talkmagic.co.uk

Publisher: L&L Publishing
Duration: appr. 105 minutes
Cost: around 35 USD

This DVD contains ten effects and two bonus tracks. The effects are the following:

Tantalizer Too
Description: A card is choosen, lost in the deck and Paul deals the cards one by one in two piles: one for the spectator and one for himself. He then offers the spectator a 5$ bet that the card is in his pile. The spectator accepts and without looking at the cards, Paul doubles the bet, takes his pile and deals the cards one by one on the spectators pile and onto a new pile for him. The spectator gets more and more cards and thus is more and more likely to win the bet. This is repeated until Paul has only one card left, for a 100$ bet. Of course Paul wins, but the effect comes with an extra twist at the end...
My comments: a rather lengthy effect because of the repeat dealings and the obvious outcome. Furthermore, the fact that the cards are never mixed during the dealing makes it (too) obvious that the selection is at the right position right from the start. If Paul would have thrown in a FS or two between dealings, it would have been a lot more convincing. The extra twist is nice, but someone familiar with f.i. the Aronson Aces will see it coming...
Difficulty: 1/5 - requires no sleights at all. If you can deal cards (and have the special something), you can do the effect
My score: 6/10

Justify me
Description: Three selected cards are interlaced face-up with the four face-down jacks. This packet is cut into the deck (selected cards face-down) and the four aces are put on top of the deck, face-up. The deck is cut again and then spread, and the selected cards have disappeared from between the jacks and are now between the four aces...
My comments: The effect is very nice, but the way the jacks and aces are presented and counted in the beginning of the routine made me suspicious, so it was clear something was going on there. The same things goes for the cutting of the deck: something was clearly going on, though I couldn't tell exactly what.
Difficulty: 3/5 - you'll need some sleights to pull this one off...
My score: 7/10

Mark of the Gambler
Description: The four aces are put at four different locations in the deck, the positions are 'marked' by a magical move and when the deck is spread, the aces have turned face-down in the face-up deck. They are stripped from the deck and again put at different locations, but now they turn face-up and assemble on top of the deck! One of the aces is choosen by a spectator, put in the deck, and the 'mark-movement' is made five times. When spread, five cards have turned face-down in the face-up deck, and these cards form a royal flush in the color that the spectator selected.
My comments: A baffling routine!! You don't know what's going to happen next, and the sleights are totally invisible: no suspicious movements were made (at least that I could see).
Difficulty: 3/5 - some sleights required
My score: 9/10

Thinking it over
Description: Ten red cards and ten black cards are removed from the deck. The red cards are shown one by one to a spectator who is asked to remember one of these cards. Once this is done, she puts the packet of red cards under her hand. The black cards are on the table the entire time and another spectator is asked to put her finger on them. Then the first spectator is asked what het card was, and Paul 'invisibly' takes this cards and throws it towards the other packet. When both packets are recounted, the red one contains only nine cards, and the thought-of card has vanished. The black packet contains eleven cards, and sure enough, the selection is there...
My comments: A brilliant cards-across effect, handled perfectly by Paul. Everything looks smooth and straightforward, with no apparent 'room for cheating', yet a lot is going on under the covers. Totally baffling, but if you've read my personal history, you know I could be biased: the cards-across was the effect that got me into magic in the first place.
Difficulty: 3/5 - some sleights required
My score: 9/10

Thief of hearts
Description: A kind of 'pip-across' effect, where the heart-pip (!) from a selected card travels from a packet under the hand of one spectator to the packet under the hand of another spectator, leaving the original card with a hole where the pip once was.
My comments: Cute little effect, specifically suited for Valentine, engagements, weddings and the likes. The idea of having the pip travel across instead of the entire card is quite original.
Difficulty: 2/5 - some rather basic sleights are required
My score: 7/10

Matching the cards
Description: Paul's version of Dai Vernon's classic effect. The spectator selects a card, which is put on the table without showing it. Paul then cuts randomly into the deck and 'finds' three kings, which are placed face-down on the table, suggesting that the spectator's choice will be the fourth king. However, when this card is turned around this is not a king but an ace, so Paul must have made a mistake... Until the three other cards (supposedly three kings) are turned around and suddenly have changed into three aces.
My comments: Great effect, though in my opinion Paul skipped to quickly over the fact that he managed to cut three times to a king. It went so fast that I almost missed this point (but then again, that could have been just me getting older).
Difficulty: 3/5 - some sleights required
My score: 7/10

