I hate "reality" shows. Why? Because they are as far from "reality" as I am from gracing the cover of next month's Vogue. I admit I detest television, as a general rule. It amazes me the absolute rubbish that fills the ever increasing number of channels.
So, it follows I should hate Criss Angel: Mindfreak, right? Wrong! I LOVE THIS SHOW! There is NOTHING like it on television. That alone should be reason enough to check it out. It has spawned NO copycats, another TV first. Why? Because duplication would be impossible.
Criss Angel: Mindfreak is a magic show. A REAL magic show. Not some guy in a tuxedo and a Vanna White clone. Hardly. It's completely unique, and the sole reason is its' star, Criss Angel.
Criss Angel describes himself as a "provocateur". I agree. He provokes your mind, titillates your senses, and forces you to question reality. Seemingly effortlessly.
The show itself, originally a "road show" , is now in its second season and filmed in Las Vegas. The style is nouveau documentary, lots of hand-held camera shots and disjointed cutaways. Each episode features one big "trick", and follows the intense preparation necessary to pull it off.
Interspersed throughout are interview clips of other magicians and behind the scenes people who comment on the undertaking at hand. Although the pragmatic portion of your brain knows he will be ultimately successful, you still cannot help but be caught up in the building suspense.
The tricks, and it really cheapens them to use the term, are dangerous. Deadly. These are NOT parlor games. Every one of them could easily cause death or permanent injury if a mistake is made. In a season and a half, Criss Angel has set himself on fire, been buried alive, dumped off a boat, manacled and shackled in a shark cage, suspended 90 feet above a concrete parking lot, and more.
Angel has been accused of camera trickery, planting "volunteers" in the audience, and various other nefarious "cheats". Say what you will, the fact remains that these are DANGEROUS undertakings. If you, I, or anyone is locked in a cage, handcuffed, in leg irons, and dropped over the side of a boat without an oxygen tank, we had better be pretty damned quick about getting back to the surface. You run out of air, you drown. Period. That's all the reality I need.
Criss Angel is, in himself, extraordinary . This is not some perfectly coiffed and manicured fellow. Long haired and darkly handsome, this man is in beautiful, nearly perfect physical condition. He moves like a cat. His mental conditioning is even more awesome, his intense focus palpable. He is totally committed to his performances, and absolutely serious about what he does.
You cannot categorize Criss Angel. He is a mentalist, in the best Kreskin like tradition. He is apparently able to pull numbers, colors, ideas and names right out of his subject's head. But, he's more than a mentalist. He's one of the very best slight of hand magicians I have ever seen. Not only traditional card tricks, but anything and everything is fair game. It may be relatively "easy" to "pick a card", but I defy anyone to explain how the man can get a cell phone inside of a beer bottle, drop an expensive piece of jewelry through a glass case, pull a snake out of a woman's purse or a tarantula out of some guy's hat! He levitates people, walks on water, makes a couple walking toward him suddenly vanish and reappear fifty feet away. He flies, he floats, he disappears in a cloud of dust in the middle of the desert. He makes a straight pin travel up his arm, under the skin, to be spit out of his mouth. He gave a girl a voodoo doll in the middle of a busy intersection. She stuck it with a pin, and his chest began to bleed. She freaked. She wasn't the only one.
HOW THE HELL DOES HE DO THIS STUFF? These illusions are done at venues where stringing wires or setting the stage is nigh impossible. I've seen him lift up a taxi and push a palm tree over. HOW? If this is trickery, then the people working with him are VERY, VERY good. Doubtful. Not to cast aspirations on his staff, who are excellent, but simply because backstage people with that kind of talent would be very hot commodities.
None of these people are well known in the industry. Omniscient Hollywood may overlook one or two of them, but a couple of dozen? And, even more implausibly, what Burbank and Broadway missed, Angel was not only able to find, but assimilate into a team? On the credibility scale, that possibility falls roughly somewhere between Pamela Anderson's "naturally blonde" hair and the odds on winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Giveaway.
However he does it, WHAT he does is fascinating. Sometimes he will teach us how he does a trick, but if you try it yourself you will quickly see, at the least, it requires hours of practice to pull it off smoothly.
I have seen every episode of this show, AND Angel's live show. Of all of his magic, for me, the most incredible single feat was in the first season. All I'll say is this: It involved a charter bus on a dusty highway, a deck of cards, and a girl named Stephanie. I DON'T CARE how he did it! It was simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The first season is now available on DVD. Buy it, find the illusion, and watch it for yourself.
