The Color of Money -- 22 years later.
- Thread starter 9BallPaul
- Start date
TCOM Haters
Wow, it's strange for me to read so much hatred for The Color of Money.
I was a teenager when it came out, and that movie basically created a whole new generation of pool players.
Sure, the pool scenes were kind of cheesy, but it's not nearly the terrible movie it's being made out to be here on this forum. It's very entertaining, and it's not really about pool.
If you want to see a movie about pool, it would have to be a documentary. TCOM is a drama, about a young man coming of age and an old man accepting his role in the big scheme of things.
I agree with everyone on one point though, The Hustler is the better movie. Of course, The Hustler is better than most movies. It's not really about pool either, there isn't much pool playing in it at all.
Cruise was very young in TCOM, and Newman was picking up a character he played decades before. It's a good movie for what it is, and not all movies age as well as The Hustler.
Wow, it's strange for me to read so much hatred for The Color of Money.
I was a teenager when it came out, and that movie basically created a whole new generation of pool players.
Sure, the pool scenes were kind of cheesy, but it's not nearly the terrible movie it's being made out to be here on this forum. It's very entertaining, and it's not really about pool.
If you want to see a movie about pool, it would have to be a documentary. TCOM is a drama, about a young man coming of age and an old man accepting his role in the big scheme of things.
I agree with everyone on one point though, The Hustler is the better movie. Of course, The Hustler is better than most movies. It's not really about pool either, there isn't much pool playing in it at all.
Cruise was very young in TCOM, and Newman was picking up a character he played decades before. It's a good movie for what it is, and not all movies age as well as The Hustler.
I think we all would have loved seeing that...especially Jackie Gleason. Alas, he passed away before COM was filmed...:sorry:
The Color of Money did more to jump start the pool scene in the 80s and 90s than any other event. All the guys that whine and b1tch about wanting pool to be "how it used to be"...you know...HALF THIS BOARD! They should pray that another big budget cr@ppy movie comes out about pool every 5 years. A movie that tells all the mediocre B level players they can BE somebody. All the C level players they can get rich quick and not work for it. Those are the suckers that drove the economy of pool for almost 20 years. We are lucky to have the svckfest known as TCOM. It supported many a pool room/ road player/ billiard company over the past few decades. Enough of the complaining already.
Gee I dunno. "TCOM the movie" and "TCOM and the pool scene" are two different issues to me.
There definitely was a connection between TCOM and the last big pool boom in the late 80's and early 90's. It was the all time box office hit in Japan and looked what happened over there.
I wasn't thrilled with the movie either, since it was not faithful to Walter Tevis' book, but no question it was good for pool.
I liked TCOM.
I still do!
If you compare it with the Hustler then maybe TCOM will not do so well.
But if you compare TCOM to any other pool movie that comes along after that. Then TCOM IS KING!!!!!!
Take away the Hustler, TCOM is the BEST POOL MOVIE EVER!!!!!
With the way things are, i think it may be unlikely that there will ever be a big budget pool movie to be in production again. Good luck trying to get a Martin Scorcese or a Tom Cruise like people to do another pool movie. Maybe they would do one as a tribute to Paul Newman. hopefully. Please?
I still do!
If you compare it with the Hustler then maybe TCOM will not do so well.
But if you compare TCOM to any other pool movie that comes along after that. Then TCOM IS KING!!!!!!
Take away the Hustler, TCOM is the BEST POOL MOVIE EVER!!!!!
With the way things are, i think it may be unlikely that there will ever be a big budget pool movie to be in production again. Good luck trying to get a Martin Scorcese or a Tom Cruise like people to do another pool movie. Maybe they would do one as a tribute to Paul Newman. hopefully. Please?
TCOM was released in 1986.
Gleason passed away in 1987 and was alive and well during the production of the movie.
For some reason, his part in the book was written out of the movie.
He might not have been up to doing a movie at that time health wise. Johnnyt
The only thing the book has in common with the movie is the name and Eddie's outlook (he' back), storylines are completely different.
