Tag Archives: billiards movies

Pool Tables: The Perfect Gift?

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Perhaps, my most prized physical possession is an eight-foot Olhausen Monarch pool table that I received as a gift when I turned 40. It’s an utter beauty, and it fulfilled a wish that started in college when I cut my first classes to play pool. As it happens, it also sparked my current avocation — blogging about billiards movies and television episodes.

With the holiday season upon us, now may be the time to give the gift of billiards and purchase a pool table – for the mancave, for the spouse-to-be, for the future Mosconi, for the family. The occasion does not matter; if it fits the house and the wallet, a pool table is a must-have. 

Or so I thought until I culled through the annals of pool table presents in pop culture. Unfortunately, the writers and directors behind some of the most relevant gifts in billiards-themed media have a rather different impression.

The 1950s-1960s

The bad press began in 1956, but I cannot tell you why. The economy was strong, unemployment was down to 4.5%, and all that disposable income was fostering a love affair with consumerism.

Nonetheless, in the April 1956 “Bad Companions” episode of The Goldbergs, one of television’s first family sitcoms, Uncle David brings home a new pool table as a “fabulous gift for the whole family.” But, it becomes an instant headache, since neither family nor friends can, or are allowed, to play. David recruits some “professors” from the local pool hall to teach him, unaware they are hustlers. As David’s house becomes ground zero for horse gambling and other nefarious activities, he is ultimately ensnared in a raid and decried by the judge as “the dupe of unsavory characters.” That might put your future pool table munificence in check.

One month later, the “Opportunity Knocks But” episode of The Honeymooners aired. Ralph Kramden’s boss receives a new pool table as an anniversary gift from his wife. Not knowing how to play, he invites Ralph (and ultimately Norton) to come over to teach the finer points of the game. While Ralph seizes on the invitation as an opportunity for endless sycophancy, Norton shoehorns his way into the game so he can pitch business ideas that ultimately lead to Norton getting selected over Kramden for a coveted job.   Now that is bad billiards mojo.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet rounded out the year with the “Pool Table” episode. After Ozzie buys a pool table from the local department store, his playing plans are continually thwarted as he realizes he does not have a location for it. The pool table’s peregrination goes from the dining room to the kitchen to the garage to the outside yard and even to a neighbor’s house. Ultimately, Ozzie jerry-rigs a pulley system to haul the table up to the attic, but the table’s weight causes it to crash through the floor into the kids’ bedroom, rendering it largely useless for anyone taller than three feet.

Apparently the 1960s were consumed by other notable hobbies and activities, such as playing with GI Joes (1964) and Easy Bake Ovens (1963), watching the first Super Bowl (1966), or contorting to Twister (1966), as I could find no billiards gift-giving exemplars during the decade. 

1970s-1990s

But, by the 1970s, the billiards bestowal was back in cultural vogue, starting with the 1973 Sanford and Son episode “A House is Not a Poolroom,” which opens with Lamont getting his father Fred a pool table for his birthday. The present is so well-received that Lamont can neither get his father away from the table to attend to his family responsibilities, nor can he get any peace and privacy in the house, since his father’s gaggle of friends have now ‘moved in’ to use the table. Sadly, the magnetism of the table becomes such a problem that he must ultimately get rid of it.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThe 1974 “The Hustler” episode of The Brady Bunch revealed Bobby Brady’s knack with a cue after his father brings home a pool table as a thank-you gift from his boss Mr. Matthews. Bobby trounces his brothers in 9-ball, thereby winning a month of free shoe-cleaning. But the real fun comes when Mr. Matthews visits the house and is subsequently thrashed by Bobby on the table, losing 256 packs of chewing gum in a wager. Unfortunately, for the squeaky-clean Brady clan, the home is no place for such games of sin, and the table is promptly returned.

After The Brady Bunch episode aired, a 30-year drought of billiards benevolence ensued. Pool hustling was all the rage in television and film, and nary a table appears to have been gifted.

