Poolhalls and Bar Brawls

Last night I started thinking about some of my favorite things to do that I have no skill in. The first thing that came to mind was interaction with females, but since no one wants to hear about that I thought we could discuss billiards. Pool is a great past time with a marvelled history which inludes its professional leagues that are dominated by asian women. This of course led to me thinking about my favorite films that feature pool and billiards, either as a plot device or just something being done in the background. -The Hustler & Color of Money  Let's get the blatantly obvious two out of the way first. The Hustler is a great film through and through. The story follows Fast Eddie Felson as he tries to rebuild a life after a disastrous pool match with Minnesota Fats, but ultimately rises again to challenge the pool hall legend. Paul Newman is brilliant as Fast Eddie Felson in both films and Jackie Gleason was never better than he was in this role as Minnesota Fats. The first film is just a great redemption story in my mind, with Eddie just working back to where he was in that first match with Minnesota Fats. Movie has a great recurring theme of obsession and its just a pleasure to watch so many great performances.  Then you've got the Color of Money. How can you possibly make a follow up to the Hustler and expect it to be any good at all? You get Martin Scorsese to direct it and all the pieces will fall into place. Based on the follow up novel from the writer of the Hustler, in this one Paul Newman slips seamlessly back into the role of Fast Eddie Felson. This time around though he plays more of the mentor role to Tom Cruise's Vincent Lauria, while also nurturing a rivalry. The Color of Money is definitely more fun than the Hustler was, but the Hustler just feels more satisfying. Newman though, whew, he may have won an Oscar for Color of Money, but he earned it on the Hustler. - Poolhall Junkies You know the scene in Boiler Room where all of the stock brokers are just standing around watching and quoting Wall Street? The characters in this film almost feel like they would do the same thing with the Color of Money. This movie is great, it's not Academy award great, but it is solid entertainment. All of the actors bring their A game to a film that kinda feels like it wants to be more than people expect of it. None more so than the king of the movie monologue, Christopher Walken. When he delivers a monologue at the end of the film, you are sold. It is one of the highlights of not only this film, but one of the absolute best speeches he's given.   In addition to some solid acting from a top notch cast, this film is pretty quotable. The writing is fun and bouncy and the characters are solid. The story follows a gifted pool player who walks away from the game when he's had enough of a street grifter(Chazz Palminteri in fine form) taking advantage of his talent. He gets pooled (Get it... cuz I spelled it pooled instead of pulled? Oh shut up) back into the game when his talented (but not quite gifted) little brother get's in over his head with the same grifter who ruined his brother's life. I highly recommend this fun movie.   - Necessary Roughness Let's say you are the worst team in your NCAA division/conference and you need to cut loose a little and relax by playing some pool at your local honkeytonk/rodeo/poolhall/bar. What do you do when the #1 team from a completely different part of the state somehow manages to end up at the same honkeytonk/rodeo/poolhall/bar and stats picking a fight? You pause your enjoyable game of billiards and you have yourself a scuffle, that's what. About halfway through this very formulaic comedy about a shitty football team this is exactly what happens. Now for the fun twist that gets the movie on the list. After the fight the dean comes down to the bar to expel all the football players for fighting. He then comes upon a scene of the local sherriff and the head coach playing a friendly round of pool to cover up that the brawl ever happened so that the #1 team in the country can stay #1 and not get into trouble. So here's all these guys who have just beaten each other to hell trying to play pool together while the sherriff is poking the dean in the chest, comedy ensues... at some point... in this movie. -Rush Hour As mentioned in the above mention, fights in poolhalls are fun. But how do you up the ante on the classic poolhall fight? You put Jackie Chan in the poolhall fight. Jackie Chan + Poolhall Fight + Racial Slur = Comedy Gold. - Dazed and Confused  In addition to being a great movie this movie also has valuable lessons to teach. Such as Ben Affleck using the, "Watch and learn boys" Method of teaching pool. Also a valuable commodity when playing the pool is having an underage kid, far younger than yourself, go fetch you beer. -American Pie So you're probably wondering, "Hey, where's the sex on a pool table?" That's where American Pie comes in. Eddie Kaye Thomas as Finch is, in my mind, one of the best characters to have sex with someone else's mom in a teen sex comedy in the last 7 years. I just love the amount of shit this guy has to take during the movie from Stifler and then to get one back by boning his mom on the pool table is great. Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler's mom is perfect, although she's definitely not the MILF she once was. I look back at this movie fondly and remember when this movie wasn't being shit canned with crappy direct to video sequels. At this point you should know how it works. Comment on some of your favorite pool playing scenes or pool themed movies. The above movies can be found at Scarecrow in the following places - The Hustler - Rossen, Robert (Directors) Color of Money - Scorsese, Martin (Directors) Poolhall Junkies - Independent Drama (Drama) Necessary Roughness - Comedy (Comedy) Rush Hour - Bang! (Action) Dazed and Confused - Linklater, Richard (Directors) American Pie - Comedy (Comedy)