Yes. People do give him too much credit. Is he a good showman? Sure. Does he use original tricks, no. Does he use a lot of camera tricks and editing, yes. My opinion is that he uses too many.
You and Kickaha are both right. He uses a force to pick the card that he already has planted. He has 2 cards. One in the deck and one ready to be placed on the window.
His card tricks and the tricks with the quarters are fun. His "psychic" tricks annoy me. I could go out on the street and ask 100 people to pick a double digit odd number from 1-50 and show all the times I got 37 right. Thats not clever, thats just good editing.
I maintain that the originality of the work is ultimately meaningless. What's important is how appealing he is. Blaine's stuff was no less original than the crappy stage and TV magicians you usually see. How many variations of sawing a woman in half, or jump in a box and appear somewhere else, do you want? And throw in the ultra-tacky Vegas style with 80s glam-rock hair and John Tesh-inspired music, and virtually everyone has lost interest.
About the "37" trick - I'm guessing that at least half the time the person would say "37," given how he presented it. People for whatever reason believe those numbers seem very random, but it's really the most common choice, so if you predict that you can be right pretty often. Do you really expect him to show the times where it didn't work?
Couple that with others like the trick where he has someone think of a card and then that's the only card in the deck that reversed, and you have a nice little mind-reading set.
I maintain that the originality of the work is ultimately meaningless. What's important is how appealing he is. Blaine's stuff was no less original than the crappy stage and TV magicians you usually see. How many variations of sawing a woman in half, or jump in a box and appear somewhere else, do you want? And throw in the ultra-tacky Vegas style with 80s glam-rock hair and John Tesh-inspired music, and virtually everyone has lost interest.
About the "37" trick - I'm guessing that at least half the time the person would say "37," given how he presented it. People for whatever reason believe those numbers seem very random, but it's really the most common choice, so if you predict that you can be right pretty often. Do you really expect him to show the times where it didn't work?
Couple that with others like the trick where he has someone think of a card and then that's the only card in the deck that reversed, and you have a nice little mind-reading set.
David Copperfield puts on a better show. He really changes around the tricks and makes them his own. Plus he does it in front of a live audience where he doesn't have Final Cut Pro to really work the magic
I've seen Copperfield a bunch of times. Sure he's kind of a fruitcake and the production value of the "skits" are lame but the actual tricks are much better than Blaines because they're done without the use of camera tricks.
Ever see him walk through a wall on stage? Make a Jet disappear? FLY?! All of this right in front of your eyes. Live.
i do remember a incident about street magic. There was a very little girl sat on a table and the magician vanished her within a few second. I became very wondered to see the show and still now i try to find the logic behind it.
People give him more credit than he deserves. Thats all I'm saying. A lot of magicians hate him because he uses a lot of camera tricks instead of real illusions. He also uses plants in the audience.
If you want to talk about plants, talk about Cris Angel. That guy does not impress me at all.
Comments
Originally posted by Willoughby
Yes. People do give him too much credit. Is he a good showman? Sure. Does he use original tricks, no. Does he use a lot of camera tricks and editing, yes. My opinion is that he uses too many.
You and Kickaha are both right. He uses a force to pick the card that he already has planted. He has 2 cards. One in the deck and one ready to be placed on the window.
His card tricks and the tricks with the quarters are fun. His "psychic" tricks annoy me. I could go out on the street and ask 100 people to pick a double digit odd number from 1-50 and show all the times I got 37 right. Thats not clever, thats just good editing.
I maintain that the originality of the work is ultimately meaningless. What's important is how appealing he is. Blaine's stuff was no less original than the crappy stage and TV magicians you usually see. How many variations of sawing a woman in half, or jump in a box and appear somewhere else, do you want? And throw in the ultra-tacky Vegas style with 80s glam-rock hair and John Tesh-inspired music, and virtually everyone has lost interest.
About the "37" trick - I'm guessing that at least half the time the person would say "37," given how he presented it. People for whatever reason believe those numbers seem very random, but it's really the most common choice, so if you predict that you can be right pretty often. Do you really expect him to show the times where it didn't work?
Couple that with others like the trick where he has someone think of a card and then that's the only card in the deck that reversed, and you have a nice little mind-reading set.
Originally posted by BRussell
I maintain that the originality of the work is ultimately meaningless. What's important is how appealing he is. Blaine's stuff was no less original than the crappy stage and TV magicians you usually see. How many variations of sawing a woman in half, or jump in a box and appear somewhere else, do you want? And throw in the ultra-tacky Vegas style with 80s glam-rock hair and John Tesh-inspired music, and virtually everyone has lost interest.
About the "37" trick - I'm guessing that at least half the time the person would say "37," given how he presented it. People for whatever reason believe those numbers seem very random, but it's really the most common choice, so if you predict that you can be right pretty often. Do you really expect him to show the times where it didn't work?
Couple that with others like the trick where he has someone think of a card and then that's the only card in the deck that reversed, and you have a nice little mind-reading set.
David Copperfield puts on a better show. He really changes around the tricks and makes them his own. Plus he does it in front of a live audience where he doesn't have Final Cut Pro to really work the magic
I've seen Copperfield a bunch of times. Sure he's kind of a fruitcake and the production value of the "skits" are lame but the actual tricks are much better than Blaines because they're done without the use of camera tricks.
Ever see him walk through a wall on stage? Make a Jet disappear? FLY?! All of this right in front of your eyes. Live.
People give him more credit than he deserves. Thats all I'm saying. A lot of magicians hate him because he uses a lot of camera tricks instead of real illusions. He also uses plants in the audience.
If you want to talk about plants, talk about Cris Angel. That guy does not impress me at all.
WTF with this long dead threads being dragged up. Why does someone register to pull this thread up?
Usually because they're about to spam. I don't really understand why they can't just reply to a current thread though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY
Check out this video. It's hilarious how similar to the actual street performance it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY
Saw that before. I lawled with the best of 'em.