2000s – present

That deficit was corrected in the mid-aughts, starting with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston swapping barbs and bile in the 2006 movie The Break-Up, with each partner trying to outmaneuver the other in a bid to keep their luxurious condo. In one seminal scene, Vaughn’s character declares, “My whole life I always wanted my own place with my own pool table. I finally got my own place, but you would not allow me to get my own pool table. I figured I’d rectify that today.” As expected, this self-gifting causes a maelstrom of subsequent damage, with Aniston’s character violently ejecting his possessions from the room.

Finally, there is the little-watched series Gary Unmarried. At the center of the 2008 episode, “Gary Gets His Stuff Back,” is a pool table, which Gary gave to his ex-wife Allison as a paper anniversary gift, and now he threatens to reveal racy photographs of her if she doesn’t return it to him. Though the table leads to blackmail and burglary, there is a silver lining, as both characters divulge that the true reason they want the table is because of all the good memories associated with it.

Maybe that’s the underlying lesson from almost 70 years of billiards largesse on the silver screen. Regardless of what agonies and horrors are associated with the gift, pool tables are the loci of wonderful experiences.  Movies and television are make-believe, but pool tables as great gifts are most definitely very real.

Gotham City Grind

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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.

 

I’ve Got a Secret

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Philo Farnsworth’s secret was that he invented electronic television at the age of 14. Clyde Tombaugh’s secret was that he discovered Pluto. And, Samuel J. Seymour’s secret was that he saw John Wilkes Booth assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

Between 1952 and 1967, these three individuals, along with hundreds of others – both celebrities and ‘ordinary’ contestants – appeared on the American CBS panel game show I’ve Got a Secret to see if a quartet of celebrity panelists could guess their special, unusual, embarrassing, amazing or humorous factoid. 

To my knowledge, billiards was the focus of a hat trick of secrets over the show’s 16-year history. Those episodes featured Willie Mosconi (1962), Bill Staton (1965), and Jean Balukas (1966).

Willie Mosconi

On February 5, 1962, a little more than four months after the release of The Hustler, Willie Mosconi, the “brilliant pocket billiard champion of the world,” appeared as a celebrity contestant on I’ve Got a Secret. Palling around with host Gary Moore, who in a sign of the times is smoking a cigarette throughout the exchange, Mr. Mosconi demonstrates his “virtuosity” by doing the butterfly trick shot, pocketing six balls in one shot. He then shares with the audience his “secret”: he taught panelist Bill Cullen to do the trick shot they just witnessed.

The panel – actress Betsy Palmer (who many years later played Jason Voorhee’s mother in Friday the 13th), radio humorist Henry Morgan, former Miss America Bess Myerson, and game show host Bill Cullen – deduce that Mr. Mosconi did something billiards-related in the last 24 hours that could entertain millions, but otherwise fail to guess the secret. 

Once the veil is pulled, Mr. Cullen does indeed make the same shot to the awe of his colleagues. The show ends with Mr. Mosconi running 15 balls on a table (while announcing his record is 526) and then making a popular “railroad” trick shot using three cues and three balls.

Bill Staton

Toward the end of 1965, Bill Staton appeared on the show with the secret that he could sink all 15 balls in one shot.  Ms. Myerson guessed the secret pretty quickly, notwithstanding her reference to the cue as Bill’s “pole.” 

Mr. Staton then proceeds to set up the shot, which combines Mr. Mosconi’s aforementioned six ball trick shot, with carefully placed balls in the corner pockets and the cue strategically nestled between two balls in front of the butterfly sextet. 

As (new) host Steve Allen forewarns, the studio floor is not perfectly straight, so the shot may not work. And, in fact, Mr. Staton sinks only 14 of the 15 balls. Fortunately, the shot was also pre-recorded earlier in the day, so the audience and panel can watch the shot made successfully, both at regular speed and in stop-motion. 

While Mr. Staton appeared as a ‘normal’ contestant, for the billiards community, he became rather famous for his unwavering promotion of the sport, as shared by pool historian R.A. Dyer. Nicknamed “Weanie Beanie” for the hot dog chain he and his brother started, Mr. Staton was a world renowned pool player. He won the World’s Championship One Pocket tournament, the Virginia State Pool Championship five times, and numerous other tournaments. He also appeared on The Tonight Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and The David Frost Show. 

