Proof that Criss Angel is the lamest ever

The pictures are not showing because bandwidth has been exceeded. I thought the YouTube clip was bad. I dunno, I just don't care much for his style. What I saw was product placement, bad acting, and made for TV magic. It was worth it for KingMerv's comment though.
 
Cain said:
The pictures are not showing because bandwidth has been exceeded. I thought the YouTube clip was bad. I dunno, I just don't care much for his style. What I saw was product placement, bad acting, and made for TV magic.
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I watched the clip with the sound off and skipped right to the end so I have no complaints.

I am puzzled as to what Nathyn is upset about. What do you expect? REAL magic?
 
KingMerv00 said:
I watched the clip with the sound off and skipped right to the end so I have no complaints.

I am puzzled as to what Nathyn is upset about. What do you expect? REAL magic?
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I'm guessing he's just disappointed in how simple and easy the illusion was?
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Most of them are.

I think it was Penn who said that if people could see how most stage illusions are done, they would be very disappointed.
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Someone (possibly Penn) once said the difference between a great illusion and a cheap trick is knowing how it's done.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Most of them are.
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Well of course. The sentiment has been repeated in almost all magic literature I've read. Simple illusions sort of help stack the deck in your favor. When people are fooled, some/most tend to instantly assume some sort of grand deception (See: The Kennedy assassination, 9/11 conspiracy theories, etc). The simple solution often never crosses their mind. This illusion, and other television specials, does suffer because the audience can view it again at their pleasure. This illusion was, as admitted on that site, dissected through repeated viewing and slow motion. I hardly think that detracts any from the illusion if such means had to employed.
 
This is why I think magic on television is somewhat incredibly lame. I mean, we see impossible things on TV shows all the time, what's to stop magicians from using the same, tired, old special effects and editing to make things look convincing? Live magic uses special effects trickery too, of course, but it's not on a friggin' two dimensional screen for crying out loud.
 
KingMerv00 said:
I am puzzled as to what Nathyn is upset about. What do you expect? REAL magic?
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It seems that way. 9 out of every 10 tricks I know involve line-of-sight manipulation. From "another angle", every trick is "stupid".

I should also note that the trick Criss did in that video did not involve special effects or editing. He did it in front of a live audience for pete's sake.
 
MelBrooksfan said:
This illusion was, as admitted on that site, dissected through repeated viewing and slow motion. I hardly think that detracts any from the illusion if such means had to employed.
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That methods has worked well over the past 100 years when many other (some well-known) magicians (Ralph Adams for one) used it hundreds of times on stages. I'd hardly call any of them "the lamest ever" for using it despite the fact that video tape and a computer might uncovered less that perfect setups when they did it.
 
Joshua Korosi said:
It seems that way. 9 out of every 10 tricks I know involve line-of-sight manipulation. From "another angle", every trick is "stupid".

I should also note that the trick Criss did in that video did not involve special effects or editing. He did it in front of a live audience for pete's sake.
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Criss Angel's "live audiences" are debatable in most of his videos,as his tricks are in the majority camera tricks/digital effects.

Like this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=baHxmkiuptg
 
The problem with Criss is that you don't even need to look for the secrets, beause it's usually visible right there before your eyes. That original link only showed one effect from many where the crew doesn't care if they don't get the right results.. they will broadcast it anyway. Which is weird because it's not live TV after all.

Here's another example of that:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OQ-BKuBcpd4

Anyone can see the girl moving to the side right before Criss blocks the view, not to mention the shadow on the left side of the wall. But I believe that Criss was just too lazy to make it better, so they decided to keep it.

For someone who calls himself the best magician in history, he seems more like the kind you see at birthday parties for children.. Actually I take it back, those magicians take the art much more seriously then he ever could.
 
Azrael 5 said:
Criss Angel's "live audiences" are debatable in most of his videos,as his tricks are in the majority camera tricks/digital effects.

Like this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=baHxmkiuptg
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Debatable. That video nailed it. He was using wires (but, I think anyone could've told you that. He's obviously not levitating for real and stilts are comically out of the question). However, depending on the wire thickness, would it be visible to the live audience in the parking lot? Digital editing is still deplorable and, if the wires were not visible to a grounded audience, it seems like any decent director would've simply suggesting shooting it entirely from the ground in one take.

So, a question is raised: He may be a hack, but he is certainly putting magic into a different sort of mainstream. Should magicians suffer a hack because of the PR boost he gives the profession?
 
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