefully uncover a new film. Usually, these fishing expeditions turn up cinematic chum: a short film with a few thousand views, maybe a #fakebilliardsmovie. 

Mr Doom.v2But, every so often, I strike what appears to be cinematic gold, which is exactly what happened this past February when my online sleuthing turned up the English billiards film Mr Doom. Directed by Leif Johnson, this dramedy, which currently is in post-production, hooked me with its poster art (credit to BRUTAL Posters) and its synopsis: “Jack and Charlie are an unlikely pair on a dangerous path to self destruction in a world of their own design. Both struggling to keep up a bygone lifestyle that revolves around a green felt table with six pockets and sixteen balls.” The official trailer for Mr Doom confirmed my instinct. 

I rolled the dice and reached out to Mr. Johnson, who was more than happy to talk about his forthcoming film. Below are excerpts from our online interview this past April. When the movie becomes available to watch, I will post my official review.

Jason Moss (me): What is the origin of Mr Doom? 

Leif Johnson: I feel like I’ve been researching this film all my life. Not necessarily the game of pool itself, but the characters I’ve met growing up. I come from a working-class family, in a grim town in the north of England, and when writing Mr Doom, I was thinking of all the real life characters that have stuck with me since childhood. The larger-than-life local legends, usually found in their local pub. No job or career to speak of but somehow had a healthy wad of folding money in their pocket. They always had a hustle going on…I was fascinated by these pub orators as they always had a story to tell, usually unsuitable for young ears…I loved it. The film’s title is a nod to The Color of Money when Vincent Lauria is asked what’s in the case and he replies “Doom.”

Jason: What’s the movie about?

Leif: Mr Doom is a dark comedy that follow the exploits of two men: one a professional hustler and the other a professional f**k-up. Both living on the fringes of society, day to day, bar to bar, hustle to hustle. Godlike with a pool cue in their hands but a total disaster in every other area of their lives. We follow this unlikely pair on a dangerous path of self-destruction, in a world of their own design, with the hope of making easy money.

Jason: What challenges did you encounter making the film?

Mr DoomLeif: We shot the film in 16 very long days. We also shot on one of the hottest days of the year in a café with no air conditioning, which was a challenge. Having a small crew taking on multiple roles and general logistics is always a nightmare on any shoot, but the team was incredible and did a remarkable job. I produced as well as directed this film, but I’ll not take on both those roles again. Producing is a big ol’ job, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for a good producer.

Jason: Did any directors or movies inspire you in the making of Mr Doom?

Leif: Indeed. When pitching Mr Doom, I wanted the main narrative to have a very British Shane Meadows type feel. The way we shot the scenes, the big characters and the snappy dialogue all have a gritty Brit film edge. But when we get to the tables and we’re in the game, we shift to more dynamically shot energetic sequences like an Edgar Wright movie. 

Jason: For billiards movie fans, how much billiards should we expect?

Leif: There’s quite a bit. The games are fast, and we don’t dwell too much on the games because we have characters and a story to tell. But we do play a couple of different games, and the way we shot the actual games, such as by using probe lenses, is very dynamic. 

Jason: How did you ensure the accuracy of the billiards playing?

Leif: First, the actors spent months getting to grips with the game to look like they at least knew what they were doing. They then had to learn how to look like they were pretending like they didn’t. The guys at the pool hall where we shot a lot of the film made sure we didn’t slip up and that the games made sense. It was an education, and I was brought back to when I played pool a lot as a teenager. I’ve not played it that much as an adult. That said, it never leaves you. So, I fell in love with it all over again.

Jason: When can audiences hope to see the film? 

Leif: That I don’t know quite yet. The film is doing festivals over the coming months, but we’re keen to get it distributed soon. You’ll be the first to know mate.

You can follow Mr. Johnson on Twitter to stay current on the release of Mr Doom.

Wanted: Chinese Billiards Movies

In what Ronnie O’Sullivan described as the “greatest comeback in the history of the Sheffield venue,” Luca Betel beat Si Jiahui 17-15 last week in the semi-finals of the World Snooker Championship. The Crucible match was all the more extraordinary because Jiahui, who was ranked 80th at the beginning of the month, is just 20 years old. The Chinese wunderkind’s history-blazing path is a story of national pride (unlike the 10 Chinese snooker players who got banned in January from the tournament because they were charged with match-fixing).  

