Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Hell and Back by Metallica
Them's some big words . . . "Ultimate" . . . "Self-Working" . . .
What is "self-working?" Does that mean that no sleight of hand is involved? Does it mean that there's really no sleight of hand, but you need to know a false shuffle or false cut? Interesting questions. Frankly, I don't have the answers either. So I'll just point out up front that with one exception, none of the routines require any card control. The one routine that does require it is simply a situation of shuffling a card from top to bottom (or vice versa . . . I don't remember at the moment).
As for the material: Killer! They just may have truly lived up to the "Ultimate-ness" that they are claiming. There's a great range of material from totally impromptu borrowed shuffled deck effects to complete full deck stacks. All are worthy of consideration. Some stand out pieces that are unique and bring together some nice components are Chad Long's Shuffling Lesson, Simon Aronson's Shufflebored (duh), Liam Montier's Henry Sugar and several others. I also really like Aldo Colombini's Contact Colors.
Many of the routines are the type where the effect "feels" over . . . then more magic happens . . . then yet even more . . . the structure and drama of this style, particularly as it's applied here, is powerful. Another groovy little thing the BBM folk did was add a nice little overview of each artist who contributed an effect to the DVD. They give you resources where you can find more of their material as well.
Finally, when it comes some self-working effects, the procedure beats the audience over the head with a time slows down stick. Sometimes it feels like a trip to Hell and Back (thank you Metallica) would be quicker and more fun. I think in many cases James Went, Liam Montier and the gang made great strides to make the presentations much more tolerable. In some cases taking it to full-on entertaining and engaging (which is often hard to do with stuff like this). In a few cases, I'd say they did peg the boredom meter, but the effect itself was still relatively interesting and is worth your attention as a student and/or performer.
Take these effects and make them your own. The aforementioned stand out effects, though self-working, give you some very solid presentational angles and some powerful effects on your audience. Montier's effect feels like real mind reading . . . very powerful. The other three effects mentioned seem absolutely impossible . . . after shuffling and cutting and shuffling and mixing . . . the deck is left in an impossible condition that you predict.
I really like Went's presentational idea for Shufflebored and Shuffling Lesson. At this point, I'm rambling. Bottom line: this is a solid collection of self-working effects that are not the typical ones found on compilations of this sort. If you don't have this one in your collection, you should.
Final Verdict:
4.5 Stars with a Stone Status of GEM!