Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Forgotten By Avril Lavigne

You know how it goes these days . . . ad hype . . . phony claims . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah. Finally, there's someone who lives up to the hype. Enter Ryan Schlutz. I don't know where this guy came from, but thank you Big Blind Media for bringing him to our attention.

Ad Copy

This DVD is perfectly named. Miracles Without Moves is a perfect way to describe what you'll witness when you watch this DVD. Schlutz has a clever knack for being able to combine multiple sneaky principles together in such a way that the whole is exponentially greater than the sum of its parts. His material very much reminds me of a lot of John Bannon's material found on his killer 2 disk set, Bullets After Dark.

The DVD claims that it features "Seven Jawdroppingly incredible slices of card magic that require the barest minimum of slieight of hand." All I can say to that is "Amen Brothers and Sisters . . . Amen."

Product Quality

Everyone stop what you're doing and bow to the mighty bearded one . . . Owen Packard. Yet another incredibly produced, well shot, well lit, well mic'd, easy to navigated DVD. Thank you Big Blind Media.

Effects/Method

I wouldn't quite call these self-working, but very close. Even the newest of newbies could do these effects. The technical skill required is minimal. I guarantee that you'll be fooled more than once while watching this DVD. That's how clever the methods are.

But fooling a magician isn't what makes this product great. These seven effects seem absolutely impossible. In almost every case, the spectator shuffles the cards before, during and after the effect. In the cases where a card is selected, the spectator is doing it from the deck that they just shuffled. Then they actually get to shuffle it back into the deck themselves.

You end up in a situation where it just seems impossible to end successfully, but you do. Schlutz's effect, Degrees of Board-Dom is by far the most deceptive and impossible seeming version of a Shuffle Bored style effect. The conditions, shuffles mixing, and choices made by the spectator make it seem impossible for you to have predicted the outcome, yet you still do.

Every effect on here is simple to do, and extremely deceptive. However, without you seeing the effects, it's hard to say if you'll like them or if they're your style. All I can tell you is that they WILL fool your audience, and they ARE easy to do. Take a look a the DVD Trailer. At the end of the trailer they show you one of the effects. Watch it. Watch how hands off it is. Watch how fair the handling and shuffling of the cards is. Watch the whole thing, and you'll see how impossible it seems. All of the effects are like that. Some are even more impossible seeming.

Final Thoughts

For $30 you get seven effects. That is a little bit on the pricey side these days. However, part of me likes this because the combination of principles being used is very smart, and it's the kind of information you hope most magicians don't know about. That makes me like the price tag a little bit more. The bottom line on this is that if you need some extremely deceptive, easy to do card effects, this is an excellent choice.

Final Verdict:
4.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem

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