Jiahui’s meteoric journey echoes the increasing popularity of billiards/snooker in the PRC. The sport emerged in China in the 1980s. At the turn of the century, China hosted its first international snooker tournament. The early aughts witnessed the arrival of Ding “Enter the Dragon” Junhui, who became the world’s top player in 2014. Other stars followed, such as Pan Xiaoting, Liang Wenbo, and Yan Bingtao.

Today, over 120 million people play and practice billiards in China. There are 1500 snooker clubs in Shanghai; another 1200 are in Beijing. At the World Snooker College, the only subject taught is snooker, with every student hoping to be the next Ding Junhui (or maybe now Si Jiahui).

Not surprisingly, the swelling popularity of billiards has extended from the baize to the silver screen. In fact, prior to 2010, I’m not aware of a single Chinese billiards film. But, since that time, I’ve discovered eight Chinese billiards movies.1,2  

The problem is that, with the exception of A Magic Stick (2016), they cannot be found, at least not by yours truly, or they can be found, but have no subtitles, making them incomprehensible to me. Talk about a billiards movie gap in my corpus! I officially deem these Chinese billiards movies WANTED, and I beseech any reader to help me find them. Please note some of the titles below may be approximate translations from the original Mandarin.

Color Disorder - Chinese billiards movieColor Disorder (2010)

Color Disorder (or Color Barrier, perhaps) is a Chinese film about Chai Lu, a naturally gifted billiards player who lacks drive and ambition. At some point, he meets Chang Jianguo, who sees Chai Lu’s true potential. He takes Chai Lu under his wing and prepares him for the National Amateur Billiards “Golden Stone Competition.” While Chai Lu is suspicious at first, at the behest of his girlfriend Meng Rui, he ultimately grows to trust Chang Jianguo and his disciplined billiards teaching style. 

Billiards Baby (2013)

Directed by Xie Yihang, this billiards short film is about Zhang Chao and Si Yu, who met one summer as kids and became good friends and lovers as adults. They live in Beijing, where Si Yu relies on the billiards skills she learned from her grandfather. 

Midnight Pool Room (2016)

Just 11 minutes, the macabre Midnight Pool Room is about Huang and Liu, who hate the wealthy, so they launch some kind of sinister snooker game to retaliate and make the rich taste the shame they deserve. Sounds like The Menu meets The Hustler. I’m in!

 

Billiard Girl - Chinese billiards movieBilliard Girl (2018)

In 2018, Xiao Liu directed the 95-minute youth film Billiard Girl. This Chinese billiards movie focuses on Ling Chun (YiYi Deng, who won a Best Actress Lily Award award for the role), a high school student who lives with her stepmother. Ling Chun has always felt unsatisfied with her life, until one day she plays billiards and everything changes. More than a couple reviewers criticized the lack of billiards realism. Maybe they were reacting to the blindfolded shot I saw in an online clip? The complete movie is available to watch online, but there are no English subtitles, unfortunately.

Sasha.v2Sasha (2018)

Continuing 2018’s focus on young female billiards players is Chunze Dong’s rom-com Sasha. The movie tells the story of Zhao Shasha, a small-town hotel family’s daughter, who is a billiards genius. She flees to Beijing with Liu Hongyang, a simple, everyday, kind of homely man who dotes on her.  At some point, she gets smitten by a hunky gent named Abu, forcing our teen billiards goddess to choose between Mr. Funny, Loyal and Ugly and Mr. Tall, Rich and Handsome. A Chinese trailer of the film is available to watch here.

Metal Billiard - Chinese Billiards MovieMetal Billiards (2019)

Among this septet of missing Chinese billiards movies, my list-topper is Bai Xinyu’s 2019 billiards drama Metal Billiards (or Alloy Billiards). The film focuses on Lu Yan, an industrial design student, who creates a robotic arm to give more freedom and mobility to its user. Though he fancies himself a real-world Tony Stark, the invention is dismissed by various companies, and Lu Yan graduates unemployed. At this time, he also receives news that his father is hospitalized, having been injured over a large gambling debt. Lu Yan realizes that his robotic arm provides him a great advantage in billiards, specifically in determining the perfect angles and physics at which to make shots. With his robotic appendage, he can avenge his father and demonstrate that his time as an otaku was not for naught. 

