Magic Tricks

Marotta's part of this is simply brilliant. The Sankey DVD is a tremendous let down.

Marotta demonstrates tremendous performance and wonderful effects. I am extremely impressed, and use a ton of this material on a regular basis. I would recommend picking this up simply for Marotta's 3 DVD's. However, the Sankey DVD is a disappointment. Sankey is normally a rock-solid name, and if he releases it, I trust it to be worth the time and money. Unfortunately, this is a complete miss on his part. His "lecture" rambles and is gloriously devoid of ACTUAL advice. It must be what it's like to be in his brain for a short period of time. There seems to be thoughts and concepts flying every which way, but they never really materialize into something solid that you can say, "I will definitely try that," when the DVD is over. In my opinion, it's akin to a lot of self-help material. Rather than give you hard and fast ideas towards improvement, it is more along the lines of, "be witty and spontaneous", or "entertainment is paramount". Yeah, I get that, but if I didn't tend toward it already, simply telling me to do it isn't going to help me get there.

I would very much recommend the Marotta series, but you'll get more mileage out of Gazzo's "Read Between The Lines" than you will out of the Sankey DVD included in this deal. I'm giving it four stars completely due to Marotta. The fifth star is docked because Sankey didn't hold up his end of the bargain.