Jean Balukas

Ms. Balukas won the U.S. Open seven years in a row from 1972 through 1978, accumulating six world championship titles and eventually becoming the second woman inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame.

But, years before earning all those accolades and victories, she appeared on I’ve Got a Secret in 1966 at the age of just six years old.  Her secret: she gave pocket billiards exhibitions and instructions over the summer. 

The panelists, unchanged since the Mosconi appearance, ruled out singing, acting, telling jokes, working with animals, and being in the circus. But, they were otherwise completely flummoxed.

After little Jean revealed her secret, she then did a brief pool exhibition, including introducing her young sister and student, Laura, who also made some shots. Host Steve Allen summed it beautifully, “That’s what I like: a six year old hustler.”

 

Unfortunately, in 1967, CBS canceled I’ve Got a Secret, along with its other panel shows, What’s My Line? and To Tell the Truth, both of which had also featured Mr. Mosconi, in 1962 and 1958 respectively.

The #FakeBilliardsMovies Global Conspiracy

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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?  

Number One

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There are many reasons to praise Bob Geldof: founder/organizer of Band Aid and Live Aid; co-writer of the charity song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”; lead singer of the Boomtown Rats; recipient of the Man of Peace award.

Starring in Number One is not one of those reasons.

Made initially for television, but released theatrically in England in 1984, Number One is a British snooker movie that is most often referenced for its star-studded cast, including Mr. Geldof as Harry “Flash” Gordon, a down-on-his-luck Irishman who begrudgingly pursues professional snooker as a means to turn around his life.

Other well-known cast members include two-time BAFTA TV Award nominee Alison Steadman, two-time Emmy nominee Alfred Molina, and two-time BAFTA Film Award nominee Ray Winstone. Also appearing are rocker Ian Dury, director Tony Scott (True Romance, Top Gun), and a host of snooker personalities, including commentator Ted Lowe, referee John Williams, and professional player Patsy Houlihan.

Rewind to the early ‘80s in the UK, and it’s not hard to imagine why there would be excitement around a snooker movie.  The BBC had been broadcasting Pot Black, a snooker tournament series, since 1969. The 1970s and 1980s produced some of the sport’s most iconic personalities, including Steve Davis, Ray Reardon, Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, “The Whirlwind” Jimmy White, “The Comeback Kid” Dennis Taylor, and Cliff “The Grinder” Thorburn. Their matches – and rivalries – were legendary, turning these individuals into national superstars and making snooker the number one televised sport in the UK (even more popular than football). It’s no wonder this golden era was the subsequent focus of the BBC documentary When Snooker Ruled the World, the TV series Gods of Snooker, and the movie The Rack Pack.

Number One taps into this snooker zeitgeist by focusing on “Flash” Gordon, whose wayward lifestyle has left him in trouble with a pair of crooked cops and in debt to some toughies. He’s a few days away from eviction, having recently had his car repossessed. Stealing from the prostitute next door only buys him so much time, especially when he blows the money in a poker game.  

Out of options, but blessed with natural snooker talent, Flash concedes to let the bookie Billy Evans, accompanied by his henchman Mike the Throat, manage him. This includes getting Flash into the professional snooker association and ultimately on the slate to compete in the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible. Billy cleans up Flash nicely, but he cannot change Flash’s penchant for cursing, heckling opponents, throwing cues, picking fights, and even, getting tossed in jail.

Flash’s antics, his cat-and-mouse relationship with the cops, and his contentious interactions with his manager culminate at the Crucible, where he – somehow, don’t ask me how – makes it to finals to play his nemesis Brad Brookie. I won’t give away the ending, but it certainly gives poor old Ted Lowe an ulcer, even if the spectators and fans love it.