While the Metal Billiards trailer is no longer on YouTube, there are some extended clips available to watch on Chinese sites. These clips show that, irrespective of the plot, the movie has a hip design aesthetic and traffics in comically memorable billiards opponents, including a green-mohawked guy tattooed top to bottom, a pair of buxom vixens in French maid outfits, an obese woman with hair curlers who carries a pig’s head on a rope (?!), and some gargantuan yeti whose cue stick is appended with a sinister metal chain. Only ones missing from this Iron Man rogue gallery is Obadiah Stane with a cue stick and, of course, the Mandarin.

Billiards King of Northeast China - Chinese billiards movieBilliards King of Northeast China (2023)

Just released in April, Billiards King of Northeast China (also possibly known as Northeast Champion or Northeast Ball King) is a rom-com from director Yin Bo. The film is about a rural billiards prodigy named Zhou Dafa who solves a kidnapping crisis, gets introduced to a business kingpin, falls in love, and then faces another crisis when the kingpin asks him to throw a billiards championship match or risk harm to his mother. Supposedly, Scottish snooker pro Stephen Hendry, who appeared in the 2017 TV documentary Enter the Dragon: China’s Snooker Star  (about Ding Jinhui), makes a cameo in the film.

********

  1. Of course, some of this jump is attributable to the skyrocketing output of China’s movie studios. In 2000, China released just 91 films; by 2018, the number was 902 (source: ChinaPower). 
  2. This excludes movies made in Taiwan (e.g., Second Chance) or Hong Kong (e.g., Legend of the Dragon; The King of Snooker). I am focusing solely on the PRC.

Perfect Break

Back in 2016, I spoke to producer Len Evans about his forthcoming snooker movie Perfect Break, which was wrapping up post-production. (The movie was released in 2020.) Mr. Evans had promised a “low-budget, family film” that would generate a lot of laughs, showcase great snooker playing, and feature world snooker champion Jimmy White and famed snooker commentator John Virgo in key roles.

Perfect BreakThat promise proved paper-thin. Perfect Break is a perfect bust.

The setup had potential. Bobby Stevens (Joe Rainbow), an unknown snooker player, makes it to the finals at the Crucible. Performing a whitewash, Bobby is one point away from defeating his number one ranked opponent, Ray “Cannon” Carter, when he suddenly falls apart and ultimately suffers a humiliating loss. His girlfriend leaves him, the media suspects foul play, and Bobby disappears behind a luchador mask, relegated to performing trick shots at local clubs and community centers. 

But, after that five-minute opener, the movie quickly spirals into looniness. Bobby takes a job as a resident masked snooker player at the Marine Cliffs Entertainment Center. This nondescript venue seems to be a holiday park for mobile homes. It features an offensively stereotyped homosexual security guard, who inquires about Bobby’s “pole” and whistles “toodle-oo” to unlucky patrons. The snooker table is in a room that can barely squeeze ten people. Running around Marine Cliffs is the proprietor Kate (Tia Demir) and her daughter, Sophie (Ella Tweed) a budding matchmaker who is determined to pair Bobby and her mom.

Meanwhile, in the snookerverse, Ray is determined to track down Bobby for a rematch, as he still suspects the original match may have been thrown. He hatches a cockamamie plan to get Bobby invited to the exclusive Jimmy White Invitational Snooker Tournament. This event features eight of the world’s top-ranked players, with unoriginal names like Mark “Magician” Ward (sorry, Efren Reyes) and Joe “Hitman” Waye (sorry, Michael Holt). Inexplicably, the Tournament occurs in some beat-up club room, where the players use cheap wooden cues, and which houses an audience of maybe 20 bored onlookers, including children.

Perfect Break.v2 1[SPOILER ALERT] Bobby accepts the invite, especially after he learns that he was hypnotized by his ex-girlfriend to throw his infamous match. A little whisper-magic later and the spell is broken. Bring on the nine-frame rematch and a chance for another 147 perfect break.

Perfect Break suffers from a perfect mix of wooden dialogue, an idiotic plot, unconvincing settings, an over-reliance on random music, and terrible production. The snooker graphics look like they were done in PowerPoint.  Mr. White and Mr. Virgo, who supposedly were on set, seem like they got Photoshopped into the movie. There is a black-and-white snooker training montage for no reason. There are random color filters applied to scenes and amateur special effects to simulate something as mundane as waking up. Sound issues and muffled voices plague every outdoor scene.

