Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Save Your Love By Great White

I can relate on many levels to Dan Hauss. As I'm writing this review, it's a Thursday Night/Friday Morning (2:30 AM), and this week, I had two days where I never went to bed. Sunday night, I never went to bed, and I just went to work in the morning. I did that again last night. Wednesday night I never slept. I came home Thursday ready to die - I'd been up for over 30 hours.

I also know that I'm most creative in those sleepless nights as well. Another level that I can relate with his Hauss's desire to create and kind of lock himself in a dark room staring at stuff trying to create something. He (and I) would rather do that than perform. I totally get that too, so it would appear that on some levels Hauss and I are kindred spirits.

This is the second Restless video I've watched, and I have to say that I like Dan Hauss. He seems to be a super nice guy, relatively humble, and pretty down to earth. That said, let's move into the effects and the product.

Overall DVD Quality - not so hot. The lighting and camera work were quite substandard. It was very difficult to see certain parts of the performance and/or the explanation making learning a bit difficult. Also, I'm not a fan of having an explanation only without seeing what the effect looks like in action. Hauss did that on a couple effect. He would intentionally expose the gimmick and the method before even starting. I would prefer to see the effect first without knowing the method.

On to the effects:

Jumping Jacks: (4/5)

Super Visual and a really cool effect. Need two gimmicked cards, but relatively common gimmicks. You'll see 1 card instantly and very visually trade places with 2 other cards. This is a 2 phase routine. First the sandwich, then the transpo. You'll learn various methods, both gimmicked and non-gimmicked, for the sandwich. It's a very visual sandwich.

Refilled (gimmicked version): (4/5)

This is a very smart piece of magic. A paper coffee cup is shown empty. Then suddenly an object (playing card, dollar bill, anything flat and not to rigid) appears in the cup. This is a very solid effect.

Refilled ('impromptu' version): (1/5)

First, this is not impromptu in any sense of the word. Second, not only do you have to prepare the cup in advance, it's not something you can quickly do under the table, and finally, it's not even close to 'clean' and frankly I don't believe that the effect will work on a real audience. Hauss could barely do it himself during the explanation. Then he claims to do at performance speed, and yet, he still stumbles and talks his way through it rather than actually showing us what the audience would see. If you're gonna do this effect, do the gimmicked version. It's far superior.

3c (3.5/5):

This is basically a concept more than it is a trick as Hauss points out. It's very visual and not that hard to do. Essentially, you can change the color of a card one corner at a time. Based on the method, however, I would say that you probably can't do this one too close up. I certainly would never attempt this in a table/strolling environment. However, in a 'parlor' setting . . . totally. However, you will have to work out further handling to move it beyond a concept and into the realm of effect or further . . . astonishment.

Laced (4.5/5):

The effect looks absolutely real . . . throw a deck at your shoe laces and the selected card links onto the lace. It's very clean and powerful looking. Of course, the big problem is the reset. You could have each shoe set up with one card, but then it's a couple of minutes trip to the bathroom for reset. But Hauss makes no allusions otherwise. All in all, this may be my favorite effect on the disk, maybe even the entire series.

Broke Band Mountain (3/5):

Broken and restored rubber band . . . simple and pretty visual if you nail the timing, but nothing earth shattering.

TnR Creamer (2/5):

This effect isn't too bad (torn and restored creamer paper lid followed by 're-sealing' the creamer). However, the method is not very practical at all. The sitting-down method is work able, but the switches aren't as clean as I think Hauss believes they are. The stand up version is just not workable at all. You have to have open coffee creamer packets with some of the creamer still inside hiding in your pocket and/or up your sleeve . . . just not practical.

Growing Straw (1/5):

This is pretty weak. Probably the worst effect on the DVD. The illusion is not very convincing at all, and the get ready and clean up is kind of obvious. During the performance you flick the straw to cause it to grow. The problem is that the flicking doesn't look magical. It looks like you're activating a gimmick (you are).

If you average the star rating (and ignore the 'Impromptu' version of Refilled you end up with 3.14 stars for the just the effects. When you consider the fact that for $35.00 you're only getting 7 effects and nearly half of them are not that good, plus the poor lighting, it's hard to give this DVD more than a 2.5 star rating. But I'm going to anyway because the effects that are good are really good. It might be worth it just for Laced alone, so I'm going with . . .

Final Verdict:
3 stars with a Stone Status of gem.