Review - Criss Angel’s Mindfreak

As a fan of magic of all sorts since I was a little kid with a pack of cards too big for my hands, I always enjoy seeing magic on TV. Be it a special from Penn and Teller, or one of the other current crop of pretty damn entertaining magicians, or a series like Darren Brown’s “Trick or Treat” (which focuses more on mentalism, but still a damn interesting show more often than not). What I really can’t stand though, is when BAD magic is allowed to run rampant on the unsuspecting (or just ignorant) public.

Such is the case with Criss Angel. He’s actually a pretty decent magician when he sticks to the closeup or forced angle stuff (card tricks, slight of hand, etc), and in his private life, he’s been known to call out anyone pretending to have “real” mystical powers for the scam artists they are. For some reason though, when he’s on TV, he’s like a completely different person. Playing to the lowest common denominator of magic (the supernatural), and using planted audience members and camera editing rather than sticking with traditional (note: non-bullshit) tricks.

I don’t watch his show “Mindfreak” often, but since the premiere of season 4 started yesterday I thought I would give it another go to see if he had changed his ways… and he hasn’t.

The show was one long build-up to the final trick of the hour, where he was going to walk on water, on lake Mead to be specific. There were a few other short tricks in there first, of course, nothing that interesting really… two planted audience members, a cooperative aquarium store owner, a trick that probably wasn’t faked (but wasn’t that impressive) with his new SUV, and some fake reaction shots, and then it was off to the lake…and that’s where it gets REALLY bad.

The trick was simple enough really, and with the build up simply walking over the lake would have been a fine trick (if a bit overdone), but Criss Angel is never happy with “a fine trick”, and had to ham it up so much with editing and closeup reaction shots and over excited squealing women, that even if none of the camera editing and close ups were used to fake the trick, it still LOOKED like that’s what they were for. That bears repeating I think….even if he did the trick 100% legit without fake audience members or camera editing being a part of it, it still looked like that’s exactly what he did. That is not good magic, even if he really did it….which I sorta doubt at this point.

It’s sad to see someone with obvious talent (which Criss Angel has) waste such a gift by selling out to A&E for a few bucks (ok, probably more than a few…). He COULD be doing great magic (even some of the tricks in this show would have been good without the extra bullshit he pushed into them that needed to be staged) and instead he’s pulling bullshit stunts, using camera editing, and telling fake audience members to be freaked out at the right time. Not cool Criss…..not cool.

And as a bonus, for anyone interested in learning how one of Criss Angel’s biggest tricks (jumping through a fireball and disappearing) was faked, check out the video below… and if you want to learn more, that same youtube user has other examples here and here.

Fall TV Preview - Do Not Disturb

Got a chance to see the pilot for “Do Not Disturb”, a sitcom coming to FOX in the fall, and starring Jerry O’Connell (of “Sliders” and “Crossing Jordan” fame). And I don’t think I can say this bluntly enough…..avoid this show at all costs. It’s written by a former writer for “Arrested Development”, and is directed by Jason Bateman (the guy that played Micheal Bluth on “Arrested Development”), so I expected something at least decent, since that show was as close to pure genius as TV has gotten in decades.

Sadly I was bombarded with a slue of horribly poor writing and stereotypical characters that lead me to believe that it’s actually attempting to insult the audience. You have the fat nice girl, the skinny bitch, the angry black chick, the stereotypical gay guy (which somehow comes off as the least offensive of the bunch)…and it just goes on and on. Every character seems to be constructed to be exactly the thing that will offend people the most. And of course that bleeds into the dialog, which is full of racist/insulting/idiotic jokes that go so far below the “lowest common denominator” typical of ‘dick and fart’ sitcoms that it HAS to be on purpose.

Keep reading if you want spoilers, but if you do stop reading now, do yourself a favour and skip this one when it hits your TV in September….TV this bad is hard to come by, and if you’ve read any of my past reviews, that should tell you something about just how bad this show is. Read more