The snooker-playing was equally disappointing, most obviously because there’s surprisingly little snooker on screen. I’m not counting the unimaginative trick shots. Nor am I counting some of the background potting done by Phil Burness, who is the film’s “snooker consultant.” 

I’m talking about actual snooker. Unfortunately, the Crucible match occurs off-screen. The Jimmy White Invitational matches are edited such that most of the time the viewer is looking directly at the player lining up a shot, rather than watching the player make the shot. Pots are disconnected from strokes. The few shots we see wide-screen are super basic, making me wonder what kind of bargain the producers got on Mr. Burness’ fees. As for Mr. White and Mr. Virgo, they’re ballyhooed involvement amounts to less than three minutes of stilted dialogue, literally done as talking heads. 

If you’re looking for the perfect break to your day, you’re not going to find it with Perfect Break.

Inaugural Billiards-Themed Non-Billiards Magazine Awards (Part 2)

In my previous post, I announced Part One of the Inaugural Billiards-Themed Non-Billiards Magazine Awards. These are magazine covers from the past 100 years, from around the world, that feature either billiards or billiards professionals on their covers.

Billiards magazine cover: Tattoos Down Under (2003, Australia) Unlike the recently maligned Golden Globes ceremony, my awards were received positively; readers expressing gratitude, enthusiasm, and the reluctant agreement that billiards does not often receive the respect it deserves. As D.C. Walker shared on Facebook, “Anyone that thinks [billiards] is not a sport has obviously never played in a week-long tournament and made it to the $$$$. It’s mentally and physically draining.”

I thought I had maxed out with my original treasure trove of 163 covers, but just over the past two weeks, the number of eligible covers increased 15% to 187. New entrants include a cover of The Sportsman from 1928; a 2021 cover of Das Heu, a German magazine devoted to the fields of self-publishing and graphic design; and a 2003 cover of the Australian magazine Tattoos Down Under.

So, lest my opening monologue drown out the awards, let’s jump right into the second half of the Inaugural Billiards-Themed Non-Billiards Magazine Awards.

BEST SUNDAY MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT TO ACKNOWLEDGE BILLIARDS

Winner: The New York Times Magazine (February, 1992)

Billiards magazine cover: New York Times Magazine (1992)Sunday magazine supplements to daily newspapers have been around since The San Francisco Chronicle made history in 1869.  The content is not as timely or current, and the articles cover a wide range of topics, including (once in a 2-ball-blue moon) billiards.  On February 23, 1992, The New York Times Magazine – our award winner – featured “The Striking Viking” Ewa Mataya on its cover and a story on her “campaign to change the game’s image.” Talk about a noble cause true to my heart.

Runner-up: In April, 1975, the cover of the Arkansas Gazette featured Telly Savalas leaning over a pool table. And, before you make any cue ball jokes, remember that Kojak plays pool (from the episode “Before the Devil Knows.”)!

MOST INTERESTING BILLIARDS CURE FOR READING APATHY

Winner: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (November, 2011)

Billiards magazine cover: Alfred Hitchcock Mystery (2011)Given people between the ages of 15 and 44 read for an average of 10 minutes or less per day, it’s hard to imagine who is the audience for the estimated 5,000 literary magazine titles currently in production.  

But, if anything can turn around the reading blues, it’s a billiards story, starting with this award-winner, the 2011 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, with its “Slip Knot” cover story by author David Edgerley Gates. While I was drawn in by the bold artwork, it was the teaser that seduced me, “The pool hall was packed, and the fix was in.” 

Runner-up: Real Detective looks like first-class trash, but I’d be lying if I said the cover of the August 1985 issue, with a barely-clad woman supine on a pool table, didn’t leave me wanting to peek inside.

BEST COVER PREDATING THE BILLIARDS RENAISSANCE

Winner: Uhu (March 1925, Germany)

Billiards magazine cover: Uhu (1925, Germany)The Hustler came out in 1961, ushering in the modern Billiards Renaissance and extricating the sport from the confines of a few to the imagination of many. Or, so the story goes. But, as pre-1961 covers demonstrate, billiards has been around for a long time, knocking on the doors of everything from our private estates to our public barrooms. 

With its playful carom billiards cover, featuring a cue-ball headed player whispering to his table-bound brethren, the March 1925 issue of Uhu is the category’s winner. Uhu was a German monthly magazine published between 1924 and 1934 that focused on culture and science.