Number One not only sought to capitalize on snooker fever, but also to mine it for inspiration, primarily by (loosely) basing Mr. Geldof’s character on the colorful, fast-shooting, trouble-attracting, real-life, Irish-born, bad boy Alex Higgins, whose off-the-table behavior was front page tabloid fodder.1 Furthermore, the Flash-Brookie competition was based on the early ‘80s rivalry between Mr. Higgins and Ray Reardon.2 (Mr. Higgins won the world title for a second time in 1982 after beating Mr. Reardon 18–15, with a 135 total clearance in the final frame.)

Unfortunately, Number One, much like its American billiards movie cousin The Baltimore Bullet, has all the right ingredients, but is a mess of a movie. The first half of the film moves at a glacial pace, pummeling the one-dimensional point  that Flash is a bit of a cad, liar, hustler and cheat, all rolled into one rather unlikable and untameable guy. The second half is more interesting, but is also preposterous. Flash’s meteoric ascent to the top snooker spot is risible. There’s no reason to believe he has such skills. Most of the film’s characters are paper-thin; much of the aforementioned talent is wasted; and the movie’s chauvinism reduces the only two women to background screamers or sexpots.

Apparently, the film was screened in Sheffield (where the Crucible is located) the night before the 1984 World Championship and attended by snooker journalists. They allegedly thought it was so bad that they laughed throughout and were too embarrassed to approach Mr. Geldof afterwards.3

Number One is available for DVD purchase.  It is not currently available to stream.

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  1. Interestingly, Mr. Higgins’ most scandalous and career-damaging act came a year after the release of Number One, when he headbutted a WPBSA official after being asked to take a drugs test.
  2. This was not the only Ray Reardon rivalry to reach the silver screen. Several years later, in 1987, the snooker musical Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire focused on Mr. Reardon’s rivalry with Jimmy White. Coincidentally, both Phil Daniels (who played Billy the Kid, who is based on Mr. White) and Alun Armstrong (who played the green baize vampire Maxwell Randall, who is based on Mr. Reardon aka “Dracula”) appear in supporting roles in Number One.
  3. Snooker Scene Blog: Playing Alex (July 28, 2010).

American Chopper – “Jeanette Lee Black Widow Bike”

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Lamentably, many Amercians cannot name a professional billiards player alive today. But, among those who can, one name is likely to arise often: Jeanette Lee, aka The Black Widow.

Though Ms. Lee has lately garnered headlines for her recent announcement of stage 4 ovarian cancer (on top of the scoliosis she has fought against since age 12), her billiards accomplishments are legendary. A former No. 1 female pool player in the world; a three times runner-up at the women’s World Nine-ball Championship; the Women’s Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) Sportsperson of the Year Award in 1998; a gold medal winner for the United States at the 2001 World Games in Akita, Japan; and an inductee into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 2013.

Those achievements, coupled with her statuesque looks and distinct visual style, have led to her off-the-baize success and fame.  Ms. Lee has appeared in film (e.g., 9-Ball), television (e.g., Arli$$; Cake Boss – “Painters, Pool and Pink,”), and commercials (e.g., Ford Explorer); she has been profiled in Sports Illustrated; she has been photographed for the ESPN Body Issue; she has even authored a book:  The Black Widow’s Guide to Killer Pool: Become the Player to Beat.

So, perhaps it’s not a surprise that Ms. Lee’s cultural stardom also took her to Newburgh, New York, where she joined Paul Teutal Sr. (aka Senior) and his team at Orange County Choppers (OCC) to create a customized Black Widow motorcycle on the reality television series American Chopper.1 

Produced by Pilgrim Films & Television, American Chopper ran for six seasons, initially on the Discovery Channel and then TLC.  Ms. Lee appears in the series’ sixth season on the December 2009 episode, “Jeanette Lee Black Widow Bike.”

The episode begins with Ms. Lee entering OCC’s retail shop to demonstrate some trick shots, including hitting the 8-ball out of Senior’s mouth into the corner pocket, and then exchanging banter with Senior while playing him in several games of eightball. 

