Tag Archives: billiards

Dirty Pool

A common movie trope is the pairing of two adversaries who suddenly find shared ground against a larger enemy.  Thor and Loki uniting against the Dark Elves (Thor: The Dark World).  Rocky and Apollo partnering to defeat Clubber Lang (Rocky III).  Professor X and Magneto setting aside their differences to combat William Stryker (X2: X-Men). Maverick and Iceman channeling their testosterone to fight the Russians (Top Gun).

Dirty PoolThe list goes on and on. But one entry unlikely to be on your radar are the two pool players who star in the entertaining two-minute animated film Dirty Pool. Created in 2016 by Canadian animator Brent Forrest, the film was a finalist at the 2016 Los Angeles Cinefest and was a winner at the 2016 MindField Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Set in a pool hall with a cool jazz background track, Dirty Pool pits two men against one another in a game of pool. The film begins with all the standard pre-game rituals of billiards, including cue assembly, chalking, and racking.  One of the men exudes confidence, the other is nervous Nellie.  When one opponent sinks the 8-ball on the break, a minor tussle occurs, setting off a Rube Goldbergian set of escalating events. Bulbs break, cue sticks clatter, a fire extinguisher goes off, and a lone 8-ball hurls across the pool hall breaking the beer steins of a trio of (much) larger men. And, thus, a new shared enemy is born. The film, which Mr. Forrest worked for a year after hours and on weekends, is available to watch here.

I only learned about the film two months ago when Mr. Forrest contacted me about it.  He kindly responded to my questions via email.  Excerpts of that exchange follow.

Why did you create Dirty Pool?

When I was very young and people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was always a Disney Animator.  In my last year of high school, I got an internship at a small studio in Toronto. In time, I started assisting with shots and gradually learned the ins and outs of production and watched as the studio shifted from 2D to 3D.  Instead of going to college I stayed there for six years.

In the years since then I have been working “in animation” but mostly doing special effects, compositing, rigging, modelling, editing, basically everything but character work.  I still want to animate, but my demo reel doesn’t have much character animation on it, and no one is going to hire an animator without a strong reel.  So, I decided to make my own film – focusing strictly on animation.  That’s why I used the free Malcolm rig – this wasn’t about rigging or modelling or being a “generalist” (I hate that term), this was all about animation.  It’s a passion project, but with a set goal.

You said it’s largely based on a true story.  Can you elaborate?

​We spent so much time at the pool hall next door, the boss eventually bought a table for the studio.  We had our own team on the league, and the relationship between the two players is how I saw my own relationship to my old mentors.​  This was an idea that was born in the early days of my career, playing pool with other animators from that studio.

Why is the film dedicated to the Charlotte Room?

The Charlotte Room is the pool hall where we used to play.  It [closed in 2015], another casualty of the unending condo development in Toronto.  I tried to recreate the environment from photos and memory.

You indicated you improved the ending. What changes to the ending did you make?

Dirty Pool​Originally, the ball just went flying then we cut to the pint glasses being knocked over. My wife suggested I add a series of escalating events with the ball crashing around. Since it didn’t require any more character animation I set up a series of effects shots – a little bit of everything, shattering glass, soft-body dynamics, sparks, fluids, flashing red lights.  It took about three weeks to add.

Why do you describe Dirty Pool as a “timeless tale of good vs not so good”?

I see a lot of animated films described as ‘deep ​testament’ to this that or the other.  Mine is just a cartoon.  A pratfall, gag upon gag.  I wanted to take the piss out of the more serious short animated films. Mine wasn’t about the “duality of man” or the “perseverance of the human spirit,” it was just about fun.

What is your personal experience with pool?

​Always make sure everyone is watching when you attempt that huge cross table bank shot.  No one will care if you don’t make it but everyone will remember if you do.  Oh, and have a little dance prepared for when you sink it.

To learn more about Mr. Forrest or to contact him directly, visit his website.

Top 15 #FakeBilliardsMovie

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

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

Fresh Off the Boat – “Keep ‘Em Separated”

In my previous blog post, on the 2014 movie Second Chance, I highlighted that it was the first film to originate from Taiwan focused on billiards, which was ironic, given nearly 10% of the Taiwanese population plays billiards, second only to baseball in sports popularity.

Fresh Off the BoatFor this reason then, it’s hardly surprising that the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, about a Taiwanese family’s journey from Washington DC’s Chinatown to Orlando, Florida, prominently featured billiards in its March 2016 Season 2 episode, “Keep ‘Em Separated.”

