"Stone Cold Magic" DVD by Jeff Stone
Suggested Retail USD$25.00
Available direct from Jeff Stone
In a Blink: 9 Out of 10

"Stone Cold Magic", Jeff Stone's first solo DVD, is one of those videos you just can't put down, full of great card routines you'll get a kick out of and all taught in an entertaining and fun way.

My first exposure to Stone was through Jay Sankey's "Underground Jam". In my review of that disc, I made the comment that I wanted to see more of Stone's work. Well, I got my wish and I'm not disappointed at all.

The thing I love about Stone's work is that it's all about having fun with the spectators and letting them have fun with the magic. Yeah, I know... that's pretty much a cliche anymore. But the fact is that most card magic -- and way too much magic in general, but I'll let that topic go for now-- is all about the cards. Four aces get produced... whee. A selected card ends up trapped between two other cards... whee again.

Stone doesn't do that with his stuff. Plainly, he warps it. When he takes a shot at some old plot or the other, it gets twisted so that it's fun. Oh, sure, sometimes it's silly, sometimes shocking, but always fun. That's a neat thing to do. And in this collection you'll see that warping and twisting all over the place. So let's look at some of material.

"Ace Bandage" is just plain slick. Four indifferent cards (and no, I'm not going to repeat the Paul Harris line about that, or give Stone's version of it) change, one at a time to the four Aces. The visuals here are very sweet and the handling fairly simple.

"Sardeen Window" cracked me up. Literally. I laughed at this one for a good while. Not that it's particularly funny -- it's not even comedy magic at its worse -- but just that the visuals were so striking and so easy I couldn't believe anyone had done this with the "Invisible Palm" before.

"Little People", on the other hand, is a fun bit of foolishness. In this one, a selected card gets badly palmed by a fake plastic hand (which is shown empty, if you can imagine that one) and then said hand reveals it had predicted the chosen card. Well, I said Stone's stuff was twisted, didn't I? Still, this is a fun routine and just plain silly enough to be entertaining.

"Dethroned", a pun-rich routine, sports a really slick vanish of the four Kings, one at a time. A nice, visual piece that's a winner.

"Jackson Hole" I could kill Stone over. It features a visual card change created by Brad Gordon that I've been using for years now and here he goes and puts it on video. Oh, well, guess the good stuff can't stay hidden forever. Here, Stone uses it for a slick two-card transpo that looks great and is oh-so-easy.

"Triplets" uses Jay Sankey's "Triangle Pop-Up" to reveal three selections in a really slick way. I have to admit, this one ended up being one of my favorites on the disc.

But you know how I am by now, after all the reviews we've shared together: if there's one routine on the disc that makes it into my act, then the disc is gold.

In "Stone Cold Magic", that routine was "The Spectral Chill".

This was the first routine from the disc I did for others and it's mindblowing. Essentially, it's a very creative, very clever update on Christ's version of Martin Gardner's "Baffling Prediction". In short, Stone took what could best be described as a mathematical oddity and turned it into a shocking piece of magic. This one is worth the price of the disc.

Okay, so there are the stand-out pieces. The rest of the material is all just as good, if not personal favorites. But if I went through and gave a blow-by-blow of each routine on the disc, this review would start rivaling most phonebooks. Let's just say the material is all excellent and leave it at that.

Now, to Stone himself. The thing I love about Stone is that nothing, and I do mean "nothing", is all that serious. When he's teaching something, you'll learn the moves alright and you'll learn the presentations. You'll also learn that it's not a worldwide crisis of epic proportions to laugh at what you're doing, mock yourself as you go, and have fun doing what you do. That attitude makes watching this disc, learning from Stone, entertaining, fun, engaging and, yes, different.

If you're looking for some killer card magic, done with simple sleights and handlings, don't let "Stone Cold Magic" get by you. It's packed with stuff you'll learn, think about, and use. For my money, this one is a solid keeper and then some.

"Stone Cold Magic" by Jeff Stone
In a Blink: 9 Out of 10

Material: 10
Seventeen card effects, running the spectrum of established plots, but just twisted enough to be different. Rather that difference is silly, strange, or just plain flat-out diabolical, Stone's card routines something to see and do.

Practicality: 9
Most of the effects require you, a deck of cards, and nothing else. A couple will require some gaffs here and there, but nothing too major to fret about; in most performance situations they wouldn't be a huge cramp in your style.

Quality of Production: 7
Great audio, great video, great navigation... everything's fine with this one. The only drawback is some of the camera angles need some help (hitting "zoom" a couple of times works fine).

Quality of Instruction: 10
Stone's teaching style is laid back, relaxed, and with just a hint of the mischievous. Think good old-fashioned sessioning here. He's a fun guy to learn from, that's for sure, and makes learning these little gems just that much easier.

Presentation: 10
Stone's presentations are all a little strange, but that's a good thing. Even the older plots come across a bit better, if not differently, when he gets done with them.

Shane

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