well technically the sky isint any specific color; our eyes make color so it all depends on the persons vision.

so technically neither one is wrong or right; it dosent matter if they agree or not its till an opinion.

and if someone considers him a good magician how could u say they were wrong, their view on a good magician could be anybody who could do a frenchdrop; jsut becuse u wouldnt think they were good dosent make the other person wrong. its all just opinions

When reading the subject headline, I thought: "Oh no this will be another thread about bashing famous magicians!".
I think when a magician says anything bad about another magician, they both end up looking bad! (Wonderful words of Mr. Michael Ammar). We as magicians, when watching other magicians in television with our friends or families are often asked: "Is he any good?", "Can you do that?" I will admit it's very tempting to point out the mistakes he is making, because obviously I know, and because it would make me out to be a better magician than him. At least to my friends. I usually though, say whatever good there is to say instead. Why? Because it makes magic look good. It makes their experience of it better. I do not own the right to be the only one admired by my friends for my art. However, I have an obligation to promote the art any way I can.

THIS BEING SAID: A few years back I used to HATE David Blaine, because I felt he crossed the line: He made a person sign a piece of paper with the name of a passed love one. He lit the piece of paper on fire and extinguished it on his arm, where "the ashes" showed the name of the loved one. (I guess you all know the method). Then he walked in real close to the person, put his hand over their heart, looked them in the eye and said: "(s)he is still with you!" This of course made them cry. I felt he crossed the line.

Though I believe that many clairvoyants do a great job. The difference however, is that people choose to go there. They maybe hear what they needed to hear. I don't care if the clairvoyant is payed either. If he is helping people? In some aspects they do the same as psychiatrists do. They listen and ask... then of course they tell them what they "feel", and I will not be the one to judge if what they feel is really cold reading and if they know this or not, or if it really is spirits guiding them. I don't care, as long as people get the help they need to live better lives.

So did Blaine do this? I don't know. Maybe some of them went away from there feeling much better. But some might not have, and they didn't ask for it! They maybe just thought they would be seing a magic tricks they wouldn't believe anyway.

Wow this got rather philosophical. I don't mean to add to the discussion about lying or deceiving people, but it really think it is our duty to think of the consequences our actions have on people. We are to think about ethics, and I think it's great that we inhere can discuss how to consider ethics when performing!

-Widding

well most people know angle cant do half of the stuff he does on tv in real life, and some people think all magic on tv is fake anyways

And Angel sure isn't helping.

that statment also applied to blaine and copperfield;not saying its their fault, its just when some people watch magic on tv any crazy methods they can think of is how its done in their mind

Ok heres my opinion,
In school, im doing tricks for my friends, maybe a ambitious card, and when i am finished, i hear "hey can you like levitate?"(and EVERYBODY knows how the balduchhi levitation is done) and i reply no sorry but i can levitate smaller objects, and they say "oh, well criss angel can, hes amazing" that really pisses me off how we are expected to perform the impossible [edited] that he performs. like how is he famous??? he has no talent...the guy cant even do a decent spring|?!? and he has a tv show??? magic is seriously in jeopardy :/

Just try to keep your cool and tell them, "Well that's just not really my thing. That's kind've one of Criss's signature pieces (not totally true, but just try to keep them happy), so I don't want to steal his thunder or anything like that. But here I'll show you something totally different that I think you'll like..." and then move on.

Sure we would all like our spectators to say that Criss sucks, but most likely they're going to think the opposite. Just remember to NOT to talk trash about Criss if everyone around you LOVES him. That will only make them not like you. Get on their side and try to give a fluffed up opinion of Mindfreak, if you can. For ex. "Yeah I like some of the sleight-of-hand stuff he does, like that one effect where he _________. I thought that was really well done. I don't really like some of his big stunts though, just because of how he presents them, you know?"

Bottom line, just go with them, don't talk against Criss if they like him, and change the subject.

just go to the nearest construction site, than u can levitate

The Masked Magician NEVER uses camera tricks.

He's the man.

this is all i have to say :p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v0wgEZoW2c

That's not Valentino.

That was someone trying to discredit the Masked Magician.

I have a question,

If somebody says "Why don't you levitate like Criss Angel did ???" what is wrong with the response, "Because i don't use camera tricks" ?

If Chriss didn't have ANY talent, he wouldn't have his own show. I'm not a fan of his, and I think he disapoints, but to say he's talentless I think is false. Someone else mentioned earlier that magic isn't really the same unless it is done right in front of you, and I fully agree with this. I remember watching a special on magic history, and magic on TV origionally started out as a bad idea among magicians. But the specials created back in the day proved that to some extent you COULD amaze an audience through a screen, but the camera angle could NOT cut at any point.

-ArchAngel_G

What's more, she unwittingly sabotaged the trick. She was supposed to divvy the cards evenly into four piles. She did not. As a result, the aces wound up in different positions. He should've explained it better, and he should've kept a closer eye on what she was doing. He could've gotten out of it before flipping the card over by passing it off as a complicated cutting and shuffling technique. He also could've used a stripper deck to ensure whichever cards she picked, if they weren't aces, he could simply shuffle them into the deck and produce them again.