Runner-up: Emmett Watson illustrated the January 25, 1941 cover of The Saturday Evening Post. With Japan having recently attacked Pearl Harbor, and Hitler turning his attention to the Soviet Union, the world was indeed behind the eight ball.

MOST OVERDUE AN AVN AWARD

Winner: Screw (October, 1976)

Billiards magazine cover: Screw (1974)Billiards and sex have been bed partners between the pages and on the covers of magazines at least since 1936, when a coquettish young woman focused our attention on her derriere on the cover of Stolen Sweets. 

But, to bring home the AVN, more than a flirtatious wink is required. (Sorry, Playboy.) The #NSFW winner is the October 1976 cover of Screw, Al Goldstein’s “raunchy, obnoxious, usually disgusting, and sometimes political” pornographic magazine. (To be clear, this award in no way endorses the rather dangerous game of pocket pool being played.)

Runner-up: The May 2021 cover of Quiver, which showcases “kink, goth and the darker side of sexy” as well as a terrible cue stick grip and bridge.

BEST POLITICAL USE OF BILLIARDS IMAGERY

Co-Winners: Der Spiegel (January, 2017, Germany) and India Today – Tamil (2013, India)

Billiards magazine cover: Der Spiegel (2017, Germany) Billiards magazine cover: India Today (2013, India)Years ago, I saw a 1942 World War 2 poster in which an 8-ball careens toward a trio of billiard balls imprinted with the faces of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. “Production will put them behind the eight ball,” rallies the poster. It’s visually arresting, an ingenious integration of billiards imagery and lingo and political content and messaging.

This category’s co-winners are similarly creative with their billiards-themed, politically-charged cover illustrations.  Four days after President Trump’s 2017 inauguration, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published its issue with an American billiards ball aimed at a rack of billiards balls emblazoned with flags from other countries. The cover story translates to, “The New World Order.”

Similarly, in a 2013 issue of India Today (Tamil), a cue ball with the initials CBI (for Central Bureau of Investigation, the premier investigating agency of India) is aimed at a rack of balls with faces. I don’t recognize the individuals, but can only assume they are a gaggle of corrupt politicians.

MOST WELCOMING FOR RETIREMENT

Winner: The Go (June-August, 2018)

Billiards magazine cover: The Go (2018)According to Connelly Billiards in Tucson, Arizona, “Billiards tables are very popular in retirement homes and assisted living facilities…When seniors engage in activities that require them to problem-solve, as billiards does, it can prevent the cognitive decline that can lead to dementia.”

While I cannot validate that assertion with actual statistics, the magazine covers of various retirement communities do hint at the prominence of pool. The easy winner in this category is the June-August 2018 cover of The Go, the magazine for Longmont, Colorado senior services. The issue profiles Dorothy, a Longmont native who plays billiards with her granddaughters. Go grandma!

Runner-up: The September 2022 issue of Kokomo, a regional magazine focused on Kokomo, Indiana, highlights the city’s lively senior citizens center, which includes a pool room with multiple tables.

MOST LIKELY TO MAKE YOUR HEAD HURT

Winner: Comics & Science (January, 2022, Italy)

Billiards magazine cover: ComicsScience (2022, Italy)Billiards is a sport of geometry and physics (but not chemistry, making the April 2017 cover of Chemistry – A European Journal a bit perplexing). The math and science has been illustrated in numerous billiards television episodes and short films, ranging from Donald in Mathmagic Land to the “Let’s Play Long Billiards” episode of Discover Science.

Among magazines, the category winner is the January 2022 issue of Comics & Science, an Italian publication that pairs authors with researchers to express concepts and problems faced by the scientific community in the language of comics. This cover story focuses on Maryam Mirzakhani, a pioneering mathematician, who explored questions such as what trajectory does the ball make when bouncing off the table? Is it possible to find a billiard table where, given the starting point of the ball, there are inaccessible points?

Runner-up: Scientific American is the O.G. of this category. The January 1994 cover shows a cue ball breaking a rack and tracking the motions of the balls. The intractable problem: how to calculate the paths the ball will take.

MOST LIKELY TO STEAM UP THE ROOM

Winner: Maxim (April, 2011, South Korea)

Billiards magazine cover: Maxim (2011, South Korea)Billiards does not tend to make the top 10 lists for sports with the sexiest male athletes or female athletes. Perhaps true, but check out Jennifer Baretta (FHM), Shanelle Lorraine (Maxim) or Mark Selby and Judd Trump (in a commercial for Chinese fashion label K-Boxing), and you might reconsider.

