GE by Brian Tudor, card magic and flourishes dvd.

myths- this dvd is too hard for beginners, and brian cant teach.
thats SO not true...
1) this dvd isnt just for intermidate at flourishing... if you can do a charlier cut, this dvd is for you. the material is hard and it takes ALOT of practice, but its worth it! just look at the preview and tell me you dont want to be able to do that stuff!
2) brian is a good teacher, he tells you exactly what to do, the only thing that he doesnt teach very clearly is the castro cut, but that cut looks awfull if you ask me, i didnt even try to learn it... and one more thing: MOST of the sleights on the dvd arent that hard, nothing really knuckle busting... the only hard part of the dvd are the flourishes.

how the dvd beggins: brian tells us that he likes to perform to music and he tells us the pros and cons of performing to music and not using patter.

the routines:
Show Off: flourishes routine, no magic. something about this routine is very strange... its supposed to be a blind routine (meaning that its completely false) but some of the cuts arent false, so how is that possible? ive never seen brian do it from start to finish without editing in the middle, im guessing that its because some of the cuts are not false and he wanted to have the climax anyway... meh what ever, the flourishes are amazing.
this is what it looks like:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QloRg-WdIhw& ... ed&search=

Triumph 3: this is a basic triumph routine using the tudor shuffle, a very good false shuffle. i wouldnt use this shuffle for cheating in cards though because it looks too proffesional, unlike, lets say the zarrow shuffle that looks really casual.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jd7v3DWCEHs& ... ed&search=

Follow the Queen this is like a very visual coins across routine but with cards. probably one of the best packet tricks ive ever seen... has some difficult sleights but nothing impossible...
great climax at the end.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=n-rRamC_Azo& ... ed&search=

The Man from New York you shuffle the cards face up into face down, the spectators can actually see the cards face up and face down, its not a false shuffle... and then you take the deck and cut to 4 aces (or kings, what ever you want...) and spread the deck to show that all the cards are now face down. this is a self working routine but it requires some set up.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tUDZEXikBS0& ... ed&search=

Hypnotic best routine on the dvd, and by far my favourite card magic routine EVER! i dont think ive ever seen a card routine that had such a perfect flow!
its basicly an ACR and at the end you produce a four of a kind of the signed card. you learn SO MANY usefull sleights in this routine! alot of great controls.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mInAG7GaDhU

The Politician this is a color changes routine, two cards change until at the end theres a nice climax (i wont spoil it for you, you can see it in the video)
some of the changes are worth practicing but most of them are pretty out-dated and arent even all that visual... but its a pretty good routine, i really liked the name.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ukbVgtq-go& ... ed&search=


overall:
this is the best dvd for anyone interested in flourishing and fast card routines that youll most likely never use to impress laymen, but will make you look like a real pro if you show them to a magician.

pros:
*excellent material.
*good teaching (unlike Generation X, the dvd brian released BEFORE penguin released GE)
*has something for everyone, not just flourishers.

cons:
*a little pricey, this dvd came out in 2004 or 2003... (im not sure) and it still costs 50 bucks.
*youll have to rewind ALOT
*some stuff from GX are missing

i hope you enjoyed reading my review

I don't want to be able to do this stuff.....




So I must work my [edited] off to impress other magicians who already know how its done anyway? Ill pass on this one. Why would I want to work so hard to impress other magicians who aren't the ones who want to be entertained by magic?

because its fun!
laymen dont care for flourishes... why would you want to practice flourishes then?
because its fun.

if you dont like flourishing then thats alright... not everybody like the same stuff.

same thing with brian's routines, most of them are long and arent easy to do smoothly, so you will probably not show them to laymen.
if youre practicing magic just for your spectators then you might as well only do the routines from BTP, they all get great reactions and theyre all very easy.

check some of the links in my review and tell me if you dont like what brian does.

I dont want to do or need to do it. I dont feel the need to impress other magicians. Thats not my job.
Maybe thats why you focus on this so much... you'd rather impress magicians that the real people.

I do feel that some of this stuff can be used in a performance. But I dont care, its not for me.


That bolded part: IS a bunch of BS. IF you cant impress a lay person, how do you expect to impress a Professional MAgician.

I know I am not impressed by it. I will not think any higher of you because you can do it. I would be impressed if you can entertain people though.

