Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: You Are My Everything Courtney Stone (my daughter)

You know when you were a kid and your dad was about to beat the crap out of you and he said, 'Son, this is gonna hurt you more than it does me.' You thought, 'yeah right!'

Now that I have kids, I get it. And though Dan Hauss is someone I've only 'met' via the Restless project, I really do like him. He seems like a cool, funny and smart guy that I'd like to hang out with and jam with and toss ideas around with.

So Dan, please believe me when I say that this will hurt me more than it does you.

I think that gives me enough license to say what's on my mind.

This DVD set is one of the most ironically named sets I've ever watched. I continually found myself dozing off during each of the videos, particularly during some of the painfully long explanation sections.

In general, this disk has a couple of pretty darn good ideas, and a few undeveloped and totally impractical effects.

Let's just dive right in:

Puff/Smoke (4.5 stars)

- This is beautiful. Not only is it visual and incredible looking, but it even fooled me. Very strong idea . . . spectator's lit cigarette magically transforms into a selected card (or dollar bill if you like).

Coin and Marker transpo (2 stars)

- A flurry - I hate Flurry - effect with a bunch of movement and gestures with a coin and a pen. I think something was supposed to transpose or something magical was supposed to happen . . . I must have missed it.

Torisit 2 (2.5 stars)

- There is a one cool moment in this torn and restored card effect that is very cool and clean that you don't get in other routines. However, for all the effort required to make the gimmick and get everything in play, there are so many better and easier versions out there.

Footloose (4.5 stars)

- Another brilliantly simple idea. I really like this a lot. The best part is that once you make the gimmick (10 minutes tops) you can always be wearing it anytime, anywhere. It's excellent. The effect is that you cause the tips of your shoelace and the spectator's shoe lace to merge together making one long shoelace . . . the illusion is darn near perfect.

Lint (1 star)

- This is just crap. The only thing good about it is the idea . . . making the 'stickiness' from a lint roller disappear and reappear on a playing card. However, the method is so ridiculously impractical. I can't really say much without revealing the method. But I will say this, It's supposed to be a signed card, yet Hauss explains that if you're worried about the spectator noticing that the card is already sticky while they're signing it, then you can sign it for them. Really!? That's ridiculous. Then there's the handling of the card inside the deck . . . ridiculous. We are never shown an actual performance, only a hack of a walk through. The only reason I didn't give this zero stars is because his idea of why he's using the lint roller is funny, and the idea is clever, but that's where it ends folks.

Kiss the Table (1 star)

- Ok, so you think Lint was bad, wait till you see this. Again, the idea is clever, but the method is ridiculous. There's a point where you have an unwrapped Hershey's Kiss concealed in your hand, and you're supposed to secretly bring it to your mouth and lick the bottom of it so it'll stick to the table . . . ridiculous. The management of the 'gimmick' is ridiculous. He struggles to even give a decent walk through. However, if you can come up with a much, much, much, much better method, there is one moment of visual beauty in the effect, otherwise this would have been zero stars.

Fake Take From Box (3 stars)

- This isn't bad. It's a pretty decent illusion based on Marlo's card from box move. You appear to be taking any card from the center of the pack that the spectator chooses. However, you're actually removing a known, specific card. It's a move that requires no gimmicks and is pretty easy to do. However, we're not really taught a practical method for getting into the position needed to make it happen.

Final Thoughts

As with the rest of the DVDs in this project, the lighting was crap. Often there were times where Hauss was showing us how to construct a black gimmick while wearing a black shirt as the background in a darkly lit room. You couldn't see anything.

Proceed with the thought that Puff/Smoke and Footloose might be worth the investment . . .

The average rating of the effects is 2.6 stars. Considering that this DVD is $35 bones for only 7 tricks, over half of which aren't really worth considering, and add to that the poor DVD quality, I cannot give this DVD more than 2.5 stars. Thus . . .

Final Verdict:
2.5 stars with a Stone Status of grubble (mostly rubble, but a little bit of gem).