At the end of the games, Ms. Lee shares that ever since the OCC introduced their original Black Widow bike (from the first season of American Chopper), she’s been fielding calls from fans, who mistakenly think it was named after her. So, she wants one, customized for her, that she can take on the road.2 

The bulk of the episode is then focused on the assembly of her chopper. The goal is to leverage the standard Black Widow frame, but add some “wow” to make it truly unique. The decision-making process covers the tank selection, the fabrication of the fenders (with their three-dimensional webbing welding), and the simplification of the seat design.

After two days of assembly, Senior unveils the custom Black Widow bike at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Ms. Lee is participating in a WPBA tournament.  Ms. Lee looks genuinely thrilled by the chopper. Her husband, George Breedlove, looks a bit more distressed.  Asked for her reaction, Ms. Lee says, “It’s beautiful, sexy, strong, but it’s feminine…it’s hot, it’s a hot bike. I’m feeling some fire.”

The “Jeanette Lee Black Widow Bike” episode of American Chopper is available to stream on Discovery+.

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1. Interestingly, this was not the first vehicle renovation reality series to include billiards. A few years earlier, the rapper Xzibit “pimped” a 1988 Chevrolet S10 with a built-in pool table on the show Pimp My Ride.

2. In fact, OCC was commissioned by LiquidWick Pool Cues, which signed Ms. Lee to a multi-year contract at the end of 2007, to build the custom bike for her. As is made apparent at the end of the episode, Ms. Lee is not a motorcyclist, even nervously asking what is the “throttle.”

Toolsidas Junior

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Netflix Founder and Co-CEO Reed Hastings is bullish on the Indian market. At the end of 2019, he shared the company’s intent to invest $400 million in Indian content. Whether Netflix’s current financial setbacks will slow that investment is uncertain, but already the company has launched more than 90 original Indian titles. 

One of those titles, released this past May, is Toolsidas Junior, a snooker movie written and directed by Mridul Mahendra, and arguably the first full-length billiards movie to come out of Bollywood. It’s a feel-good, feels-long film about 13-year-old Midi (Varun Buddhadev), who seeks to avenge his father’s sixth and most recent loss at the 1994 Calcutta Sports Club Snooker Championship. 

Watching his father Toolsidas (Rajeev Kapoor) get humiliated by the “unbeatable” Jimmy Tandon (Dalip Tahil) stings all the more when Midi realizes that Jimmy intentionally preyed on his father’s dipsomania by plying him with liquor during a break in the match.

Unfortunately, it takes more than half the movie for that early epiphany to translate into action. After his initial attempts to learn snooker at an exclusive club hit a wall because his “feet don’t reach the floor” and he’ll “tear the (baize/felt) table,” Midi finds an available table at the Wellington YMC in the seedy, impoverished other side of town. 

There, he befriends Mohammad Salaam Bhia (Sanjay Dutt), the laconic ex-national snooker champion, whose daily snooker routine consists of alternating between hour-long naps and practices, while intimidated onlookers marvel in the background. 

Salaam Bhia finds Midi’s determination endearing, triggering an 11-month training routine, which consists of offering Midi cryptic aphorisms (e.g., “to see clearly, must befriend the darkness”) and juvenile appellations (e.g., the six colored balls are named Jaundice, Pinky, Blackie, Chocolate, Parrot, and Billoo) and admonitions (e.g., “the left hand is not used just to clean your butt”). Pop cultural references also play a role in Salaam Bhia’s regimen. Various forms of cue ball spin are analogized to the fighting styles of famous Indian action stars. For example, to hit topspin, think of Amitabh Bachchan, who always follows through on his punch.

For viewers who lament the paucity of snooker films over the past twenty years (Perfect Break, The Rack Pack, and Break notwithstanding), Toolsidas Junior will likely offer little consolation. The opening scene, with its meticulous attention to brushing, chalking, and ironing the baize before the match begins, suggests the film will devote lavish attention to billiards. But, while snooker is essential to the plot, the sport itself gets proportionally less on-camera time than one would expect. 

This is true even for the predictable ending at the 1995 championship, when Midi plays under the moniker Toolsidas Junior. The snooker sequences just don’t dazzle, though it’s difficult to begrudge the film, given it’s impossible not to root for the young cherubic underdog. 