Sizzling eyeballs in this category is Cha Ya Rum on the April 2011 cover of the South Korean edition of Maxim. She has been called the “Goddess of Billiards” for her celebrity-style looks. She won gold for 9-ball singles in the 2009 Asian Indoor Games.

Runner-up: Published in India, The Man is the luxury magazine for the discerning male. The January 2011 issue features Pankaj Advani, the “golden boy of billiards,” and posits the question, “Is he the last gentleman alive?”

BEST PAIRING OF MUSIC AND BILLIARDS

Winner: Monkees Monthly (April, 1969, UK)

Billiards magazine cover: Monkees Monthly (1969, UK)Billiards and music collaborate wonderfully, like Rodgers and Hammerstein, David Bowie and Queen, or Chas & Dave in their 1986 hit “Snooker Loopy.” Musicians write about billiards, they create videos about billiards, they feature billiards in their album cover art, and they certainly play billiards. 

It’s only natural that musicians would star with their cue sticks on the covers of music magazines.  Award-winning exhibit A: the April 1969 issue of Monkees Monthly, featuring lead singer Davy Jones poised and ready to take his shot (and melt fans’ hearts everywhere). 

Runner-up: Aaron Taylor may not be well-known, but under his stage name, MC Eiht, the rapper has built a huge following. When The Source put him on its February 1995 cover, they seized the literal moment and situated him at a pool table, surrounded by 8-balls. 

BEST OPPORTUNITY TO INTRO THE LITTLE TOTS TO BILLIARDS

Winner: Billiken (1930, Argentina)

Billiards magazine cover: Billiken (1930, Argentina)In late 2020, I published a blog post entitled, “The Billiards Industry Needs Its Bobby Brady.” The title was a tongue-and-cheek reference to the memorable Brady Bunch episode “The Hustler.” But, the article’s larger point was that to inspire the next generation of pool players, pop culture needed to portray and embrace the pre-adult billiard-playing population. 

A smart avenue, albeit not a popular one, is showcasing billiards on the cover of children’s magazines. To my knowledge, the best-known examples – e.g., Highlights, Ranger Rick, National Geographic Kids – have eschewed billiards. Thankfully, Billiken, a Spanish language magazine first published in 1919 and still in print today, chose otherwise. This Argentinian publication’s 1930 cover, featuring a determined, diapered baby attempting to pocket a ball, is this category’s winner de oro.

Runner-up:  The Indian magazine Dimdima targets readers between the ages of 8 and 16.  Thanks to its October 2013 cover story, that demographic will be a little wiser about billiards and the Indian snooker sensation Aditya Mehta.

That concludes the Inaugural Billiards-Themed Non-Billiards Magazine Awards. While I was only able to honor a small number of the eligible covers, I encourage you to view the full lot and send me any you stumble across that I am missing. After all, if billiards can grace the cover of Alaska Business Monthly, I’m pretty sure it can pop up anywhere.

Gotham City Grind

In film, sometimes the venue is the star. 

Meticulously selected, elegantly framed, perfectly lit, and cinematographically fine-tuned, the specific locale can be as memorable and essential as the actors, songs, script, or action.

Consider the old Ames Billiards Academy, a second-floor loft in the Claridge Hotel on West 44th in Times Square, that was home to the epic showdown between Fast Eddie Felson and Minnesota Fats in The Hustler. Or, the iconic, vintage Chris’s Billiards in Jefferson Park, Chicago, where Vince first duels with Grady Seasons in The Color of Money. For TruTV’s series The Hustlers, Steinway Billiards in Queens, New York, featured so prominently it was almost an hour-long advertisement. I don’t remember much about Penance except the awesome appearance of Top Shot Billiards in Alberta, where the movie was filmed in entirety.

Presumably, most venues would jump at the chance for this kind of product placement. But, when those starring roles don’t come knocking, there is always the last resort to create one’s own show. Such is the playbook Gotham City Billiards Club (GCBC) adopted in May 2016 when it launched the web series Gotham City Grind, featuring their Avenue U pool hall in Brooklyn as the homebase. 

Unfortunately, there are many good reasons why this path is not well-worn (e.g., cost, production value, lack of human interest, etc).  All of these reasons are on vivid display when one suffers through any of the four webisodes in the series.