Fresh Off the Boat, now in its third season, is the first American sitcom in more than 20 years to prominently feature an Asian-American family on a major network during a primetime slot. Starring Randall Park as Louis Huang and the comically sharp Constance Wu as his wife Jessica, the show highlights daily life as the family opens a cowboy-themed steak restaurant in 1995.

In “Keep ‘Em Separated,” the premise is that Louis now has a lot of free time because he’s no longer personally responsible for closing the restaurant. That’s creating a lot of tension on the home front, since Louis is continually interrupting Jessica’s ‘girl time’ with her next door BFF Honey.  Deciding that he should get back into pool, Jessica surprises her husband by unveiling his retired now re-tipped cue stick, Black Ball Betty, which Louis explains is “not a bo staff [but] a different kind of weapon…a two piece low deflection maple staff pool cue.”

Emboldened by the reunion with Black Ball Betty, Louis – aka Louis Short Pocket – heads over to the Cue Tips Pool Hall, where he has a great night: “Cheap beer, non-stop [George] Thorogood on the jukebox, the smell of Camel Lights and desperation.” This pleases Jessica silly, until she learns that Louis’ billiards partner is a woman named Toni.

Fresh Off the BoatThe introduction of Toni (Angelique Cabral) provides the episode’s funniest moments.  Entering Cue Tips to the sound of Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet,” a “song that can make everything sexy,” Toni struts out in stiletto heels, skin-tight black jeans, and a spaghetti strap top, then delicately blows billows of red chalk dust into the air from the tip of her cue stick.

Jessica, who subscribes to the When Harry Met Sally school of thought that men and women cannot be friends, immediately interrogates Toni, with both needle-sharp questions (“Why did your parents name you Toni?  It’s a man’s name.”) and over-the-top comments (“You have no power here, witch…you heard me, demon.”)

The madcap situation continues when Jessica insists that Louis drop Toni and make her his partner instead.  Expectations run high as Jessica then enters the pool hall to ZZ Top’s “La Grange” in red heels, black leather pants, and wind (?!) blowing her hair.  But, the fantasy quickly crash lands back on Planet Earth, with Jessica swapping the heels for Keds, missing simple shots, and using all the quarters on the table to put Amy Grant on repeat on the jukebox. She laments, “Pool is so boring, there is so much standing around…it’s worse than baseball.”

The episode comes to closure as Jessica ultimately concedes she doesn’t want to be a “wet blanket wife” and realizes that Louis will have far more fun shooting with someone who can play.  That said, she still insists, “no touching and always show the wedding ring.”

Unfortunately, while “Keep ‘Em Separated” provides its share of good laughs, it is completely lacking in good pool.  Admittedly, I was hopeful, as I first learned about the existence of this episode from Trickshot Tim Chin, who was the billiards technical advisor during filming.   But, as Tim posted in his December 2015 blog:

It came together real fast with the director calling me the week beforehand and I was glad I wasn’t busy. I got to coach Randall Park, who plays Louis Huang, and Angelique Cabral, who plays Tony, on how to look like a pool player. Unfortunately, the team didn’t really put my trick shot skills to great use due to the time constraints of filming, but the actors did quite well on their own and improved tremendously in the short time I had with them.[1]

The Fresh Off the Boat “Keep ‘Em Separated” episode is available to purchase through YouTube.

[1]      http://www.trickshottim.com/learn/trick-shot-tim-pool-ta/

 

Second Chance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once again, cue “The Look.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By the Baize

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Wanted!] Running Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1]      

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

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

Rated B for Billiards: Top 10 Billiards Bedroom Scenes

Certainly, ever since Marilyn Chambers got ravished on the snooker table by the gardener of her father’s estate in the 1980 pornographic classic Insatiable, the billiards room has been the locus of many sexual encounters, dalliances, and romps in film.  The scenes have ranged from the erotic or coquettish (e.g., Cinderella Liberty) to the brutal and vicious (e.g., Watchmen; Unholy Rollers).  Something about balls, sticks, long flat felted surfaces, and the 30-inch height of a pool table that lends itself to cinematic lechery.  I therefore present my Top 10 Bedroom Billiards Scenes (though, practically speaking, none of these occur in the bedroom) for your consumption, amusement, and critique. Enjoy!  #NSFW