In the book, Eddie was finishing up a divorce, faced mounting debts and closing up his pool room. Eddie was down on his luck, and his life was going nowhere fast. Fats was retired and pretty well off. Sports cable TV approached him with the concept of a series of televised exhibition matches. Fats pitches the idea to Eddie, and convince Eddie to join him. Fats acting as a father figure along with Eddie's new stable girlfriend, Eddie picks up the pieces of his life and rejoins pool world with a new gusto. There was no Vincent and Carmen in the book.
There is no place for Fat's character in the movie's plot, especially for being the father figure as in the book. As the stakehorse, Eddie redeems himself because he is not Bert Gordon in handling Carmen.
Thanks to Scorsese's movie, millions flocked back to the pool hall, hoping to twirl a cuestick like Tom Cruise while Werewolves of London plays on the jukebox.
In the book, Eddie was finishing up a divorce, faced mounting debts and closing up his pool room. Eddie was down on his luck, and his life was going nowhere fast. Fats was retired and pretty well off. Sports cable TV approached him with the concept of a series of televised exhibition matches. Fats pitches the idea to Eddie, and convince Eddie to join him. Fats acting as a father figure along with Eddie's new stable girlfriend, Eddie picks up the pieces of his life and rejoins pool world with a new gusto. There was no Vincent and Carmen in the book.
There is no place for Fat's character in the movie's plot, especially for being the father figure as in the book. As the stakehorse, Eddie redeems himself because he is not Bert Gordon in handling Carmen.
Thanks to Scorsese's movie, millions flocked back to the pool hall, hoping to twirl a cuestick like Tom Cruise while Werewolves of London plays on the jukebox.
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I had a pool room on Long Island in NY in the 1960's. When the Hustler came out pool rooms were opening up everywhere. Almost all of them had waiting lists for tables. In the 1980's I was big into playing and gambling. The Hustler gave pool rooms a little more pop than the COM. The Color of Money gave pool a good pop, but it really brought a lot of new fish into the pond wanting to gamble like Vince and Eddie. Johnnyt
9BallPaul
Banned
Upon further review....
I've gotta agree with all those who said The Color of Money did spark a boom in the pool industry. I was speaking with a table dealer last week and he was making the same point.
But my point in the opening post was, simply, that Color of Money is a horrible movie, almost entirely due to Tom Cruise and his inability to do anything except flash his teeth at a camera. The Newman character was weak in comparison to the young gun in The Hustler, and the plot was so very predictable.
Twirl a cue in my pool room and I'll wrap it around your neck.
An appearance by Gleason would have been very cool.
I've gotta agree with all those who said The Color of Money did spark a boom in the pool industry. I was speaking with a table dealer last week and he was making the same point.
But my point in the opening post was, simply, that Color of Money is a horrible movie, almost entirely due to Tom Cruise and his inability to do anything except flash his teeth at a camera. The Newman character was weak in comparison to the young gun in The Hustler, and the plot was so very predictable.
Twirl a cue in my pool room and I'll wrap it around your neck.
An appearance by Gleason would have been very cool.
Hustler was great, but a little dark for my taste. I also liked TCOM and no doubt it was a great boost to the game. 5 new rooms opened in my area and 3 of them are still around. Rooms were packed, and the spazzes who twirled cues soon found out there was no place for that crap in the pool rooms.
I wish another movie, web event, tv show anything will come out to help pool again....
G.
I wish another movie, web event, tv show anything will come out to help pool again....
G.
UrbanCowboy
Registered
Boy, that Vince is one Hot Dog
Sure, Vince was an annoying character--but that was the point of his role. A lot of things came together for that movie to be made: It was about 25 years after the Hustler (similarly, 20 years elapsed in the story/book); Martin Scorsese decided to make a less personal, commercial film since he didn't get funding for his pet project (Last Temptation of Christ); and Paul Newman was willing to participate.
This movie gave a big boost to the "upscale" pool room boom. I was born in '67, so not around for the Hustler movie influenced boom. Although not known as one of Scorsese's best films, the direction was still much better than that found in most films, the acting by Newman was great, and you even have a cameo by future academy award winner Forrest Whitaker in a scene stealing scene. Moreover, you have music director Robbie Robertson formerly of The Band who put together some really good music choices.
