OK, guys...I'll defer to your greater wisdom here. Especially since I haven't seen the DVDs. "Para-Sight" is mentioned on the advertising blurb...is that a blindfold routine?

No, it's a very cool magazine test.

Greg

Just to be clear.. when I said that the effects themselves were not earth shattering I meant not sommething you have not seen before, as in psychometry, book test, watch routine etc.

Having said that let me add.. What you do get in the way of teaching, coaching, history lessons, etc. far out wieghs any real or imaginary concerns.

Plain and simple these DVD's offer much more than you pay for if you will only open your eyes to see and ears to hear.

- Nicodemus

Para Sight is one that actually fooled the heck out of me when I first watched it. It's one of those effects where you think you know what's going on but then realize that you have no idea. Very clever stuff.

The comentary was excellent.

Any followup to this? I note that the original post by takashi miike has been deleted - nor has he returned to explain this disturbing statement.

Didn't Takashi Miike direct that disturbing movie "Audition"?

Kidding... Back to the thread at hand...

Loved the DVD's all great stuff, only thing I thought was a bit of a waste of DVD space was the two acts, with just one routine added on the second, otherwise they were just the same act. Surely it would have been easier to just do the longer act and not bother with the edited version minus the one routine.

I started to watch the longer version expecting a different show, only to find it was exactly the same show with one extra routine crow barred in between two already seen effects, I found the extra routine via the fast forward button.

The effects are good, but the thinking is what your paying for, the review of the show with sound overdub was fantastic.

I would like to see more people perform a full show with a breakdown of effects and thinking as Max has done, and Andy Nyman before him.

Mentalism is fantastic, but when you perform, you don't get lots of opportunities to watch others working, I would very much like to see Performance only DVD's marketed.

Max explains the reason for including the bonus effect on the extended show during his explanation of the effect (a very good bank night effect, BTW). His reasons made perfect sense to me.

Oh man!
This is making me crazy.
Seems like a DVD that I would really enjoy.
And I still didn't have the time to watch the 5 DVDs of Masters of Billets!

Aha, reference my previous comment and the reply below it, I've only watched the 1st DVD, not the 2nd, which I am doing so now.

We shall see

Ah well just watched the 2nd DVD, great explanations, very thorough, I would not expect anything else from Max, I now understand why the extra effect was not in the main show, and added to the extended version, my personal opinion would be that it would have been better as an additional Bonus effect rather than the complete first show again with the effect included. Arguments for both sides I guess, and I'm not gonnna argue either side, just my opinion.

A fantastic piece of work, and nice to see some different members in the L&L audience.

A fantastic DVD set, and I'd just like to thank Max personally for being the person to get me interested in Mentalism so many years ago and being so helpful.

:)

I'm going back and watching certain segments again for reference. I just love that watch routine. I think I'm going to start working on it.

Ad blurb

"He brought nothing but a nice suit. On the way from the airport to the studio, he stopped at a supermarket for less than ten minutes and spent less than ten dollars. Once in his room, he spent less than half an hour preparing, and proceeded to go on stage and do a 50-minute performance of mentalism."

Why not pop into a magic shop for two minutes, buy a NW, TT, Deck of ESP cards, etc for $30 and do a better show? I know if I was faced with an unplanned show I'd find a magic store instead of a supermarket..

A.R.

Hmm... I get your point but really the chances of you finding a supermarket are way better than you finding a magic shop, given that the number of magic shops in the UK is massively inferior to the number of supermarkets.

Ever since I heard about it I thought that this was a show that you could do if there was some mix-up with your luggage, or you lost your props or whatver - which is a great thing to know, just in case it ever does happen.

Plus as it's Maven I'm sure the material will be nothing less than brilliant anyway.

I've only watched the performance portion of the first DVD so far, but I'll admit out loud: I don't think it was a very good show.

It opens with a psychological force that didn't work (not a problem for the audience, though, since the out is completely built-in). The watch routine might've come off more successfully if the spectator's time and Max's time hadn't been off by a full hour, despite a great amount of hemming and hawing to try to account for it. The Add-a-number effect was muddied and drawn out by the poor selection of an audience member to do the counting.

The astrological sign effect and magazine effect went very smoothly, although the revelation at the end of the magazine effect seemed incredibly drawn out. At one point, after one effect, Max had something private to tell a spectator, and he drew her aside, and whispered in her ear...and whispered...and whispered...and whispered, while the audience fidgeted.

The Pseudo Psychometry effect went fairly well, although the choice of spectators again hindered the effect, and there was a lot of cold reading that seemed distinctly unimpressive: extremely general and unable to spark any particular recognition, acceptanc, or amazement on the audience's part.

Overall, Max seemed to do a huge amount of double-talking to cover problems, with only moderate success and a lot of dead time.

That's not to say that this won't be an excellent learning tool, and I'm looking forward to watching it with the commentary. Also, it's entirely possible that the audience was not miked properly, so there may've been a lot of gasps and appreciation that simply were not heard. But as far as performances go, I've seen Max perform for laymen, and this was not at all representative of his best.

--Josh

Thanks for the honest review!

I've been a little wary of springing for this myself... I don't find the concept of an 'unprepared' show impressive. When I get paid to perform, I don't just bring my best suit - I bring my best act with props, spares, and a rider sheet.

That said, does Max share his thoughts on some of these problems (especially the timing issues) on the commentary tracks? Or does he gloss over them?

A frank discussion of a professional routine's shortcomings might be extremely useful, maybe even more useful than seeing everything pulled off flawlessly. I'm on the fence, but if there is good insight into routining a show or covering mistakes, I'll order it just for that.

Josho, I agree that the show wasn't super smooth. But I liked that. Some shows don't and that's life. I'd rather see a real performance, warts and all, than an edited collage. Despite a few minor hicups, I thought the show went very well. I wouldn't have known about some of the mistakes if I hadn't watched the explanations. In fact, the watch thing didn't bother me at all because I totally bought that it was the exact same time. It wasn't until I heard Max explaining it that I realized it was off.

The material is still excellent.

Andrew, your missing the point of the project. The show was not unplanned. He was just showing that you could produce an entire act without any magic store stuff.

If that's addressed to me, then yes, I guess I am missing the point - I just don't see what this proves.

I think Max is one of the great thinkers of the art... and I'm sure Steven Spielberg can shoot a blockbuster in his backyard with a Sony 8 mini camcorder, but... why?

It is nice to see an honest review amongst the multitude of star-struck reviews.
Kudos to Josh.