If I am going to learn and perfect something, IT will be something that I will use in my routine and shows.
IF you are learning this just so you think you can look like a pro, well I am sorry for you.

I dont think that makes you look like a pro, and it certainly doesnt make you a pro.

I really dont think this was that great of a review. I also think you have the wrong mind set.

Brain is talented. But I dont like it, or want to do it.

To sum it up.. It sounds like you bought this to impress magicians and make your self feel "cool" and "like a pro."

(I know my thoughts are sparatic, but oh well.)
Know lets watch you get all in a tear like you usually do.

Good review. But are you just saying all that because you like tudor so much, or do you really mean it.

not everything you do should be inorder to entertain laymen...
i like knowing that i can do difficult stuff and not only stuff like the biddle trick that are almost self working...
if you just want to entertain laymen, dont get this dvd...
if you wanna learn cool and challenging stuff that are fun to practice, get it.

if you only want to entertain laymen, why are you even in this forum? you should already have a good set of easy to do routines that get good reactions...
someone once said that the moment you stop learning new stuff is the moment your magic suffers.

p.s.
to nicholas: why do you think i became a fan of tudor?

I love watching flourishes, but Hypnotic alone would take me 3 years to get down. In that time, I could have mastered quite a few essential sleights, finished my commercial pilot's license and spent more time with my girlfriend.

Think I'll go the girlfriend route.

That's a lot of BS. It's completely idiotic. It doesn't even make sense. Try to get into card manipulation that Jeff McBride does. Extremely hard at the beginning. Or the stuff Lennart Green does? There are a lot of difficult routines that are shown to spectators.

Also, just because someone wouldn't want this DVD, doesn't mean that they are not learning more magic. It just means they find it useless for themselves.

Also, Tudor isn't the best teacher. There is a general consensus that agrees on this.

p.s.
to nicholas: why do you think i became a fan of tudor?

I got no idea.

I don't do much magic anymore since I started to do flourishes and I find it quite entertaining and of course very time consuming. On the other hand, for some reason I TOTALLY AGREE with you! I do love Tudors work, but alot of the things are just to bothersome to learn. I like to keep flourishing and magic separate personally and would rather do random junk in the years that it would take me to get down hypnotic.

I don't want to learn all these crazy flourishes. It'd be awesome if I could, but I'd rather be perfecting something more entertaining to laymen and not to myself.

I might pick up XB because I just want to learn some decent flourishes to make people go WOW! and move on to a real trick.

just listen to yourself for a second.
its like all you wanna do is make a good impression on your spectators...
you dont want to try new things because youre too afraid that your precious spectators wont like it!

i doubt theres anyone in this forum who can look at the trailer for GE and not wish he could do that stuff, you just lie to yourself because you cba to start practicing new and difficult stuff...

i guess youre just doing magic for the money

You are so full of your self, and so full or crap.

I can look at it, and truthfully tell you I dont give a [edited].

Why should I bother trying to impress another magician? Are they paying my bills? No, no they arent. MY job is to entertain the audience, they are the ones that matter.

Just because we arent interested in GE, doesnt mean we cant do it, or that we are scared.

The next thing you will be getting is you GED!

I was right, the ONLY reason you do this stuff, is to make your self feel better than the rest of us. You stupid [edited] kid, being able to do this does not make you better than any of us. You truely think that your supieror because you can do a fancy cut. You know what, thats not true.
I think you only do this, Because you cant entertain an audience.

Just because we dont want to waste our time on this [edited], doesnt mean we are in magic just for the money.

You are such and ignorant, egotistacal, [edited].

david you sound like your only doing magic for the money...
youre not even denying it

You ignorant piece of [edited].

I dont do it just for the money you [edited] [edited]. I dont like being accused of something, thats false.
IF you were to say that to my face you'd be eating gravel.
I have been in magic for almost as long as your miserable life.

I have been performing magic this long because I enjoy it. If I was in it for the money I would charge more and perform more, and not care about how good I was at performing, and I wouldnt bother posting on here to help people.


You really think just because we dont like your precious little GE dvd, that we only do magic for money. So then the magician you claim to work for is only in it for money. It would mean, bravesaint, sluggo, paddy, kristen and her daughter, David Copperfield, Lance burton, Gazzo, DaveV, etc... are all in magic just for the money.
Are you that ignorant, are you that self absorbed? Of course you are.
Your [edited] obsessed with this dvd, its sad, really really sad.