New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

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CraigMitchell
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New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby CraigMitchell » July 6th, 2016, 8:13 am

http://www.reviewjournal.com/neon/shows ... ood-swings

"But if the offer to compare him to other Vegas magicians extends to the past, it leads down a gooey ethical trail. Lance Burton gets a shout-out and even a voice cameo for the sword-fighting switch seen in Burton’s show for ages.

Other illusionists aren’t so generously credited: Copperfield for his flying around the stage and even into a box, or the double levitation Rick Thomas did for years on the Strip: first levitating a woman, then flying up to her to reveal that she has vanished as well.

It’s like the history of magic all thrown into one show and, as such, can’t be beat for its magic-per-minute ratio. But when it comes to the personality of the star and whether you like him? The kitchen-sink approach only goes so far."

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 6th, 2016, 8:50 am

Does he still use profanity in his new show? I have heard complaints about this in the past. The very second you use bad language in a show is the very second you become a bad magician and I do not approve.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby S. Tauzier » July 6th, 2016, 10:42 am

Thats always been my complaint- that fowl mouth. I admit- I personally curse like a sailor but I dont want to hear it in a magic show. Wheres the prestige? Wheres the class? That doesnt show honor or respect for our art. Trying too hard to relate on a street level. I personally cant stand that rock-n- roll dynamic mixed with the magic presentation. My 2 cents..

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 6th, 2016, 7:17 pm

Alas it seems to be the trend nowadays with "magicians". It is far more prevalent than it was.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby JHostler » July 10th, 2016, 11:38 am

Two sad, unintentionally(?) anachronistic choices pervade the current stage/TV scene: 90's-style goth/grunge and '80s-style aerobicizing assistants. Is this art or self-parody?

Lazy, lazy, lazy.
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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby CraigMitchell » July 10th, 2016, 1:21 pm

http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/co ... ic-forward

Criss Angel certainly has the resources to deliver what he promised: “The most mind-blowing, revolutionary magic show ever to be performed live.” But rival magicians are asking if he has a different goal: to be magic’s ultimate cover band ...

Angel was fighting the flu but sent me a statement: “It is unfortunate that certain performers continue to waste energy envying the unprecedented success of ‘Mindfreak Live.’ However pathetic, this behavior is nothing new, as Houdini and Doug Henning were subjected to the same jealous treatment at the height of their popularity. I see no reason to dignify petty claims and paranoia with any further comment ...

... So yes, we can argue with who invented what, and who has the rights to do this or that. But we can’t argue with Thomas’ larger point. Angel enjoys “a position in the industry that (he) can be creative, that (he) can come up with these things. But he didn’t. And that’s the upsetting part.”

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby brianarudolph » July 10th, 2016, 5:29 pm

And to top it all off, there's now a "parapsychologist" currently spamming the Internet offering his "astrological services" to anyone who takes the bait.

Q: What name is he using?
A: Chris Angel

Maybe Criss Angel will sue him.

(You'd think someone trying to capitalize on name confusion would at least go with something semi-credible like the Amazing Mushkin, Joe Dunderer or Yuri Galler.)

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby erdnasephile » July 10th, 2016, 6:25 pm

I don't think that calling someone out for (allegedly) aping your work would be considered "envying" by most of us.

The author of the latter piece asked the most important question: "Why?"

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Tom Gilbert » July 10th, 2016, 7:09 pm

A couple of posts away is a thread about Copperfield buying a house for 17 million, that's probably why.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby erdnasephile » July 10th, 2016, 8:30 pm

Fair enough, T.

Has anyone seen the show? Does he really ape "Flying"?
If so, was it done without permission?

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Richard Kaufman » July 10th, 2016, 11:41 pm

John Gaughan sells "Flying," but he only sells the rig he originally sold to David. David and his staff took that and turned it into the illusion that we all know, which is a very complicated bit of technology. Angel does not and cannot do the things David did when performing "Flying." (And I have seen both John's original rig and David's set up in a theater.)

But if you were an illusionist on the strip, working across the street from the guy who made a trick world famous, would you add an inferior version of that to your show? I'll leave the answer up to you. Consider the other five items that seem to have passed through the creative hands of other performers which are also now in Believe, or whatever the hell it's called now.
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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Tom Moore » July 11th, 2016, 4:07 am

It's a tough one...