Sadly, given the lack of pool popularity today, TCOM is probably the last big star/big director movie on pool for a while. All we'll have now are low budget, independent films like Chalk, or the dreadful Poolhall Junkies.
Sure, Vince was an annoying character--but that was the point of his role. A lot of things came together for that movie to be made: It was about 25 years after the Hustler (similarly, 20 years elapsed in the story/book); Martin Scorsese decided to make a less personal, commercial film since he didn't get funding for his pet project (Last Temptation of Christ); and Paul Newman was willing to participate.
This movie gave a big boost to the "upscale" pool room boom. I was born in '67, so not around for the Hustler movie influenced boom. Although not known as one of Scorsese's best films, the direction was still much better than that found in most films, the acting by Newman was great, and you even have a cameo by future academy award winner Forrest Whitaker in a scene stealing scene. Moreover, you have music director Robbie Robertson formerly of The Band who put together some really good music choices.
Sadly, given the lack of pool popularity today, TCOM is probably the last big star/big director movie on pool for a while. All we'll have now are low budget, independent films like Chalk, or the dreadful Poolhall Junkies.
Ok, The Hustler has more enduring value than the Color of Money. In The Hustler, pool is the backdrop through which Fast Eddie must confront every element of his morals, ethics, values, and conscience, and the vehicle through which he experiences life's highest highs and lowest lows. To succeed at pool will require great sacrifices of Fast Eddie, and the rigor with which he tackles the question of whether such sacrifices are ultimately worth it give The Hustler an extraordinarily rich fabric that The Color of Money cannot nearly match.
Nonetheless, The Color of Money is a much better pool movie. Some suggest that the implausibility of the Vincent character (a total unknown that plays world class pool) ruins The Color of Money, but I beg to differ. Using a very contrived character as a vehicle to offer a panoramic view of an aspect of his society was not beneath the dignity of Charles Dickens and in no way detracted from the quality of the pictures of society that Dickens painted through the written word. I believe that The Color of Money's use of the admittedly improbable Vincent is similarly effective.
In The Color of Money, through the eyes of Vincent, we get to see:
small time barbox betting
bigtime barbox betting
players good enough to make it on the road
players not good enough to make it on the road
the hustling scene and its underlying morality
trashtalking and gamesmanship
dumping and its implications
mentor/student tension
the pre-tournament scene
the tournament scene
the tournament side action scene
and much, much more.
Is it likely that a booze chugging driving range pro that rarely competed could rebound to the point of being in contention to win on the seventy second hole of the US Open golf tournament in his first try? Not really, but the very contrived Roy MacEvoy, played by Kevin Costner in "Tin Cup" still provided a wonderful panoramic view of the tournament golf scene.
To those that dismiss The Color of Money just because Vincent is an example of artistic license, I ask you to reconsider.
To sum, I guess my view on things is that The Hustler is the better movie, but The Color of Money is the better pool movie.
Nonetheless, The Color of Money is a much better pool movie. Some suggest that the implausibility of the Vincent character (a total unknown that plays world class pool) ruins The Color of Money, but I beg to differ. Using a very contrived character as a vehicle to offer a panoramic view of an aspect of his society was not beneath the dignity of Charles Dickens and in no way detracted from the quality of the pictures of society that Dickens painted through the written word. I believe that The Color of Money's use of the admittedly improbable Vincent is similarly effective.
In The Color of Money, through the eyes of Vincent, we get to see:
small time barbox betting
bigtime barbox betting
players good enough to make it on the road
players not good enough to make it on the road
the hustling scene and its underlying morality
trashtalking and gamesmanship
dumping and its implications
mentor/student tension
the pre-tournament scene
the tournament scene
the tournament side action scene
and much, much more.
Is it likely that a booze chugging driving range pro that rarely competed could rebound to the point of being in contention to win on the seventy second hole of the US Open golf tournament in his first try? Not really, but the very contrived Roy MacEvoy, played by Kevin Costner in "Tin Cup" still provided a wonderful panoramic view of the tournament golf scene.
To those that dismiss The Color of Money just because Vincent is an example of artistic license, I ask you to reconsider.
To sum, I guess my view on things is that The Hustler is the better movie, but The Color of Money is the better pool movie.