Interestingly, Toolsidas Junior opens by saying the film is “inspired by true events,” though the closing credits clarify the film is at least semi-autobiographical for the director.  In an interview, Mr. Mahendra shared, “Snooker has been a very pivotal part of my life, especially because of the memories it beholds with my father. Toolsidas Junior depicts one of the most cherished parts of my life. I fought hard to bring my father glory back then and I wanted to do the same by making Toolsidas Junior.”

Alas, this odic film carries with it a sad epilogue. Mr. Mahendra had arranged a special screening of Toolsidas Junior for his real father and Rajiv Kapoor, who returned to acting after three decades to play Toolsidas. However, both men – the real father and the on-screen one – passed away in the same year before the film’s release.

Money Shot

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In 2016, during his final year at the New York Film Academy, director Tom Edwards created his 15-minute thesis film, Money Shot. The movie’s premise is simple: a virtual reality (VR) pool game addict (Liam) must exit the digital world and enter the real world to compete in a pool tournament to save the life of his brother (Nigel), who is indebted to a local drug lord. 

The all-or-nothing, do-or-die, billiards tournament is a familiar trope in billiards movies. From The Baron and the Kid to Stickmen, from Kiss Shot to Up Against the 8 Ball, down-and-out players have bet it all on the baize, hoping to avert bankruptcy, family dissolution, death, and all of the above.

Money Shot opens with Liam, who is frustrated that his Pure Pool VR gaming system no longer works since his roommate brother hasn’t paid the internet bill. Forced to emerge from his alt-reality, Liam can barely hold a conversation with his brother’s Tinder girlfriend, and he quickly retreats into blackness by re-donning his virtual headset.  But, when Liam learns that Nigel owes $3000 to a murderous kingpin, he throws away the VR goggles, picks up his cue stick, and heads to the local 8-ball tournament, with its $5000 grand prize, to hopefully pay off his brother’s bounty.

While the film’s camera work, editing, pacing, and use of music (“Uprising” by Muse) are quite effective, especially for a college senior, the overly convenient tournament, coupled with an uninspiring pool-playing montage (that focuses more on handshakes with fallen opponents than the strokes it took to beat them), should make Money Shot more of a table scratch in my billiards annals.

Yet, for all its overused elements, the film does pose a fascinating question that I have never encountered in almost ten years of reviewing billiards movies: does playing virtual pool make one a better real-life pool player?

Within online pool forums, the topic of virtual pool increasingly arises, starting with the verisimilitude of the leading games, such as Virtual Pool 4 (created by Celeris) or Shooterspool (created by EVEHO Ingeniería). Players share and debate the graphics, physics, and accuracy.

SportsBar VR

Less popular, but more germane to the game Liam is playing in Money Shot, are the virtual reality pool games, such as Maxi Pool Masters VR, Black Hole Pool, SportsBar VR, or the genre’s OG, PoolNation VR.  All of these games require hand controls and VR headsets (e.g., HTC Vive, Oculus Rift). As the user has no ability to physically lean on the table and line up shots, ambidextrous coordination is required to manipulate separate controls, a trigger button, and sometimes a “ghost reticle.” It’s hard to imagine mastering virtual reality pool, let alone the experience translating to the billiards hall.

Many billiards pundits and amateur players scoff at the question. They cite some plausible benefits (e.g., better understanding of angles, ball position, strategy), but otherwise deem the game largely untransferable since cue control and technique cannot be replicated. Yet, a recent study by two professors from San José State University suggests otherwise. Using the Pool Hall Pro video game, a Wii game console and a Wii game controller attached to a physical cue stick, participants were able to improve their performance on a variety of shots. The researchers concluded, “the video game system [with the haptic technology]  improved people’s real-life pool performance.”1

Regardless of the validity of the research, for the almost 400,000 of us who have watched snooker world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan try to use PoolNation VR back in 2016, the answer is likely to produce skepticism and guffaws.  (Sorry Ronnie, that looked like it hurt.) If Ronnie is falling over, what chance do the rest of us have?

