Pool hall Junkies

To 9 ball road player,

In referance to your comment about the Color of money and nothing but a cheap Joss cue. How can you say the cue was "nothing but a cheap Joss".

Did you see the cue up close in person, or even hit balls with it?

Dan Janes was the only cuemaker who was invited to build cues for that movie. Dan Janes, is a top cuemaker. He has been for decades.

How do you know it was "cheap"? Who the hell are you to judge anyway. Most folks like you take "cheap shots' at those who have devoted a life time of work to build great cues.

His cues are very good playing cues. They may not be worth as much as the Balabuska's your refering to, but he built them and was honored to have them in a movie.

Think about this, what if it was your "cheap cue" used in the movie, would you be offended or not? Most likely, the closest you will ever get to a movie is buying a ticket to see a movie.

It's an honor to have your product used in a movie, at any level, no matter who you are.

I could care less of what you think of me for defending a close friend, who has given his all to help our great sport.

You, sir, whoever you might be[you don't sign your name, so who knows?] are way out of line making comment about Dan Janes and his cues.

Who knows what, have you contributied to our sport, other than give an opinion, that is way out of line.


Mr. Dan Janes was just inducted into the American Cuemakers Hall of Fame for his contributions to the billiard industrty for the last 36 years, in Aug. 2003. Where were you, and what have you done??????

Now, go ahead and show your lack of class, and take your cheap ass attitude shots at me.
blud
 
It was a Joss J18 (I'm pretty sure) and they came out with a newer model, the N-07! I think it's a great looking cue and pretty darn close to the Balabushka appearance. The Balabushka cues were/are too rare an valuable to put in a movie, due to the risk of damage.
Good Job Dan! keep up the good work!

Zim
 
blud said:
The question is, how can pool ever have a good image, if hollywood continues to show the bad side of pool, just to sell tickets?

If we could have a movie that shows it like it is, and shows how proffesinals are makeing a living from this great sport, things would be differant. This would attract more folks to our great sport.

Not only is this my opinion, it's also the opinion from several of those who make a living building cues, selling equipment and for the most part, depend on pool and billiards to generate an income for there family's.
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Would you like a documentary about pool? If so, you might consider contacting Public Broadcasting Service Television (PBS) and asking them to do one. They will need funding though. If you can get a large enough contribution put together for them, they might be willing to talk turkey.
 
God said:
Would you like a documentary about pool? If so, you might consider contacting Public Broadcasting Service Television (PBS) and asking them to do one. They will need funding though. If you can get a large enough contribution put together for them, they might be willing to talk turkey.
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Maybe BCA or UPA should come up with those go to college or don't do drugs tv plug-ins that were being done by the NBA stars to start with. Maybe get funding from Govt agencies? There's a lot of mileage there to really help the image of pool. Good image=good sponsors; and maybe the question in one thread about the US Open small prize money will be settled.

In Manila, there's just one guy - Efren "Bata" Reyes, who leads by example. He has tremendously changed the image of pool in the country. Efren is quite a role model here, but I am sure the fashion people and the dentists will disagree to that. His number one fan had all his teeth pulled out - Ronnie Alcano. I am not kidding, he really did it because he adores Efren!
 
I liked the Baltimore Bullet. Hell I own it.

COM did not make the pool scene look all squeeky clean, it showed the scene how it is with the right amount of the darkside. PHJ made the scene look retarded, it looked nothing like pool really is and the stuff they added to embelish was lame.
 
Plato_17 said:
Dear God: why don't you just save some of your valuable time and talk to us all telepathlically giving us all the same message at the same time, then we could respond back to you with our thoughts.
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Plato: this is a forum, not a dialog. Not your preferred style I realize. And I'm ok with my time management. No worries, mate.
 
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I watched the movie a few times now and it´s quite good in my opinion. One of the best movies is stil The Hustler with Paul Newman.
 
I liked the movie. It was supposed to be silly, and it was. It was made on a very low budget and that showed. I would have prefered a serious pool movie, but you don't always get what you want. Walken kicks ass.
 
I rented this movie already prepared to dislike it because of reviews I had read on various forums. Amazingly enough, I thought it quite acceptable.

I may have been influenced because I had just seen "Once upon a time in Mexico". What a piece of crap. Actually I didn't stay much beyond Antonia Banderas unleasing the guitar/machine pistol.

Compared to that big budget Hollywood offering Pool Hall Junkies was infinitely superior.

When I walked out of "Mexico" I went over to the Nicolas Cage movie about con men. Another stinker. Should have stayed in bed.
 
I loved The Hustler. Was dis appointed in Color
of Money cause I thought they got too arty
farty with the shots. I liked Baltimore Bullet.
Seemed fairly realistic for its time. Still
waiting to see PPJ. Also, hated to see
Cruise twirling a nice stick around.
 
I rented PHJ and found it to be entertaining and the ending hustle satisfying. Brandishing a gun without using it is weak and seldom seen. Though at the Hardtimes in Belflower there was a time where guns were drawn and thousands of dollars bet were taken off of the light box but after the robbers left, the match continued with more money put up.
 
