Magic Tricks

I'm impressed with Reynold's trick, High Rise (formerly known as Half Moon Rising). It's the simplest rising card trick I've seen.

When you watch the full video, you'll see he goes through his entire ambitious card routine, which is pretty good. This turns out to be a nice bonus for any new magician as he does touch on some of the sleights he uses for it.

I rated this high (I generally reserve 5 stars for mind-blowing visual stuff... so a 4 star is really good for a regular card trick) is that this trick is extremely doable for anyone without having to worry about gimmicks breaking or failing you. In fact, the gimmick used in this trick (if you can even really call it a gimmick), is EXTREMELY easy and simple to set up.

Unfortunately, the audience reactions during the two full presentations seemed to be a little lackluster, so I'm not totally sure how good it'll play out in real life for me. I'll find out. ;-) But I think it's all about presentation and the personality of the magician at this point... so I think the trick should not be dinged for that. Reynold did a great job though... so I'm not sure why his audience wasn't falling over themselves when the card rose.

Anyway.

Here's a couple straight up questions and answers:
1. Are there arts & crafts? Yes. If you incredibly, ridiculously lazy, you will consider this an arts & crafts project. However, if you consider this to be an arts & crafts project that you can't or don't want to handle, quite frankly, you don't belong in magic. Seriously... this is a 3 second arts and crafts project. In other words, the real answer is no. That said, if you haven't done any arts and crafts for magic (i.e. the guy I just mentioned), you might not have the one item. But a quick drive to any office supply store or big box store with office and stationary supplies will take care of that.
2. How's the instruction? It's sufficiently good. I do wish that he had a close up camera for some of it, just to make the lesson a little more visual and helpful. But it's still good enough. There is a weird overhead angle that is used once or twice that helps slightly, though I'd rather have had the close-up. I also wish he went into even more detail and slower for his ambitious moves so could have been more of a complete package for beginners. But again, the ambitious stuff was indeed a bonus, so I can't really hold it against him. Overall, good job, Reynold!
3. Is the price right? At first, I thought no. When you see his solution, you'll think possibly that you paid too much. But if you think more about it, shouldn't you be willing to pay MORE for a solution that gets the job done but more simply and elegantly? So yes. The price is right.
4. Is this for the show or for the junk drawer? If you want to use a rising card in your act, then yes, this will be your go-to method. It's worth it. If you're doing only coin magic, then ummmmm...

Great job again, Reynold! I look forward to reviewing and using your next trick. :-)

(By the way, I always try to be honest and straightforward in my reviews, while being respectful to the magician. If you appreciate my reviews, can you please click the "Yes" button below beside the question, "Did this review help you?" It's not like I actually benefit in any way by your clicking it... but it would be nice to see if my reviews are helpful or not. I hope they are. If you ever have suggestions or comments or questions about my reviews, please feel free to leave me a constructive comment. I'm just trying to be helpful. I love the Penguin community and hope that I can someday contribute my own product. :-) Thanks for reading and for any (hopefully positive, but either way, at least kind) feedback!)