So, if you are sick of sitcoms, doze during dramas and retch at reality shows, try Criss Angel: Mindfreak on for size. It's definitely different TV. It's entertainment, in the truest sense of the word.
So, it follows I should hate Criss Angel: Mindfreak, right? Wrong! I LOVE THIS SHOW! There is NOTHING like it on television. That alone should be reason enough to check it out. It has spawned NO copycats, another TV first. Why? Because duplication would be impossible.
Criss Angel: Mindfreak is a magic show. A REAL magic show. Not some guy in a tuxedo and a Vanna White clone. Hardly. It's completely unique, and the sole reason is its' star, Criss Angel.
Criss Angel describes himself as a "provocateur". I agree. He provokes your mind, titillates your senses, and forces you to question reality. Seemingly effortlessly.
The show itself, originally a "road show" , is now in its second season and filmed in Las Vegas. The style is nouveau documentary, lots of hand-held camera shots and disjointed cutaways. Each episode features one big "trick", and follows the intense preparation necessary to pull it off.
Interspersed throughout are interview clips of other magicians and behind the scenes people who comment on the undertaking at hand. Although the pragmatic portion of your brain knows he will be ultimately successful, you still cannot help but be caught up in the building suspense.
The tricks, and it really cheapens them to use the term, are dangerous. Deadly. These are NOT parlor games. Every one of them could easily cause death or permanent injury if a mistake is made. In a season and a half, Criss Angel has set himself on fire, been buried alive, dumped off a boat, manacled and shackled in a shark cage, suspended 90 feet above a concrete parking lot, and more.
Angel has been accused of camera trickery, planting "volunteers" in the audience, and various other nefarious "cheats". Say what you will, the fact remains that these are DANGEROUS undertakings. If you, I, or anyone is locked in a cage, handcuffed, in leg irons, and dropped over the side of a boat without an oxygen tank, we had better be pretty damned quick about getting back to the surface. You run out of air, you drown. Period. That's all the reality I need.
Criss Angel is, in himself, extraordinary . This is not some perfectly coiffed and manicured fellow. Long haired and darkly handsome, this man is in beautiful, nearly perfect physical condition. He moves like a cat. His mental conditioning is even more awesome, his intense focus palpable. He is totally committed to his performances, and absolutely serious about what he does.
You cannot categorize Criss Angel. He is a mentalist, in the best Kreskin like tradition. He is apparently able to pull numbers, colors, ideas and names right out of his subject's head. But, he's more than a mentalist. He's one of the very best slight of hand magicians I have ever seen. Not only traditional card tricks, but anything and everything is fair game. It may be relatively "easy" to "pick a card", but I defy anyone to explain how the man can get a cell phone inside of a beer bottle, drop an expensive piece of jewelry through a glass case, pull a snake out of a woman's purse or a tarantula out of some guy's hat! He levitates people, walks on water, makes a couple walking toward him suddenly vanish and reappear fifty feet away. He flies, he floats, he disappears in a cloud of dust in the middle of the desert. He makes a straight pin travel up his arm, under the skin, to be spit out of his mouth. He gave a girl a voodoo doll in the middle of a busy intersection. She stuck it with a pin, and his chest began to bleed. She freaked. She wasn't the only one.
HOW THE HELL DOES HE DO THIS STUFF? These illusions are done at venues where stringing wires or setting the stage is nigh impossible. I've seen him lift up a taxi and push a palm tree over. HOW? If this is trickery, then the people working with him are VERY, VERY good. Doubtful. Not to cast aspirations on his staff, who are excellent, but simply because backstage people with that kind of talent would be very hot commodities.
None of these people are well known in the industry. Omniscient Hollywood may overlook one or two of them, but a couple of dozen? And, even more implausibly, what Burbank and Broadway missed, Angel was not only able to find, but assimilate into a team? On the credibility scale, that possibility falls roughly somewhere between Pamela Anderson's "naturally blonde" hair and the odds on winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Giveaway.
However he does it, WHAT he does is fascinating. Sometimes he will teach us how he does a trick, but if you try it yourself you will quickly see, at the least, it requires hours of practice to pull it off smoothly.
I have seen every episode of this show, AND Angel's live show. Of all of his magic, for me, the most incredible single feat was in the first season. All I'll say is this: It involved a charter bus on a dusty highway, a deck of cards, and a girl named Stephanie. I DON'T CARE how he did it! It was simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The first season is now available on DVD. Buy it, find the illusion, and watch it for yourself.
So, if you are sick of sitcoms, doze during dramas and retch at reality shows, try Criss Angel: Mindfreak on for size. It's definitely different TV. It's entertainment, in the truest sense of the word.