Blockbusters With Cards by Paul Gordon

2-DVD set, featuring some 30 Card Tricks, hints tips, applications and more
Reviewed by Al Smith


This busy set of card work from Paul Gordon follows a now familiar PG pattern. A mixture of live footage and studio performances/explanations and, let’s be corny for a moment, loads of PG tips. There’s far too much on offer to warrant a blow-by-blow account in the space available, but suffice to say that anybody remotely interested in card trickery at any level will find something of interest here.

Something else familiar to Paul Gordon DVD viewers is the total absence of dreary, flashy unimaginative camera work. Paul doesn’t emerge from a mist shrouded alleyway deep in the heart of nowhere, smirking and looking what so many consider cool. We don’t have to wade through shifting camera angles up and down the performers nostrils and earoles. Put more simply; there’s no padding. We want see and learn the stuff and we can best do that with clear uncluttered exposition; that’s what we’ve got here.

The actual tricks are all new to PG DVDs, with two exceptions; and these are not simple rehashes. They are revisits with thoughts and comments inspired by many performances. I won’t say what these two items are; anyone coming to the material anew will not be shortchanged—the descriptions are full and complete—and anyone familiar with the items will benefit from the additions.


The live footage gives some indication of the power of expertly performed card trickery. Direct, no frills, simply under-the-nose and in-the-face magic. No cutaways showing the best or best-contrived reaction of someone apparently responding to something.

Anyone clutching the shabby belief that people don’t like card tricks should have a look more stuff like this.

What is also interesting is that the footage gives an strong idea of a genuine close-up environment. There is no set performance area; the event is a walkabout social affair. The sit-down meal is over and people are doing what they do at such affairs, drinking, chatting, eating cheese and/or sausages on sticks and generally having a pleasant time.

So not everybody is watching the magic. Some are beyond the performance arena and engaged as already mentioned. They’ve either seen the magic, or will be seeing the magic. But their absence from the immediate performing area in no way interferes with, or imposes itself on, the performance. On the contrary, it adds to the overall ambience of the scene.

Summing up, even folk who dislike DVDs as much as I, will find this product entirely palatable; already committed fans will be delighted by an abundance of riches.

Available from www.paulgordon.net/shop.html

 

© A. E. Smith, January 2011

 

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