Money Shot is available to watch on director Tom Edwards’ Vimeo site.

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  1. “How Haptic Feedback in a Mixed Reality Pool Game Affects Real-Life Pool Performance,” Elaine Thai and Anil R. Kumar, published in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2019 Annual Meeting.

Gamblin’

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When you think of the Baldwins, Daniel may not be the first of the four brothers that comes to mind. 

There’s Alec, of course.  

There’s Stephen, who starred in The Usual Suspects before he found religion and became a born-again Evangelical. 

There’s Billy, the former fashion model and MTV heartthrob, who steamed up the screen with Sharon Stone in Sliver and much more recently got all crazy weird in Too Old to Die Young. 

Lastly, there is Daniel, who having made the reality TV circuit on Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Celebrity Wife Swap, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, and Celebrity Big Brother, now appears in a lot of movies no one has heard of.  

Gamblin' movie posterBut in the late ‘90s, Daniel was everywhere. He’d already spent three years as Detective Beau Felton in the award-winning NBC TV series Homicide: Life on the Street. He closed out the millennium by appearing in more than 20 movies, sharing billing with popular stars such as James Woods, Ray Liotta, and Steve Buscemi.

One of those was the short billiards film Gamblin’. According to director Wayne Orkline, it wasn’t even initially intended to be a released movie. “I made it as a calling card to Hollywood…to show to studio people who might then be interested in making other films of mine,” Mr. Orkline shared with me in a  video interview a couple of years ago.

Getting Mr. Baldwin to star in Gamblin’ was a “fluke,” according to Mr. Orkline. “A friend was an acquaintance of Daniel’s. He sent him the script.  Two weeks later, my phone rings, ‘This is Daniel Baldwin. I like this script. I want to do this.’ At the time, he was making big movies [e.g, John Carpenter’s Vampires]. He said if I gave him some kind of ownership of the movie, he’d do it for free. Once he came on board, everything else came together.”

The concept for Gamblin’ – specifically, how the addiction of gambling can lead to very bad decisions – had been rattling around in Mr. Orkline’s mind for years. “I always loved sports gambling. Growing up on the East Coast, we would gamble on basketball, football games.  As I was doing it for fun, I would meet people who really had a gambling problem. I started seeing patterns. This is an addiction. Always stuck with me. I would see people do things that they wouldn’t normally do to gamble, and I thought to myself, ‘How far would a person go?’”

Without spoiling the film, the answer to that question is pretty damn far. Pike (Daniel Baldwin) is $56,000 in debt to Pappy (Carmen Angenziano). To erase the debt, Pike must beat Pappy, two out of three, in nineball. But, if he loses, he must have sex with a young woman in the room whom he knows well, but is otherwise unidentified, while Papi watches. 

The whole film occurs  in a single, dingy  billiards room, where the lighting and camera angles create a claustrophobic atmosphere.  Once the rules of the bet have been established, most of the movie’s dialogue either focuses on Pike’s futile negotiation efforts or his female compatriot’s ever-increasing pressure to win.  

Given a full day of filming was devoted to pool shots and Mr. Baldwin is comfortable with a cue stick, the primary action is watching balls get pocketed and the players’ various reactions as they inch closer to the endgame, and of course, the denouement’s sinister reveal.

The movie premiered at the LA Shorts Film Festival in 2000 to an estimated crowd of 300 people. One day later, Showtime called, saying they wanted to license the film for heavy rotation on the Sundance Channel for two years. They even picked up the music licensing costs, which were substantial, given the movie features tracks from The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers, and John Lee Hooker.  But after renewing it through 2005, Showtime permanently shelved it. (I was only able to watch Gamblin’ thanks to Mr. Orkline generously mailing me a copy.)

Unfortunately, Gamblin’ didn’t open as many doors as Mr. Orkline had hoped. He went up to Canada to work again with Mr. Baldwin on Fall: The Prince of Silence, but it was a bust. Though the two remain friends, they didn’t collaborate again. Today, Mr. Orkline writes and assists his girlfriend, the actress Kelly Mullis. 

