How Shall I Judge?

This whole set is a weird set to judge and review. It's not quite fair to judge Richard Osterlind on any weak parts of the performance he may have had because, likely, most of the stuff on this set is not in his regular repertoire so I don't expect it to be polished. Secondly, according to Jim Sisti (co-host), this set also was not intended to be a "best of" series either, so I can't really judge the set based on whether or not the material chosen was the top Annemann stuff either. Due to the way the Annemann book was written (as Osterlind and Sisti point out), it wouldn't make sense to go chapter by chapter (like Osterlind did for the Corinda series), so I can't really judge the set on how "complete" (or not) it is.

So, that leaves me judging the set based on the ad copy claims and the intent (according to Jim Sisti) of the set. My judgement on that is basically the same for the first 3 videos, so this part of the review will be found at the beginning of each of the three (1, 2 and 3) volumes. Following my general comments about the series, you'll find my thoughts on the effects of whichever DVD I'm reviewing.

General Comments About the Whole Set

A small disclaimer: Jim Sisti is a friend of mine and Richard Osterlind is a cyber-acquaintance of mine. We have a few friends in common (Jim Sisti, Jim Spinnato and Chet Cox). But as you'll quickly see, those relationships have not biased my review. Let's look at the ad copy first. The first paragraph of the ad copy is 100% true. It just talks about how popular the book is amongst mentalists and magicians. Let's look, however, at the second paragraph:

This exciting new DVD series explores the work of Annemann and his Jinx contributors in a scholarly way, analyzing not only the presentation of some of the strongest mentalism ever created but also the thinking behind the effects. Richard Osterlind first performs the effects in their original form before an audience of non-magicians and then [e]very nuance is exhaustively explained with the assistance of Jim Sisti.

Exciting? Not really. While some of the performances were smoother and more entertaining than others, many of the performances were full of awkward moments, dry boring silence, a fair share of bumbling and fumbling. However, I'm not too upset by that. As I mentioned, these are not effects that Osterlind performs on a regular basis, as far as I know up to this point. And the ones that he does perform more often . . . it showed. Those routines were much more polished. I'm merely pointing out that the DVD was not as exciting - it was even hard to watch at times - as the ad copy claims.

Is the material explored in a scholarly way as stated in the ad copy? Yes. Definitely. Sisti and Osterlind were very clear on credits and history and the reasoning behind methods and effects. This part was well done. Additionally, the opening sequence of each DVD is a cool little photo montage with a brief voice over bio about Annemman. Very cool. Obviously the claim that the material from the Annemann book is some of the strongest mentalism ever created is true as well. For sure.

Next the ad copy states that Osterlind performs each effect in their original form. This is not true in many (maybe even most) cases. In just about every routine, he changed the handling, method, prop and in some cases even the effect. For the most part this wasn't a big deal because that's just the way it goes; performers don't always use the exact method from the book. In some cases, Osterlind's addition made the effect even better in my opinion. There were some cases where his insight on the modification of the method where very simple and very clever.

I merely bring up the changes because it goes against the claim in the ad copy. Further, the claim that every nuance is exhaustively explained is just not true. In fact, on more times than I care to recall, Osterlind said, "if you want the details you can look it up in the book." Or, "I'm not gonna cover this in depth because you can get the details from the book." And several variations thereof.

So, you may ask yourself, why I get so hung up on scrutinizing the ad copy. Simple: when you buy a product, you should know what you're getting. I'm not even saying (necessarily) that the deviation from the ad copy is right or wrong. I'm merely making clear to you, my faithful reader, what you're really getting if you buy this set. If I based my review solely on the above, I'd be hard pressed to give much more than 2.5 stars, but wait . . . there's more.

Let's examine the purpose. According to the discussions (which I did find valuable and insightful) between Osterlind and Sisti, the intent of this set is to inspire people to dig through the book. They were very clear that they weren't trying to replace the book. They were trying to inspire a new generation of Annemannites. Based strictly on the impact the majority of the effects seemed to have on the audience (poor performances not withstanding), I think they nailed this one.

I've personally read the book 2 times from cover to cover and have skimmed and read chapters and studied parts of the book several times over, on top of the 2 full readings. Yet, after watching these DVDs, I now want to go back in and dig even deeper into the book. Most of the time, the audience members were quite astonished and in many cases actually creeped out a bit. It was some powerful stuff. One of the advantages of Osterlind's bare-bones presentations on much of this material is that it gave me the opportunity to project my thoughts and feelings on how I might perform the effects.

Further, a goal of this set was to prove that the material was not "dated." Yep. They proved that too. The material, effects, etc. is anything but dated. Rather, it's timeless . . . and you see this very clearly in the audience reactions. Were I to judge this DVD soley on this part (how well they attained the goals of the project), it'd be hard to give this anything less than 4 stars. So the advertisement and intent seem to balance out each other pretty well.

What you'll find is that pretty much every DVD has one or two standout items that will inspire you to dive into the book more thoroughly. Which effects will inspire you? Everyone is different, so it's hard to say. However, I am confident that you will find at least one effect that "moves" you and gets you to crack open the book again which was their goal. And I must say, that goal alone makes this DVD set worthy of consideration. Anything that inspires us to turn to our roots so that we can branch out is valuable in my book. Let's move on to the DVD at hand . . .