Search - David Blaine - Fearless on DVD

Great Magic At A Bargain

Chon-ny | 05/30/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You may have caught some of "street magician" David Blaine's act on his TV specials that had limited runs. Not too worry; "David Blaine: Fearless" gathers them all up, and throws them all onto one DVD, and then some. You can generally find this DVD priced the same as "discount" DVDs, so you won't be paying the normal $20 plus that DVDs command.Blaine's amazing tricks are super-cool but wouldn't have held their own displayed merely in a Vegas showroom; it's the who and where that makes this DVD special. Blaine often performs his tricks up close and with plenty of audience participation, to an extremely diverse set of people. He bites a quarter in half and spits it back to make it whole in front of some LA street thugs. He performs his famous levitation at the Dallas Cowboys training camp, sending Deion Sanders running, his wits barely intact. He pulls various "pick a card" tricks on a pair of grandmothers sitting on a bench, despite their initial declaration that they're not into magic tricks. A bunch of soccer girls at a rest stop scream with glee when makes a name appear out of ash.Blaine even ventures into a remote South American jungle, where an tribe that has been mostly isolated from civilization serves as the challenge; the only way he can communicate with them is magic, but will "pick a card" mean anything to them or impress a culture with no concept of quarters, Aces or Spades? Blaine adapts and amazes them by squeezing drinkable amounts of water from random places or making a ball multiply within a closed fist. He does this again with other journeys to foreign areas.Many of Blaine's tricks are true head-scratchers that will leave even the most cynical viewer amused. I've already described a significant amount of his simpler tricks, so I'll leave the rest for the DVD to show, including an act that is more endurance than magic: fighting hypothermia and mental breakdowns as he remains encased in an ice prison on a busy sidewalk for a couple of days.He has a different sort of charisma; he's so laid back but you still get the sense that he truly treats magic as an art, not as an attempt to hoodwink you; but at the same time he isn't so overly serious that you can associate with him.This is a great DVD to have; magic is an all-genre, all-gender thing. You can pop "Fearless" in anytime at any setting, be it a small gathering, a big party, or in your portable DVD player while waiting for your flight at the airport. There's very little filler material, which is a good thing; they've packed in as much material as they can.A must-buy for anyone."

Beautiful Close-Up Magic

Laura De Giorgio | Canada | 12/05/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Most of David Blaine's magic is a close-up magic and as a previous reviewer said - yes, practicing magicians are familiar and can do most of the magic presented on this video. Nevertheless, most people are not practicing magicians, and even those who are, will appreciate the presentation. DVD is wonderful to watch and non-magicians in particular will be astonished and delighted. Most of the magic revolves around sleight-of-hand - with cards, coins, rings, and bills, then you'll see levitation, which involves - hmm, mainly distraction (I guess it wouldn't be exactly sleight-of-feet), and then you'll watch David encased in a block of ice for three days and more fun stuff. And you'll hear lots of screams from astonished participants."

This guy is supernatural

Christopher G. Lewis | Silver Spring, MD USA | 06/05/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It seems like David Blaine does standard old-school tricks like biting the quarter in half or sleight-of-hand card switches in order to make his more mind-blowing illusions seem a little less spooky. I have read the editorials by magicians debunking some of his more pedestrian tricks but I haven't read any plausible explanations on how he managed to aid the guy in buying the winning $1600 lottery ticket (don't tell me they cut out the footage of hundreds of losing tickets) or managed to drop a woman's ring into a sewer grate and then find it minutes later inside a tiny liquor bottle on the ground behind the crowd of onlookers. There are at least a dozen of these "tricks" on the DVD that are absolutely astonishing. He is an unworldly character and the video is an outstanding document of his abilities."

Not miracles, but incredible nonetheless

Adrian Orozco | Miami Beach, Florida United States | 01/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"David Blaine will be the first to admit that his magic is all trickery as amazing as it is. This DVD contains some of the most amazing tricks you'll ever see. I was a bit dissappointed to find that he did use some editing techniques which cheapened his tricks, but if you take the DVD for what it's worth, there is still some amazing content. I guess one of the advantages of using a camera is that you can edit it. As for the levitation trick, in the Bonus Material there is one that shows how it looks to the person watching, which if you slow it down enough, you could see how he did it. It's still very good. Also, many of the card tricks can be figured out if you slow them down, but his ease with the cards is still impressive. There are some tricks I still can't figure out, but that's what makes him a great magician. All these people that criticize him are bogus or jealous. One aspiring magician said that Blaine was hurting Magic, I feel that he lifted it to a new level and made it fun and popular again. One person said that if you call the DVD magic then you might as well call Star Wars magic. That's silly because Blaine rarely uses editing techniques and the magic that does not use it is still incredible. The truth is that everyone that was impressed was real, maybe he didn't show us exactly what he showed them, but he impressed them somehow. It's worth buying. You'll impress all your friends."