Nonetheless, the experience of making Gamblin’ was a great joy for Mr. Orkline. Throughout our interview, he warmly and  vividly spoke about the film’s creation, recounting nuanced details from twenty years ago. 

Perhaps most rewarding was the subsequent call he got from veteran director John Carpenter (The Thing; Escape from New York; Halloween), one of Mr. Orkline’s cinematic influences. “Wayne, I loved it. I didn’t see the end coming. It was sick and twisted.”

I’m gambling Mr. Orkline didn’t see that call coming.

Hard Luck Love Song

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Avril Lavigne recently revealed that she is planning to turn her 2002 globe-spanning, Grammy-nominated, pop-punk anthem “Sk8er Boi” into a feature film.1

Hard Luck Love SongI’m no advisor to the stars, but she might want to reconsider that creative gamble. The landscape of ‘songs made into movies’ is largely a cinematic wasteland. Sure, the film Yellow Submarine was genius, Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy did decently, and Arthur Penn earned an Oscar nomination for directing Alice’s Restaurant, even if the film was a box office flop. But, outliers aside, the 80+ films in the genre represent a hodgepodge of ‘never heard of it’ and ‘wished I hadn’t watched it.’

Unfortunately, the 2020 billiards movie Hard Luck Love Song only adds to the genre’s detritus. 

Helmed by first-time director Justin Corsbie, Hard Luck Love Song is based on the 2006 folk song “Just Like Old Times” by American songwriter Todd Snider. Told in the first person, the song is the story of a pool hustler and a hooker, who having not seen one another in years, get reconnected when he sees an ad for her services in the weekly Scene. Little of the hustler’s backstory is revealed, except that he “won a tournament last week in Oklahoma City” and “hustled half of this town tonight.”

In Mr. Corsbie’s film, Jesse (Michael Dorman) is a struggling country music singer/songwriter, who is finally able to put a little cash in his pocket after overtly hustling some California locals in pool. Warned, but feeling confident, he registers for a tournament on the wrong side of town, which pits him against the heavily tattooed neighborhood chieftain Rollo (an unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney). Rather than settling for just the tournament’s pot, Jesse hustles Rollo for an additional $2000 and then narrowly escapes.

Back in his motel room and flush with cash, the movie now picks up where the song starts:

There’s a Coke machine glowin’ through the parking lot

Call it a room with a view

Best night of pool that I ever shot

I made a lot of money too

Enter Carla (Sophia Bush), the aforementioned prostitute. Jesse and Carla have real chemistry, and for a hot moment, the song/movie really works. But, after their rendezvous is interrupted by a police officer, who learns these crazy kids went to high school together in 1982, the song ends, and so does any coherence in the movie. 

Hard Luck Love SongA third act introduces Eric Roberts as an avuncular bar proprietor and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA as a former boyfriend, but basically it’s a bunch of insipid dialogue that leads to a completely preposterous fight scene, in which Rollo proves pool hustling is no way to make a living.

There is also no further pool-playing, which makes me question the classification of Hard Luck Love Song as a billiards movie, but given the lackluster pool scenes in the film’s first act, it’s probably just as well.  Seriously, I’ve seen Kelly Bundy more convincingly portray pool hustling in Married… with Children than what passes for billiards in this movie.  There are no styled shots, no set-ups, not even the de rigueur trick shot. When Rollo remarks that he’s never seen someone run a table like Jesse has, it makes you wonder what version of Skittle Pool he’s been playing.2

For a better (albeit hardly great) billiards movie originating from a song, check out The Baron and the Kid, based on Johnny Cash’s 1980 song, “The Baron.” While predictable and paper-thin, the film takes its billiards seriously (thanks, in no small part, to the technical advising of Mike Massey).  

Hard Luck Love Song is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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1. Avril Lavigne Teases ‘Sk8er Boi’ Movie That Will Take Hit Song ‘to the Next Level’

2. According to Dr. Dave Alciatore, the pros break and run in 8-ball between 20-50% of the time. Seems mighty peculiar our friend Rollo had never seen a run.