With the impending release of The Great Buck Howard, Tomas suggested we blog about our favorite magic movies.
The one I like the most isn't The Illusionist, or The Prestige, but a little known independent film titled
Magicians. It stars Til Schweiger as an entertaining but technically-challenged conjuror, who recruits a pickpocket, played by Fabrizio Bentivoglio. Together, with their coach/manager and lovely assistant (Alan Arkin and Claire Forlani), they set out to make it big in Las Vegas.
Of course, we get to follow them on their journey to making it big - playing tiny rooms with unfriendly crowds, developing the act along the way. It was realistic enough for me to recognize parallels in my own performing career!
Tomas writes...My all time favorite magician movie is Herschell Gordon Lewis' THE WIZARD OF GORE. For those not familiar with H.Gordon Lewis, he's a low-budget filmmaker responsible for inventing the "gore movie". No, the Wizard of Gore isn't for everyone. In fact it's loaded with buckets of guts. Sometimes its fun trying to work out which is worse - the acting, the script or the production values.
Honestly, it's all AWFUL, but fun to watch with friends. Especially magic nerds. Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager) is WORST magician ever, but he's an excellent hypnotist. Montag performs standard illusions, only his lovely volunteers drop dead shortly after each performance. He hypnotizes the entire audience and they see the typical "Lady Sawed in Half" trick, but in reality he chainsaws her. The assistants get swords crammed down their throats, spikes in their stomachs, and nails in their ears. Each time Montag makes a bunch of crazy faces and squishes their slimy guts between his fingers. Once he's done, he snaps the audience out of their haze and everyone goes along their merry way, none the wiser.
The movie is definitely not for everyone and Painfully good. Recently, Crispin Glover stars in a re-make of the Wizard of Gore. I have yet to see it, but I'm assuming it's not as fun with a bigger budget and slicker special effects.
This coming weekend, I'm headed up to Colon, Michigan, and the Abbott's Magic Close-Up convention. Unlike the Abbott's Get-Together, which is a four-day event in August, the Close-Up convention is a much smaller affair. Because of the intimate nature of the event, it affords the attendees a chance at face time with the convention's special guests.
Best known as Judge Harry Stone on the '80s sitcom Night Court, Harry Anderson made his way from magician to accidental TV star. Performing on TV and around the world as a magician, he made his foray into the acting world via a guest spot as Harry the Hat, a con artist who hung around Cheers.
