Has anyone seen 'Poolhall Junkies'?

fxskater

Ryan The Salmon Arm Lynn
Silver Member
I was just wondering if anyone had seen Poolhall Junkies. I saw it a little while ago. I thought it was pretty good, and fairly well written. Mars Callahan played his role pretty damn good and reminded me alot of Ed Norton. Only thing that really pissed me off about this movie was that it obviously wasn't made by someone that knows anything about pool. About 5 times i noticed in quick shots that the 5 was shot before the 4 or the 8 before the 7. Little things like that annoyed me a little but it still didnt take much away from the movie. The thing that did piss me off and took away from my enjoyment of the movie was the constant playing of shape for bank shots. And every shot was pretty much played at max speed. They didn't really have any touch. Nevertheless it was still a awesome movie and i would recommend that everyone sees it. Anyone that has seen it please leave a few comments, I'd like to know what other pool players thought of it.
 
I thought the movie was worth a watch.

I wish it had not shown only the dark side of the game...but it was still a good vid.

Chuck
 
fxskater said:
,,,, The thing that did piss me off and took away from my enjoyment of the movie was the constant playing of shape for bank shots. And every shot was pretty much played at max speed. They didn't really have any touch. ..

it's dramatic liscense. otherwise the game would be too boring to film.

other things you see in "movie" pool besides barrel-o-bank shots.....

several balls made with one shot....

an inordinate amount of combination shots....

same for masse shots....

stop shot position on EVERYTHING....

bad bridges....

missing ducks(have you ever noticed that the "adversary", and even the protagonist,,, always misses a duck to stop his run. and the shot is always the same...the OB is a gimme, several inches from the pocket. and the player slow rolls a shot that hits the tittie)
 
i think they took it out of theatres here already...i just missed it...it was on just about a month ago...and my friends got to watch it.
 
It'll probably be on video this summer.
The movie sukked imo.:D
Acting was bad. Dialog, laugheable. Cinematography was video cam quality. Pool shots were terrible.
If you take out Walken and Chaz. Palmenteri, the movie would have been a full-blow B-movie.
I wish they just spent a little more money and made into an HBO movie. With HBO's money, they probably could have made it better.
 
It seamed like parts of the movie that would have helped explain things more were cut out.
For example;
The cue used at the end, why was it in a display case (the kind you would use show of a prized object, not the kind you use to sell things). It would have made things flow if they had said it once belonged to a past champion, or was a priceless cue of some kind.
It was an ok movie, but it could have been a lot better, no where near the COM.
 
I have the movie on dvd and I`ve watched it twice.I personally thought it was pretty good.I loved Walken and Chaz.I thought Mars was pretty good too.Yeah,most of the shots we`re combo`s,caroms or trick shots but that is done to appeal to the masses.i.e.the non pool playing moviegoer.
Just to give my opinion on some the earlier posts in this thread,
Mike,from what I`ve heard Mars Callahan is a shortstop caliber of player(I don`t know 1st hand).
Joseph cues didn`t like the movie and I agree everyone`s entitled to their opinion but to say the cinematography was video cam quality isn`t a fair statement IMHO.The movie was professionally filmed and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the cinematography.The editing however leaves a little to be desired.There are several cut shots that were used more than once in the film.
Carlton,I know the cue that was in the case at the end is a Southwest that was given to the producers for use in the film as part of a advertising deal.If you notice there are Southwest Banners hanging in the background in almost every pool shooting scene.I agree it would have been cool if they incorporated some type of significance to stick.
"You know Johnny,this stick was used by Willie Mosconi to win his 1st world championship and now it`s yours to use for this match.Do us proud son."
Overall I liked,I think most of you will too.

George
 
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To be honest I was a little disappointed with the movie, maybe my expectations were too high....Gerald Huber, author, "The Green Felt Jungle".
 
It's entertaining if you don't expect too much of it. As someone else remarked recently, it's kind of ridiculous to have those trick "hustles" become a prominent part of the movie.
 
Phj

I love this movie. It's probably my favorite performance by Christopher Walken. I think the movie was released in '03 so it's been out on DVD for a while. I couldn't find it anywhere so I bought it on Ebay and got 2 copies by mistake.
 
good movie

I liked this movie, so I bought it. Some parts of it are slow, but for the most-part..I like it! It was definitely entertaining, to say the least. lol
 
I must confess something:

Two weeks ago was the first time I ever watched Poolhall Junkies. All I gotta say was that Mars Calahan was OK, Walken is unstopable, and everybody else needed better parts. I thought that the antagonist (the one played as Joe) needed to be a little stronger; but Palmineri had that "did I studder or something..." catch phrase at the end very nicely. Needed a better girl instead of Clint's daughter. Erney Reyes Jr. needs to get back to his karate (only time I liked him is when he was in Ninja Turtles as Keno when I was a youngster, lol). I was begging for Mike Massey (or St. Louis Louie) to pull off a trick shot; didn't happen. Boston Shorty looked kinda like himself. And the actor that played Reds didn't convinced me too much.
 
It was okay... I think people want to like it more than it deserves because it's a pool movie and we all want there to be more than just 2 good pool movies.* Even with walken it's just "ok" and the personality of our hero I found to be pretty unlikeable. I was rooting for him to die.

It's too bad, pool has so many opportunities for colorful language and comedy and nobody really tackles it properly. Some of the funniest stuff I've heard in my life is just the everday phrases some people use to describe bad shots or general misfortune on the table.

* but there really aren't :/
 
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