Pool Cue News and Review v2.0

Well the vaporware that is 9 Ball The Movie apparently once again scraped together enough nickels to shoot some more scenes.  They’ll be shooting at APA Team Nationals (again), which should be interesting since their star is currently playing in Turning Stone.  Naturally, the director Tony Palma is once again claiming the movie is near completion, as he told the Orange County Register that “he expected the film to open in theaters by the end of the year or in early 2011″.

As we all know, this movie is the billiards industry’s equivalent to Duke Nukem Forever.  Its been in production forever and at this point I doubt anyone actually believes it will ever come out (Duke on the other hand was finally killed after 10 years of build).  Do we all recall back in 2007 (yes, 3 years ago), when the production company was “preselling” the DVD for 2 bucks (they were too lazy to pull this page off their website, but at least they listed the offer as expiring in May 2008):

To give you an idea as to how long this project has been in the works, I saw a copy of the script back in 2005.  The company still lists their “letter of support” from Stephen Ducoff (dated January 2006), who the BCA kicked to the curb in Feb. 2006.  The movie has changed lead cast members more times than tires get changed at the Brickyard (anyone else recall Jennifer Layne Park as Black Diamond aka “Gail’s Nightmare”) and based on the “teaser” clip, it appears they have reworked the script to be a J-Thug/APA infomercial.

Seriously, the fact that this clown is telling people that the flick is going to have a theatrical run by the end of the year is just pathetic.  This guy has been claiming the movie is “near completion” for G-d only knows how long.  I mean take a look at this screenshot from this 2 post blog that it appears the production company created.  You’ll notice that they list the release date there as “Summer 2010″.

And of course who can forget when the guy allegedly sent out emails to people stating that the movie would be released on DVD during the holidays of 2007.

Seriously, I’m pretty sure that this will be my last post about this train wreck, as I would prefer to not become this guy:

In the meantime, here’s the trailer for the movie that was released, um, well, a year ago.  I’m sure it will be hitting theaters any time now.

Maybe I should head up to Vegas this weekend, go to the top of the Riv and see if I can score a spot as an extra.  Nah.  They’re probably looking for people to pay for walk on roles anyway and the catering table will probably be a jug of water and a trough of pickled eggs.

As I’m sure most of you heard, it seems that Kelly Fisher is not a fan of women playing in the US Open. According to the statement from Barry Behrman, Kelly is calling for WPBA players to boycott the event as she feels that Barry is inviting women just to fill the field. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and have come to the conclusion that no one involved actually wants to see the industry succeed.

Harsh? Maybe, but let’s look at the situation. With the US Open, you have one of the most presitgious events in pool. This is the one event that anyone who’s anyone shows for. Its a big payday, it pays deeper than it should at 37.5% of the field and is the one event that, regardless of what you think of Behrman as a person, everyone should rally around. Barry finally gets around to letting women play, which could have been a major story with mainstream potential. As is standard for the industry though, apparently no one reached out beyond the billiards industry to do any pub for this gender breaking event. Instead, we get the standard bitching and sniping.

I’ve made it clear in the past that I like Kelly. She’s a great player, she works her ass off and for that I will always have love for the lady. That said, her call for a boycott makes zero sense. I mean she played in the US Open 10 Ball Championships back in May (along with quite a few other WPBAers), so what’s the diff? The fact that this doesn’t make any sense isn’t what pisses me off though. The thing that bugs the shit out of me is how all this was handled. Here’s how it apparently went down:

Barry makes an annoucement that he’ll be allowing women to play in the US Open
Kelly allegedly makes some boycott statement to people in the WPBA
Barry gets word of this
Barry puts out an “open letter” kicking Kelly in the balls in a very public way
SOP sniping ensues

I have no idea why Kelly would make such a statement, but until I read Barry’s letter, I (along with most people) had no idea that the statement had even been made. What was the point of telling the world about this? It makes Kelly look bad, it makes Barry look petty and it makes the US Open look like a joke. The only reason I can think of is that it was an attempt to create buzz with the idea that there’s no such thing as bad pub (which is complete and utter bullshit btw).

This is a perfect example of why no sports desk worth their salt takes pool seriously as a sport.  The entire sports world looks at pool as fucking clown shoes and all this behavior does is solidify their beliefs.  That is if they’re paying attention to pool.  Which they aren’t.  If you want to read the letter, you can find it here on AZ Billiards. Whatev. I’m Out.