The first and second incantations of the show at the Luxor did have a lot of very unique stuff & nuances (routines that were and could only be done by in that theatre) however they didn't rate very well with audiences. The need to shut down the show and come up with something sufficiently different in a relatively short space of time so that it can be described as a different show means you're forced in to using off-the-shelf props which then turns it in to a more generic show & if you know my work you'll know how much I'm annoyed by people who pass up the opportunity to be original.

That said there's a lot of misplaced angst directed at Criss (there's plenty of reasons to not like him but this really isn't a good one) as 90% of the magicians working in vegas shows right now are the laziest type of clones; you could swap any two magicians between theatres and no-one would notice as they're using the same handful of illusions, gags and styles. Outside of Copperfield, P&T, Burton, King i can't think of anyone working in vegas who isn't essentially a clone act & yet there's no outrage about that?

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 11th, 2016, 5:40 am

Quite frankly I think originality is over rated. It is a good thing certainly but by no means essential and you can do very well without it. The best tricks are the classic ones that have stood the test of time. What does need to be original is your personality but since we are all different anyway you are off to a good start. Your presentation should be different from anyone else's but the tricks can remain the same. The Angel personage certainly has an "original" personality and that is all that is really required. I do not find that particular personality appealing but there are certainly those who do. And they won't care what tricks he is doing or who came up with them first.

Lest you ignore my opinion as of no consequence perhaps I should inform the multitude that no less a person than Maurice Fogel, one of the greatest mentalist showmen, said essentially the same thing. He thought that originality was not really much of a big deal but you should be original in the way you present your work. Your personality should be original. The tricks? Maybe so-maybe not. No big deal either way. Use whatever is out there. The trick is merely a peg to hang your personality on. And that personality should indeed be an original one.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby brianarudolph » July 11th, 2016, 11:34 am

Not sure I agree with you on this, performer (and Maurice Fogel.)

In many cases in mentalism it is not terribly difficult to recast one effect as a completely different effect with some dressing and presentation, at least from an audience's perspective. Done even moderately well the two effects will even appear to have nothing to do with each other and could possibly even be presented in the same show without much problem.

But just let a comedian repeat another comedian's joke. I was watching a fairly well-known comedian in the mid 1980's at his show at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas when that comedian proceeded to tell a joke straight from Eddie Murphy's Delirious show that had recently been released on video. Several members of the audience started booing the performer and shouting "Ripoff!" and "Eddie Murphy!"

Yes, the classics have stood the test of time. But they're also the ones that most audiences have seen for that test of time and time again. If you're going to present the classics for a general adult audience, a new (and good) element of originality added to the effect itself will always increase your chances of being well-received than by merely presenting the exact same effect that another magician is known for by adding only your personality - or worse: by presenting a watered-down version of the exact same effect that another magician is known for by adding only your personality. Ditto for any effect that another magician is known for, IMHO.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 11th, 2016, 12:10 pm

I can assure you that I am right. I always am. I will expound on this earth shaking matter later. I shall merely say for the moment that YOU are the magic, not your bloody tricks! As Dunninger once stated: "Anything will do, even nail through finger will suffice if you find you have some way of magnetising and hypnotising that audience"

Methinks I would advise many of you to get to work on nail through finger immediately.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Richard Kaufman » July 11th, 2016, 12:27 pm

Tom, when you write, "Outside of Copperfield, P&T, Burton, King i can't think of anyone working in vegas who isn't essentially a clone act ..." you've named most of the magicians in big shows in Vegas (and Lance Burton has been retired for years). Who else is there doing a full show?
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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Rick Ruhl » July 11th, 2016, 1:17 pm

CraigMitchell wrote: this behavior is nothing new, as Houdini and Doug Henning were subjected to the same jealous treatment at the height of their popularity


Im not aware of anyone who was jealous of Doug Henning. Criss must be on a different planet.

Doug was a hard working, but was kind and very approachable.

And yes, with the TM he was on a different level, but I have never heard one bad word about Doug..

Quite the contrary, I admired him. I was 15 when the first special came on TV. And he brought magic into the second Golden generation.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Richard Kaufman » July 11th, 2016, 3:26 pm

There were people who had less than flattering things to say about Doug (we can start with his first wife); however from what I've heard most of the grumbling and annoyance was caused by his relationship to TM.