  1. pool table sceneBedazzled. Director Harold Ramis chose in 2000 to remake the original 1967 Bedazzled by casting Brendan Fraser as Elliot Richards and pin-up goddess Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil in this film about a hopeless dweeb granted seven wishes to snare the girl of his dreams in exchange for his soul. In this early scene from the movie, the Devil seduces Elliot into having a conversation, but not before rendering him tongue-tied with her body-rocking dress and her break that pockets 15 balls in one shot.
  1. pool table sceneDays of Our Lives. At some point in 1992, the daytime soap opera aired an episode, which included this scene, reuniting Carly Manning (Crystal Chappell) and Bo Brady (Peter Reckell), who engage in some truly McCheesy dancing to Joe Cocker’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” Of course, Carly didn’t leave a lot else on, as Bo picks her up and mounts her on the table, effortlessly rolling the cue ball into the corner pocket for maximum effect.
  1. pool table sceneScorned. Shannon Tweed, wife of KISS frontman Gene Simmons and the star of roughly 60 erotic thrillers, doesn’t have time to finish her billiards stroke before Andrew Stevens begins his with a little backdoor billiards in this scene from the ever-missable, softcore 1994 thriller. Amazingly, this film even spawned a sequel, albeit with no billiards scene.
  1. pool table sceneBody Chemistry 4: Full Exposure. One year after Scorned, Ms. Tweed is (literally) back on the billiards table in this 1995 straight-to-video softcore film. Dispensing with any pretension of being used to play pool, the billiards table in this scene is simply another setting for Ms. Tweed to disrobe, writhe, gyrate, moan, arch, and express her curious comfort with getting nailed on the baize.
  1. pool table sceneAnd God Created Woman. Thirty-two years after Roger Vadim directed the French film Et Dieu Créa La Femme (And God Created Woman), he remade the film under the same name in 1988, this time casting the seductive Rebecca De Mornay as the vamp Robin Shea. In this billiards scene, where the “winner says do, and the loser does,” Shea memorializes her victory over James Tiernan (Frank Langella) with the command that he get down on his knees, remove her underwear, and perform oral sex on the table.
  1. pool table sceneAlfie. In this scene from the 2004 film about a cockney womanizer learning the hard way about the dangers of his actions, Alfie (Jude Law) and Lonette (Nia Long) strut around a purple felt billiards table, playing “I Never,” and alternating among shots of pool, shots of 1800 tequila, and shots of Lonette’s cleavage. Jukebox tunes from Teddy Pendergrass (“Love T.K.O.”) and The Isley Brothers (“For the Love of You”) ensure Alfie will do more scoring tonight than just on the table.
  1. pool table sceneFemme Fatale. In 2002, Brian De Palma cast supermodel Rebecca Romjin in this crime drama about an ex con-woman Laure/Lily trying to put her life back in order. The mediocre movie, now largely forgotten, did turn heads and raise the adrenaline with its seductive opening pool table scene. The scantily clad Romjin engages in a slow strip tease that shows no skin, but suggests everything. The sudden juxtaposition of sex and the ensuing violence is equally memorable.
  1. pool table sceneMen in Hope (original title: Muzi v Nadeji). The film poster notwithstanding, this 2011 Czech film has nothing to do with billiards, except for this one lascivious scene in which the bodacious Sarlota (Vica Kerekes) enters the parlor, wearing a skin-tight, eye-poppingly-open, red mini-dress, and is introduced to Ondrej (Jirí Machácek). Along with Ondrej’s father, the trio begin to play three-cushion billiards. Sarlota’s cleavage distracts from the game, but that’s fiddlesticks compared to the delirium subsequently caused by Sarlota shimmying out of her pink underwear and using it as a hair tie, presumably so she can aim better.
  1. pool table sceneRed Shoe Diaries – “Double or Nothing.” Zalman King’s popular erotic Showtime drama series was formulaic with its lite-plot stories of sexual awakening that combined nudity, soft lens cinematography and mood music. In this 1992 episode, the super-sultry Paula Barbieri stars as a woman who is forced to survive by relying on her pool-playing skills…which naturally involves assuming all sorts of positions on a pool table.

 

  1. pool table sceneThe Last Picture Show. Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 Best Picture about the coming-of-age of a group of 1950s high schoolers is worth watching for countless reasons, but the billiards sex scene is certainly among the most unforgettable. Jacy Farrow (a 21-year-old Cybill Shepherd) lures Abilene (Clu Gallagher), her mom’s older lover, to an empty pool hall, where a brief attempt to play pool is replaced with Abilene having sex with Jacy on the table. The close-ups of Jacy’s hands reaching through the netting of the table’s pockets will stain your memory for some time.