Gotham City Grind opens with the voice-over, “This is not your average pool hall.  It may look like it, but Gotham City Billiards has an untold story, and our story begins with some of our usual players.” 

While the proclamation is well-intentioned, the series never actually tells the untold story.  Fine, whatever. The far greater gaffe is presuming that the “usual players” have a story that is interesting to anyone outside the pool hall’s doors. 

The first webisode, “Never Give Up,” focuses on Thomas Rice, a 17-year-old who turned to pool to counter his ADHD and struggles in school. Rice says, “I couldn’t focus in school and as soon as pool came into my life, it changed everything… started focusing better, winning tournaments, hanging out with the right kids not the wrong kids.” He then plays some nineball and prepares for an upcoming tournament.

That’s great, admirable even, but it’s hardly engaging video-watching. Maybe that’s why the webisode then abruptly shifts focus to Brooklyn denizen and actor William DeMeo, who is in town to promote his new film Back in the Day. (He was Jason Molinaro in seasons 5-6 of The Sopranos.) But, this is also a dead-end, an irrelevant cameo, unrelated to Thomas Rice, to GCBC, or even to billiards. We’re basically watching a pool hall promote itself promoting a straight-to-cable film that no one has heard of.

The second webisode, “American Dream,” is even worse; I found myself wistfully hoping for another D-list celebrity pop-up. Instead, we meet Koka Davladse from the Republic of Georgia. He is a “regular player with an infectious laugh” who came to America to study and play pool because “Georgia is dead, no tournaments, no payouts.” He has not seen his family in five years.

Awash with pathos, we then follow Koka’s storyline as it abruptly veers into a ten-round game of nineball against an opponent named Jerry T.  Koka wins, and the narrator rewards us with the platitude, “It takes courage and determination to follow your dreams. You have to want it bad enough. Most won’t even try, but whether you fail or succeed in the process, you have to believe in yourself.”

Stunned by such banality, I could not bring myself to watch the remaining two episodes, “Love for Pool” and “Legacy.” 

If you learn the untold story to GCBC, send it my way; otherwise, don’t waste your time grinding it out with Gotham City Grind.

 

The #FakeBilliardsMovies Global Conspiracy

Nero faked his own death.  Tupac is alive. The earth is flat. Planet X will destroy us.

From the New World Order to the New England Patriots, we are awash in global conspiracies. It doesn’t take much “evidence” to make a small group apoplectic, obsessed that unseen puppeteers and power-brokers are rewiring the world in their special interests.

I’m not a conspirophile (though I, too, have a hard time explaining the launch of New Coke). But, I am increasingly concerned that there is a nefarious, multinational effort underway to discredit the sport of billiards by hawking its iconic imagery and idiom in #FakeBilliardsMovies. 

#NotABilliardsMovieI first wrote about this trend in 2017, when I identified 15 films that perpetuated this flimflam. (Public Pool Enemy No. 1?  The 9 Ball Diaries.) Now, five years later, this pandemic of promoting pool in non-billiards movies has reached preposterous proportions.  From Africa to Asia, from North to South America, the global film industry appears to be cashing in on this cinematic chicanery to entice wide-eyed watchers.

It must stop! No more can movie moguls double-down on such double-dealing. Join my cue sport crusade in outing this planetary panoply of #FakeBilliardsMovies!  Let the impersonator roll call begin! (All summaries are courtesy of IMDB.)

Aftermath

Hopes were high that I had uncovered the first billiards movie from Sri Lanka. But, Aftermath, the debut 2020 short film from director Navi Rafaelle, is about a professional group of thieves whose bank heist goes sideways.  P.S. to the Polo-wearing bank robber on the far left: don’t bring a cue stick to a gunfight. #FakeBilliardsMovies

90ML

90ML is a 2019 Telugu-language romcom from India about a man with fetal alcohol syndrome who needs to drink 90 milliliters of liquor three times a day to survive.  Like the circular reflection inside a gemstone, the poster’s assisted pool player aiming at nothing is a surefire sign of a sham. The Deccan Chronicle panned the movie, calling it a “bad drink.”  I call it a bad break for billiards. #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

The Devils: The Comeback

Originally titled El-shayatin: El-Awdah, this 2007 thriller from Egypt focuses on agent No. Zero, who must recruit his old team to stop a smuggling ring from stealing the treasures of Egypt. Apparently, this effort requires posturing around a pool table. No one notices that No. Zero is not who he says to be. I can only hope movie watchers see through this billiards ruse and realize it’s not what it appears to be either. #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