I don't think the folks at Tenyo were the least bit pleased when he handed off the production of his magic sets containing Tenyo tricks to TM people who knew nothing about the toy business and the entire deal collapsed. (The tricks were supposed to be sold separately, just as they are in Japan.)
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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Tom Moore » July 11th, 2016, 5:26 pm

Tom, when you write, "Outside of Copperfield, P&T, Burton, King i can't think of anyone working in vegas who isn't essentially a clone act ..." you've named most of the magicians in big shows in Vegas (and Lance Burton has been retired for years). Who else is there doing a full show?


Burton as in Nathan not Lance, i also forgot to add Pif to that list.

A quick google suggests that this week alone there are 16 stand-alone magic shows in vegas; earlier this year that figure was 20, there's also around another ten magicians appearing as support acts or variety turns within other shows; i appreciate i am covering the full gammut of shows from 50 people in the back room of a casino to 1000+ people in a custom built theatre here but the point still stands that in terms of the raw number of magicians performing regular gigs in Las Vegas 9/10 of them will be utilising off-the-shelf performances of off-the-shelf props. They are clones or (to be generous) "tribute" acts with minimal if any creativity or originality beyond wearing an unusual jacket or having a crazy name; they all get reviewed in the same publications yet it's only Angel who's suddenly getting called unoriginal whilst the others get the usual generic platitudes?

As i have said previously there's plenty of reasons to not like Angel either personally or professionally but to chose "originality" as the weapon to use against him is a very odd decision.
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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby CraigMitchell » July 11th, 2016, 5:37 pm

@Tom = see Weatherford's other column. Not an odd decision at all. One of the key selling points for Believe and M/F Live - that was repeated over and over - was just how revolutionary & unique the show was.

Weatherford ( and others ) ultimately see it as a lost opportunity ... all the resources in the world at CA's disposal and there appears to be nothing new.

"Angel has a 60,000-square-foot warehouse near the Strip to research and develop new illusions. And while he is solely in charge of the content, his producing partner on “Mindfreak Live!” is Cirque du Soleil ... But between the two of them, it’s fair to argue they could spend $30 million to $50 million to invent genuinely new stuff no magician could ever claim to have seen, let alone have performed. You know, mind-blowing, revolutionary stuff ... Angel enjoys “a position in the industry that (he) can be creative, that (he) can come up with these things. But he didn’t. And that’s the upsetting part.”

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Tom Moore » July 11th, 2016, 5:52 pm

But they did.... and it didn't work; early versions of believe were packed with original/unique ideas and effects but it didn't pay off in terms of boosting revenues, it also didn't seem to win any praise from the people who are now criticizing him for /not/ being original in the newest version.

The show now only has cirque's name on it because they have the contract with the venue; all day to day operations and creative decisions now are Angel's team so the budget (and creative development and evolution resources) will be a tiny fraction of what they were for the previous productions so i can see entirely how and why it's ended up as a more generic, less developed show compared to the production powerhouse that cirque bring to a show.

As i say, there are plenty of reasons to criticize Angel but to accuse him of being "un-original" when the one thing he definitely has brought to the industry is considerably more originality than most of his contemporaries and beat a different career path to the one other magicians are following is ridiculous. Could he have been more original? yes. Could he have been more creative? yes. Is he unoriginal and lacking creativity - definitely not as he certainly sits near the top of the industry on all those counts; we may all disagree about precisely what his ranking would be but there can be no doubt he's a lot closer to the top that 90% of the other magicians working in Vegas.
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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby erdnasephile » July 11th, 2016, 6:35 pm

FWIW, I don't think most of the darts here are coming as a result of unoriginality, but rather, the alleged taking of other's signature routines. I just think simple unoriginality (i.e., just using a bunch of standard effects, used with permission) is different than what Rick Thomas and Bill Smith are alleging.

I do believe, however, that much of the criticism from any fan group is influenced by the attendant hype and the perceived arrogance of the celebrity in question. It is trebeled by how he/she has treated others and how they regard the fans. For example, Lance Armstrong gets far more scorn than others who probably cheated just as egregiously. Same holds true for Barry Bonds (allegedly).

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Brad Jeffers » July 12th, 2016, 10:53 pm

Something can be completely original, revolutionary, and unique - and still not be entertaining.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 13th, 2016, 5:52 am

Brad Jeffers wrote:Something can be completely original, revolutionary, and unique - and still not be entertaining.


Exactly

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Brad Henderson » July 14th, 2016, 9:13 am

angel's early illusion work was highly creative. then he got the tv show sponsored by wwf-wwe and he chose to ape david Blaine. since then it's been mostly apeing albeit in black eye shadow and age innapropriate clothing.