Phew, I’m sweating.  Well, if you can still focus your attention, let me know what would be on your Top 10 list.  And, no, Two Nude Girls Playing Billiards doesn’t count.  Of course, with the forthcoming production of 50 Shades Darker (2017), which may include the highly-gossiped billiards scene (cf. “I am going to spank you, then fuck you over this billiard table.”), I may need to revisit my rankings in the near future.

pool table scene

The New Show – “The Hustler”

FATS:  Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?

FATS:  Hundred dollars?

EDDIE:  Well, you shoot big-time pool, Fats. I mean, that’s what everybody says, you shoot big-time pool. Let’s make it two hundred dollars a game.

FATS:  Now I know why they call you Fast Eddie. Eddie, you talk my kind of talk… (moving to the main table) Sausage! Rack ’em up!

As any billiards cinephile knows, these are some of the indelible lines penned by Sidney Carroll and Robert Rossen for the 1961 film The Hustler. The exchange marks the first interaction between Paul Newman (as “Fast” Eddie Felson) and Jackie Gleason (as Minnesota Fats). The dialogue is so precise that the actors’ voices are audible and instantly recognizable from the printed word alone.

Twenty-three years later, in the 1984 “The Hustler” sequence from The New Show, these words are uttered almost verbatim by the same characters, shot in B&W in a cinematographic feel identical to that created by Eugene Shuftan in The Hustler.  But, replacing Mr. Newman and Mr. Gleason are two very different actors: Kevin Kline (as Eddie) and John Candy (as Fats).  The full sequence is below:

Is this a remake?  Are we going to watch a shot-for-shot reenactment, like Gus Van Sant’s 1998 treatment of Psycho?

For those familiar with The New Show, Lorne Michaels’ NBC sketch comedy that aired during the 1983–84 television season, the answer, of course, is no.  There is anticipation that though the dialogue, framing, music, and cinematography all mimic the original The Hustler, something is hopefully about to become wildly different and madcap.  And, boy does The New Show send-up of The Hustler not disappoint!

New ShowOnce Sausage has racked the balls, and the two players have lagged for break, Fats prepares to break and…miscues. His ingenuous follow-up response is priceless:  “Wait, I wasn’t ready for that.  Can I take that again?” For Eddie’s turn, after asking if you need to call balls (“No, you don’t need to call them.  Except the 8-ball.  That you must call.”), he misses wildly on his break, caroming the cue off of several rails without touching the rack.

And so it goes, turn after turn. As Kenyon Hopkins’ noirish score from The Hustler marks the slow passing of the hours, Eddie and Fats miss, scratch, and scratch some more, until a line of nine balls have been put back on the table, penalizing the players for their ineptitude. Fats shares, “It’s time to get something going here Eddie. Maybe a little old-fashioned bangy ball.”

New ShowMore hours pass, the hands of the clock rotating speedily, the cigarette butts amassing on the floor, and still the chalkboard reads, “Game One.” The two players, feuding after 16 hours, about whether the $200 bet really counted, collapse on the table, exhausted.  Fats proposes, “Let’s clear all the balls off the table except the 8-ball and the cue ball. Whoever sinks it is the winner.”   I won’t reveal the ending, but it’s consistent with the previous lunacy.

“The New Show” was intended to mark Mr. Michaels’ return to television, after a five-year hiatus from Saturday Night Live. The comedy show appeared on Fridays, not Saturdays, in prime time, not late night. It was filmed “mock live,”not live, and featured three guest stars, who rotated from show to show, instead of one host. These decisions were intended to differentiate it from SNL.  But, even with its incredible rotating cast of characters (Kevin Kline, John Candy, Steve Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Buck Henry, Jeff Goldblum, Gilda Radner, Raul Julia, Penny Marshall, and Laraine Newman), the show was a ratings disaster. It ran for just nine episodes before getting canned as the lowest rated of 94 programs during the 1983-1984 television season.

If you are like me, and you are only experiencing the joy of watching “The Hustler” for the first time via this blog or seeing it recently posted on YouTube, then we collectively owe a huge amount of gratitude to Tor Lowry, a managing member of Zero-X Billiards and the creator of the billiards web series, 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment.

