Magic Tricks

Luckily, I already owned a copy of the book being used here. You'll have to buy it separately if you don't have it. (And who, besides me, does?) For what this trick is, I can't recommend doing that.

To his credit, the creator does try to give value for money, teaching a few different effects and forces. None of them are bad but the main effect (using the flashback principle as mentioned in the ad copy) just feels underwhelming. On top of that, the application of that principle here is flawed.

First of all, the text itself is far from encyclopedic. Larger fonts and big pictures does make it easier for the audience to see the chosen film but it also means that the number of movies to choose from is inherently limited. Because of this, the spectator might draw the (reasonable) conclusion that you're gathering their movie title based on its positioning in the book. (You're not.) This effect would be far more impressive if it used one of those thicker, text-only, small-print film compendiums with thousands of titles.

But the bigger problem is that using the flashback principle with an ungimmicked text will never have the same impact as it does with a gimmicked one. That's because in a gimmicked text, the tipped information is "not supposed to be where you (the mentalist) find it". But, in an ungimmicked text, it is! People familiar with reference works might easily spot the same thing you do or at least suspect it.

Additionally, unlike the original Flashback, you're not having spectators focus on a random word in the corner of the page but rather on the movie itself. A movie that, mind you, is covered extensively in the text that follows. It's not hard for spectators to put two and two together. But even if they don't, it's just not that hard-hitting. It would be like limiting the choice of words in a novel to just the chapter titles. Not so impressive.

I hate to be down on this, especially as the only review submitted thus far. But I think it highlights the idea that trying to incorporate the flashback principle in "found" texts simply doesn't work. At least it doesn't in this iteration.