Where I Grow Old

To its credit, Marília Rocha’s 2016 Brazilian film, originally titled A Cidade onde Envelheço, racked up a number of awards and nominations.  The movie is about two young Portuguese women who try to put down roots in Brazil. They wrestle with questions of friendship, identity, and belonging; contrary to what the poster may have you believe, they do not wrestle with questions of billiards. #FakeBilliardsMovies

The Red Rope

Scholars believe billiards arrived in the Old West by the 1840s. While it’s historically accurate to show a cowboy with a cue stick in this 1937 Western, it’s technically treacherous to show him shooting at the one-ball, cueball nowhere to be found. That’s a red flag for The Red Rope. I sure hope the competing outlaws Rattler Haynes and Grant Brade fire guns better than they play pool.  #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

The Perfect Player

I can’t tell you much about the Nigerian movie The Perfect Player. The film is neither listed in the Nollywood Movie Database, nor in the IMDB profile of its star, Ray Emodi.  Search for it on YouTube, however, and there are several “seasons” of this movie, available to watch in entirety.  One thing I can tell you (after rapidly scrolling through all those full seasons): there’s no billiards! #FakeBilliardsMovies

The Continent

Director Han Han’s 2014 movie was no sleeper.  Grossing more than $100 million, the Chinese film wowed audiences in festivals across Canada, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. But, for a movie that purports to be about three men going on a road trip to the Western most end of China who face “crises of love, friendship, and faith on their journey,” it’s a mystery why the poster focuses on billiards (or what happened to the other two men). #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

Carambola

I was so convinced that Ferdinando Baldi’s 1974 Italian film Carambola (and its 1975 sequel Carambola Filotto…Tutti in Buca) was a billiards movie that I purchased an enlargement of the poster for my basement. But, like countless other saps, I was snookered. Carambola has nothing to do with three-cushion carom, save for an early (albeit excellent) scene. The movie is about an ex-soldier, who happens to be a billiards champion, investigating arms trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border.  #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

Diamonds are Brittle

This 1965 French film from Nicolas Gessner does not tread lightly on the baize. The lead character is a passionate billiards player, who decides to rob a bank to spice up his life. The movie’s original title, Un milliard dans un billard, translates to, “A billion in a pool table.” The movie’s posters – both French and Hungarian – use evocative billiards illustrations. Put all these elements together and it’s a cinematic combo that can cozen even the most discerning skeptic. Unfortunately, aside from a pool table with a secret compartment for conveniently hiding diamonds, it’s billiards bosh. #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers

Continuing the story of “The Elusive Avengers,” this 1968 Russian movie seems to have it all: a posse of young Red Partisans, including two orphan siblings; a fight with the White Guard; a secret map; agents in disguises; escape boats; intercepted airplanes; an ally with the wonderful name Bubba Castorsky; and – wait for it – a detonating pool ball. Somehow, with all those action and espionage elements, it’s the pool ball that makes it onto the movie poster.  Fal’shivyy bil’yardnyy fil’m! #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

Pasanga 2

Next to the US, the country most culpable for committing cinematic cue stick cons is India. Aside from the aforementioned 90ML, there is Raja Natwarlal, Beejam, Disco Raja, Tagaru, and Naanum Rowdy Dhaan. But, it’s Pasanga 2, a 2015 Indian Tamil-language film which focuses on the issue of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder amongst kids, that really gets in my craw. Children, my god! Aren’t there parental permissions or labor laws that prevent this kind of crookery? It’s no wonder the sport is losing its youth.  #FakeBilliardsMovies

Dead to the World

I will bring my jeremiad to a close with Freddie Hall’s 2018 UK short film, Dead to the World.  This “comedy” is about “three broken individuals trying to be better people, fight their basest instincts and hold on to their jobs.” But, there’s nothing funny about its appropriation of snooker. Maybe this poster is prophetic? A billiards bodement that forecasts the sports’ fate in film? #FakeBilliardsMovies

 

I don’t have the answers, only my global conspiracy theory, easy to ignore but hard to dispute. But, if this pool piracy doesn’t stop, then, to quote Mr. Hall, our sport may indeed become “dead to the world.”

Will you raise your cue stick in support? And, if not, will you at least join me in watching hundreds of legitimate billiards movies, TV episodes, and short films?