Wilson's Aces
Description: Paul's Ace assembly. The four aces and twelve other cards are taken from the deck, the aces are put on the bottom and four pokerhands of three cards each are dealt, leaving the four aces in the dealer's hand. Each hand gets one of these aces, but when the hands are shown, all aces have assembled in Paul's hand.
My comments: The counting of the aces while adding them to the other cards made it clear that something was going on. But the routine was technically performed very well and contains some nice little touches (the joke at the beginning and the flashing of the bottom ace).
Dfficulty: 3/5 - sleights required
My score: 6/10

Far too many cards
Description: Three cards are selected and replaced in the deck. The deck is shuffled and Paul tries to cut to the selected cards, but cuts to three aces instead. Each ace is put on the table before the next attempt is made. Each time, a number of cards from the deck are discarded, as there are 'too many cards'. Left with only four cards, Paul again cuts to an ace, but when he shows the cards in his hands, they're all aces! And the three cards on the table turn out to be the initially selected cards...
My comments: Just watching the effect, all the shuffling, cutting and discarding of cards suggested that this would turn out to be a routine for the technically skilled magician. Which indeed it is. I have absolutely nothing against this, but it shows in performance, and that tends to let me, as a spectator, loose interest.
Difficulty: 4/5 - whenever this specific shuffle is involved, I move it up to level 4...
My score: 6/10

A new wave
Description: A coin effect where three coins appear, disappear and re-appear again. The coins are real, ordinary half dollars, and the effect can be done with any three coins you're comfortable with.
My comments: For me, as a spectator, coin effects need to be performed almost to perfection to have any impact. If not, the method is often too obvious or the illusion of a coin vanishing or appearing doesn't work as it is supposed to. In this routine, some of the sleights do have that quality, but others don't. I even could see some flashes of the coins while I wasn't supposed to. I'm not claiming that I could do it better (which I certainly can't) or that Paul's a bad magician (which he certainly isn't), the routine just doesn't work for me.
Difficulty: 3/5
My score: 4/10

Motel History
Description: A night out for four single guys (the jacks) and two ladies of 'negotiable affection' (two queens) ends in two motel rooms, but not the way they expected it to be...
My comments: As Paul readily admits in the explanation, this is a bar-tric for which you have to pick the right audience and the right time, in which case it will get some good laughs. The tric in itself is fairly easy and more than on technique or climax revolves around the story you bring.
Difficulty: 2/5 - requires some sleights, but these aren't too hard
My score: 6/10


Besides these effects the DVD also contains two bonus tracks, performance only. Ricochet is an existing marketed effect where the four kings one by one change into aces at a snap of the fingers. In the explanation section, Paul offers an interesting and easy way to perform this effect in an alternative way, with one hand only. In Spectrum the back of a selected card changes color, after which a number of face-up cards turn face-down and the entire deck turns from blue-backed to red-backed.


Overal impression: R. Paul Wilson is without any doubt a very good and technically skilled magician. The explanations are very clear and the DVD is well produced. Personally, I'm not too happy with Paul's performance style in some routines, when he gives me the impression that he doesn't care much about it all, and that he's even a bit bored. He seems to be more enthusiastic during the explanantions than he is during performance. But he certainly is very skilled, has some good ideas and the DVD contains some very good effects. Not always for the absolute beginner though.

Overall score: 7/10, which in my book is not bad at all.

Since this is my first review, please let me know what you think about it, so I can adapt (if required) next time. That is, if you want there to be a next time...

[quote="pulsatilla"][

Tantalizer Too
Description: A card is choosen, lost in the deck and Paul deals the cards one by one in two piles: one for the spectator and one for himself. He then offers the spectator a 5$ bet that the card is in his pile. The spectator accepts and without looking at the cards, Paul doubles the bet, takes his pile and deals the cards one by one on the spectators pile and onto a new pile for him. The spectator gets more and more cards and thus is more and more likely to win the bet. This is repeated until Paul has only one card left, for a 100$ bet. Of course Paul wins, but the effect comes with an extra twist at the end...
My comments: a rather lengthy effect because of the repeat dealings and the obvious outcome. Furthermore, the fact that the cards are never mixed during the dealing makes it (too) obvious that the selection is at the right position right from the start. If Paul would have thrown in a FS or two between dealings, it would have been a lot more convincing. The extra twist is nice, but someone familiar with f.i. the Aronson Aces will see it coming...
Difficulty: 1/5 - requires no sleights at all. If you can deal cards (and have the special something), you can do the effect
My score: 6/10

I've only had a cursory glance through RRTCM but that trick is in there minus the bets.

That is correct and is also stated on the DVD. This is Paul's version, with the extra twist.

Nice review, pulsatilla.

I really like Paul Wilson's work.