For over the past year, Mr. Lowry had been on a personal quest to locate “The Hustler.”  Other clips from The New Show (e.g., “Roy’s Food Repair”, “The Twilight Zonettes”) had been available on YouTube for some time, but only the first several minutes of “The Hustler” were viewable, prior to Mr. Lowry’s successful sleuthing. (I even reached out to the New York Paley Center for Media, with their library of 160,000 television shows, radio programs and commercials, on Mr. Lowry’s behalf, only to come up empty.)  Mr. Lowry finally located someone who had recorded the episode on VHS, and subsequently transferred the recording to YouTube, making it viewable for all.

Given “The Hustler” has already racked up almost 16,000 views in less than a month, there is perhaps hope that this short-lived series may one day be available again to watch.

Help Me Find These Three Billiards Short Films

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

billiards short films

An uncredited Willie Mosconi in The Hustler

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

Take a Cue

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

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

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

Champion of the Cue

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

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

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

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

Nineball

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

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

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

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

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

Three short films.

Three BCA Hall of Famers.

Three missing movies.

Please help me find them.

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

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

 

A Minute with Stan Hooper – “The Hustler”

Stan HooperThe Fox sitcom A Minute with Stan Hooper pretty much came and went in about that much time. Premiering in late 2003, the series was cancelled after the first six episodes aired. That’s too bad. Based on the third episode, entitled “The Hustler,” the sitcom had some comedic promise, attributable in no small part to the offbeat humor of the show’s creators and writers Norm MacDonald (Saturday Night Live) and Barry Kemp (Newhart).

For those who blinked and missed this series, A Minute with Stan Hooper featured Norm MacDonald in the titular role as a famous newspaper columnist turned television commentator, who moves his family from New York to (fictional) small-town Waterford Falls, Wisconsin, where he hopes to connect with middle America in order to grow the viewership of his weekly minute-long television commentaries.

Stan HooperIn “The Hustler,” Stan is invited out by Lou Peterson (Garrett Dillahunt from Raising Hope), one of the locals, to “shoot a little pool, drink a little beer” at Jimmy’s Tavern, where they will play billiards for “nickels and dimes.” Feeling this will give him a chance to connect with the town’s denizens, he readily agrees and goes to the bar, where humorously everyone is named Jimmy. But, when he sees Lou unsheathe his cue stick and go through his routine of polishing and chalking, he questions if he is being hustled.

That suspicion increases after Stan sees Lou miss wildly on his shot after the break. Yet, the gaffe elicits “oohs” and “aahs” from the bystanders, and Lou’s good friend Jimmy consoles him with, “That was close.” Stan, who has already admitted he is not very good, botches his next shot, prompting Fred (the ever reliable Fred Willard) to share, “Gents, this has all the making of a great one.”

Confused? So is Stan. The television viewer’s vantage shifts from eye-level to birds-eye, hovering over the pool table, as simple shot after simple shot is horribly missed.   When Stan finally makes a gimme in the side pocket, the locals go crazy. Stan dryly retorts, “I’ve made three balls in 90 minutes.”

Finally, as the game hits the three-and-half-hour mark, according to a clock in the tavern, Stan lines up to shoot the 8-ball. Lou, drenched with sweat, shudders, “He’s not going to sink the 8-ball. That’s the hardest one.” And Fred, with an inside reference to Minnesota Fats’ character in The Hustler, says to all, “You are watching an artist. Watch that fat man [Stan] shoot with his fat hands.”

When Stan wins the game by five balls, he is owed “two dimes and a nickel,” which he learns does not equal 25 cents, but is equivalent to $2500, an enormous sum that will force Lou to close his diner to pay the bet. Stan later inquires why they play for such high stakes. The answer, according to Fred, is “they’re simple folks. It makes them feel important. And because no one plays well enough to finish a game, no one has ever lost. Until now.”   The remainder of the episode focuses on Stan’s ill-conceived attempts to return the $2500 to Lou. The full episode is available to watch here.

“The Hustler” is not the first television episode to focus on pathetic pool.   In the 1996 “City Slackers” episode of Boy Meets World, Eric challenges an opponent to a game of pool to win the heart of a girl, but his plan fails after “15 hours of someone yet sinking a ball.” A far more interesting spin on bad pool is the episode “Water Park” from Malcolm in the Middle, in which Malcolm’s older brother Francis competes with his Commandant to see who can lose in eight-ball in the most spectacular fashion. But, perhaps, the most hilarious take on bad billiards is from the 1984 “The Hustler” skit for The New Show, in which “Fast” Eddie Felson (Kevin Kline) challenges the Fat Man (John Candy) to $200/games of pool, and both proceed to shoot horribly.