I saw the original cirque show and only remember a handful of moments. When he called the audience a bunch of f-ers for not clapping enough, his sequential disrobing in the dove act as animals were no longer hidden in the various items of clothing, and him waiting for non existent applause to end as the music continued to play. positively I recall the image of the mean woman as she appeared
on the screen, the flock of birds projected on the screen, the screen trick where he walked behind and into the filmed scenes and back out again, and the lovely moment during the Spanish web acrobatic act where flower darts fell to the stage and then slid off in a lovely manner.

the only trick I recall from the show was his dream date prediction box trick.

so, all in all, the best parts of criss's live show was still the camera tricks.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 14th, 2016, 10:02 am

When he called the audience a bunch of f-ers for not clapping enough,


[/quote]

Ugh! What kind of a "magician" does something like that? I shall tell you. A sleazy one. Quite disgraceful.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Brad Henderson » July 14th, 2016, 10:08 am

he threatened to stop the show and not perform his finale unless we kept the applause going.

he did it anyway.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 14th, 2016, 10:58 am

Brad Henderson wrote:he threatened to stop the show and not perform his finale unless we kept the applause going.

he did it anyway.


I think that is bad showmanship but that is not what concerns me. If he wishes to follow that dubious route he should do so without the profanity. Bad language ALWAYS means a bad magician.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby Rick Ruhl » July 14th, 2016, 11:54 am

Richard,

I agree some people didn't like him, i.e. Barbara, but she cheated on him with John Gray. And even after that, they kept in touch with each other. He even introduced Debbie to her. But yes, the TM obsession was what ended up killing him. :( Not wanting to go through chemo and try to cure himself with holographic therapy.

But I have never heard of a magician being jealous of Doug. That was my point. Criss is just a little younger than us and should know no one was jealous. In fact, remember Doug was all for David too, as he felt that there was more than enough room for magic on TV and touring shows.

Criss must have misspoke. <snicker>

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby performer » July 14th, 2016, 4:38 pm

I believe Richard himself said some rude things about Doug too, according to a biography I read. Not everyone has my sense of politeness and decorum of course.

Still no doubt he has evolved since that time.

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Re: New Criss Angel show packed with magic and mood swings

Postby CraigMitchell » August 13th, 2016, 12:07 am

I saw the latest version of Criss' show last night - and credit where credit is due - this is the best iteration of Criss Angel thus far. He plays to his strengths and lives upto the rockstar Mindfreak image. It's a pity though it's taken so long to reach here as this is the show he should have started with all those years ago ... Hindsight is a perfect science.

Some observations:

*The house was full and he knows his audience - think middle America and you get a taste of those screaming his name. The crowd loved him.

*preshow is actually main show ... The first 15 minutes is filler material by Penny Wiggins and 'Mateo' the clown ... Criss is onstage for less than 80 minutes

*There is very little new in the show. It's a complete mish mash of disparate elements - from the arb resurrection of Lance Burton's fencing metamorphosis ( why on earth ? ) to the Laser Man routine now franchised around the world. And despite this coherent lack of theme - the show surprisingly works for Criss.

*upside down straight jacket escape is back and a definite highlight along with the impressive bird routine with CGI visuals

*Criss' 2 year old cancer stricken son was in the audience. What parent has their ill toddler out in Las Vegas at 11 pm at night ? Manipulating the audience into giving you a standing ovation by asking the audience to rise for those fighting cancer is cheap and calculated. And dressing Chloe Crawford in a hospital gown and head gear ( faux cancer patient ? ) for a levitation sequence is just wrong.

*For all the PR spin - there is nothing revolutionary which is a shame and a loss for magic. The piece de resistance is meant to be his flying ... Which is surprisingly poor in execution. One only appreciates how incredibly amazing DCs version is when compared to the Criss Angel version. And consider that Copperfield had to rely on technology from over 20 years ago! Criss' movement is constrained and forced and looks like a man suspended on a string - you just can't see the wires. The actual flying lacks the grace and freedom that flying is supposed to offer. The one standout moment is the brief finale when the shimmer curtain falls at the end leaving him completely suspended on the barren stage with not an invisible wire in sight. It is impressive. But blink and you'll miss it

*the show is by no means perfect but it's an incredible leap forward from the awkward marriage that was Believe and its incarnations over the years. With further tweaking - and perhaps an outside directors eye - it will only get better.


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