Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Land of Confusion by Disturbed

The effect is basically that of a paradox card in the vein of Brother John Hamman's Your Signed Card, or Alex Elmsley's Between The Palms. If you're not familiar with those effects, stop reading this review and go learn those first . . . classics folks . . . classics.

Here's Miller's take on it: Add a time travel theme, a few Back to the Future jokes - always fun - and throw in a kicker ending that includes a card stuck in a time warp. All in all, not bad. However, let's dive a bit deeper . . .

Performance

The premise of time travel is always a good hook I think. However it does depend on how well you address it and how interesting you make it. It's fun to speculate about time paradoxes. Miller only briefly touches on this.

I'm not a fan of lines like this:

'This is a deck of cards obviously . . . '

What's the point!? This is one of the opening lines during Miller's performance . . . annoying to say the least.

There were a lot of lame and/or weak jokes along the way, and it took almost a full 4 minutes into the routine before anything happened. The trick/presentation/patter was extremely slow and dry.

The spectator - played by the producer, Kozmo - looked less than thrilled at the performance. That's nothing against Koz (a friend of mine) or Miller (an acquaintance of mine). It's more the fact that Koz is a well-versed magician who's been exposed to a lot of magic . . . not the best choice for an effect like this. It would have been better to have either no audience or a real 'lay' audience that could have shown a bit more enthusiasm.

Additionally, Miller's Riffle F**ce was poorly timed. He didn't wait for Koz to say 'stop.'

So my rating of the entire performance, effect and presentation . . . probably a 3 out of 5.

Explanation

There's no doubt that this method goes a long way to cancel out certain methods in the mind of the spectator. One such effort is the nice subtlety that Miller uses with the signatures. This is very clever and could be employed in many other effects.

Great effort was put into the filming of the explanation, multiple angles and thorough explanations to say the least. That's one thing I've always admired about Miller (even on the effects of his that I hate) is that he is a very thorough teacher. In this particular project, even though he was thorough, he did seem a bit 'off' that day . . . maybe a rough night's sleep or something, but it was a bit stiff, but still thorough.

The set up is a bit obnoxious and hard to reset . . . so much so that this effect (regardless of it's impact) is very unlikely to end up in my strolling repertoire . . . a set show, maybe, but even still unlikely for other reasons.

Another point to consider . . . in the performance, he had the spectator blow on the face of the signed card to allow the ink to dry. However, once you learn the method, you'll realize that you can't actually show the face of the card to the spectator. Miller never explains this in the explanation.

Also, I'm not sure that Miller knows what the word 'Psychology' means . . . he constantly says there's a lot of psychology here, then shows something that has nothing to do with a psychological point.

Another thing about Miller that I've always admired is his fluidity of motion. He's a very smooth technician, even on the effects that I'm not a fan of. This effect is no exception. He is smooth and fluid in both his performance and explanation.

All in all, the explanation is a 4 star explanation on a 2.5 to 3 star effect.

Props

Each performance destroys a gimmick. The DVD only comes with Six cards, and the website mentioned on the DVD for obtaining refills is a dead site. I imagine, however, that you could get refills from Koz. However, let me caution you that the quality of the prop is mediocre at best. The two jokers that are printed on one side of the deck look like the border between them was hand drawn with a cheap sharpie . . . not the best looking gimmicks.

Final Analysis

The effect itself, in my opinion, is not as good as its predecessors mentioned at the beginning of the review. However, the signature subtlety is worth learning, and the effect isn't horrible . . . it may strike the fancy of some of you out there

Final Verdict:
2.5 Stars with a Stone Status of grubble (a little bit of gem and a bit more rubble).