Re: bleh

Celtic said:
Movie was crap. Spoliers throughout this post, you are warned.


I think this movie was terrible. Basically this movie grabbed pieces of the hustler, the color of money, heck even the baltimore bullet and put together one of the most god aweful movies I have ever seen, nevermind pool movies. This movie was just a gimmicked up piece of crap that threw around legendary names and lame neverinamillionyears hustles and cons to try to make the movie "cool". What you get is a retarded movie that is nothing like the real pool scene.

The acting mostly sucked. Even the people who are decent actors had nothing to work with and looked pretty weak. Walken looked embarrased to be in the picture in every scene I saw him in. Main character, Mars? Bleh, he sucked, his big "what, did I stutter?" speech and over the top boy I am cool attitude made me sick. Palmerie or whatever the hell that guys name is was a joke, this guy is so typecast that he himself cannot get out of this kind of role. He did a terrible job. Ricky Schroder? Heck this guy I think did the best job of the bunch but the script and movie sucked so bad he had little to do to make himself look good. Someone handed him a graphite cue in a guitar case and told him "that is your cue". Right there he was in trouble. Even still most of his scenes on the table he was the most realistic of the people with a cold attitude while gambling. With alot better lines and alot more story I think he could have doen well.

The story. Holy hell this sucked. First off their is NO FRICKIN POOL TOUR atm. There was not when they made this movie either. The US Open is NOT $100,000 and it is NOT invite only. There is never "one player that everyone else shoots for" the pool scene these days is deep and there are alot of players that are a tossup in matches. You have Archer, Pagulayan, Reyes, Busta, Immonen, Souquet, and numerous more players that are all equally respected and feared. There is no top dog these days like the movie wanted to make out (and then NEVER said anything about that player again, heck we never even saw the guy take a shot...) Oh, and gotta love the suits. These were some seriously dressed up pool players.

Throwing out names like Boston Shorty, Jersey Red, Bucktooth, ect... like the movie did was just a stupid gimmick trying to say "look how much we know about the history of pool, isn't that cool to have in a movie!". Lame.

When you have just beat someone for $5000 and your backer comes into the can and tells you that you are dicking around and need to up the bet and empty the place it is inept to suddenly find out your backer now has $8000 total on him (after the 5 g's no less). No backer with 8 large on him would be pissing and moaning over only $5000 profit... And if he did then he better not be bitching about the action going to $20,000. The whole relationship between Joe and Mars was forced and totally unbelievable. And if you are truely a great player you are not going to disappear over a single letter thrown in the trash. Dumb forced premise.

Pool gambling is alot more subtle then they made out in this waste of film. The scene in the pool hall with the kids where they are conning people with dumb little hustles and getting into shouting matches with goons who they want to play really made our sport look retarded, it is nothing like that.

This movie knew how weak it was and therefore had to make the side story of Joe running around with his gun and endangering people. Totally unrealistic and completely moronic. OK if you get your ass kicked by a group of drug dealers and you want to get even then you do NOT leave the guy alive if you have a brain in your head. I have never seen a person in real life as stupid as Joe was running around flashing his gun and basically asking to be shot. Climactic ending, well not about pool, it was where Joe gets chased out the door by the group of drug dealers that he had threatened with.... well nothing. Really moronic character.

I could go on, I really could. One could start at the first scene of this movie and go through the entire thing pointing out things that are outright wrong, stupid, or completely not realistic. This was a terrible pool flick and does the opposite of The Color of Money by making pool look like a gangland of thugs, conmen, and whiney little bitches.


Please finish your book Keith so that someone can make it into a movie about how the pool scene actually is.... people have forgotten The Color of Money.
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I agree with you 10000%.
 
Rickw said:
"A Brooklyn Tale".
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Hey RickW,

It was actually "A Bronx tale" but I agree that was a great movie. Strange seeing Deniro in a movie and not playing the mobster.

Take care,
Koop
 
Authenticity aside, I thought that the film was really funny and have watched it at least 3 times this week. My pool playing buddies liked it as well. Beat's the daylights out of THE COLOR OF MONEY for laughs.
 
i agree, joe.

next thing you know, people are gonna be saying that The Matrix isn't realistic enough...
 
I haven't heard mention of PHJ here in Japan, so I'll have to order it from Amazon. Zim, did it play in Korean theaters?

The Hustler remains the classic pool movie. It's faithful to the book, was well made and had good acting (although I thought Piper Laurie was annoying), and ended with style. Considering how badly The Color of Money butchered Tevis' book, I took it to be little more than a Tom Cruise vehicle; but with Paul Newman doing his thing and appearances from Grady, Keith, Miz, etc., the movie has its saving graces. Chalk didn't do pool's image any favors, but it's an excellent art house film. I bought The Baltimore Bullet last month and enjoyed it for the gag that it is.
 
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