Having a little free time, thought I'd start a review of Oz's DVD. Feel free to complete whatever I don't finish.

Stealing Pips by Oz Perlman

Running time: Around 45 min. The counter resets to 00:00 after each track.

Setting: Informal--Dark Blue Floor, Light Blue Curtain, Black Table top.

Image Quality: Excellent. Single Camera angle throughout. Digital quality image.

Effects:

1) Perfecto: A spectator shuffles a deck of cards, places the deck behind their back and turns over any card of their choosing. The card is then placed half-way back into the deck, and brought forward to the magician. The magi then brings out his own deck of cards stating it is his "prediction deck".
The magician takes the spectators deck, pushes the freely selected card into the deck, and ribbon spreads the cards out in front of the spectator. One card is noted to be face down in the spread. The magi then removes his prediction deck and ribbon spreads it, revealing one face down card. The spectators card and the magis prediction card prove to be the same.

Nice effect. Requires some sleight of hand, clearly explained during the SAC move and dirty deck explanations. I am not a big mentalism fan, but can see myself performing this trick. 7/10

Impossible transpo: The spectator chooses two cards from the deck, and is asked to pick their favorite of the two. The selected card is tabled, and the other card is taken by the magi. He gives the card a rub, and it instantly changes into the spectators card. The tabled card is then turned over to reveal the cards have changed places.

Nice "quick trick". Requires sleight of hand. All moves being taught very clearly in the explanation phase. 7/10

Card Vanishes: A brief routine vanishing and reproducing a single card.

Good looking routine, but very dependant on angles. Oz spends more time watching the monitor than looking into the camera while doing this routine, so you know it would be tough to do surrounded. Requires sleight of hand (DUH). Well explained and demonstrated, but will require the most work to achieve. 5/10

I-C-3: A blue backed deck is presented with the explanation it is missing three cards of undetermined status. A red backed deck is brought out and given to the spectator to shuffle. The red backed deck is then ribbon spread face down and the spectator freely selects three cards. The magician then places the three chosen cards randomly into the blue deck. The deck is ribbon spread, and the three red cards are out jogged. The Magician then "notices" there are still cards in the blue case. These are withdrawn, and upon turning them over, both sets of cards are found to match.

Nice routine, but simliar to Perfecto. Can be played as a mentalism routine, or a "coincidence" routine. Requires sleight of hand as in Perfecto. Once again, the explanation is clear and logically presented. 5/10 (for similarity to Perfecto)

Twist and Shake: The magician presents four queens, and has the spectator freely select a card from the deck. The card is noted, and returned to the deck and shuffled in. The magician then explains how the queens will assist in revealing the chosen card. The queens are straight fanned face out, and with a move, the queen of the selected card's suit turns back out. When the reversed card is extracted, it has become the spectator's choosen card.

I liked this trick. Fast, visual, and involves the spectator. Requires sleight of hand, clearly explained. Will require more work to get down than Perfecto or IC3. I can see adding this to any card routine. 9/10

That's all I have time for as of now. Will try and post the remaining four routines at a later date.

Nice job for your initial offering Oz. A well presented DVD aimed squarely at the mid level magician. The camera work clearly reflects the explanations. The audio is of high quality, and the scenery (for those of you who pay attention to such things) is pleasing to the eye

Thanks for the review Gandolf. I greatly appreciate your candor, and hope that some of these tricks will make it into your act. You have similar tastes as me on some of the tricks. I perform Perfecto and Twist & Shake all the time, as they are totally impromptu and so devastating. I think if you go out and try Perfecto on a few people it'll go up from the 7/10 to at least a 9
Thanks again,
Oz

Any news on when Oz's next DVD is going to be coming out?

I heard it was sometime in August.

OZ does great work. I can't wait for the next DVD!!!

Chris

Same here. I love his demo videos too.

Hey, thanks for giving your review, I was just about to ask for one.

Oz your material is great. I had to show one trick and I got a 250 dollar gig for doing twist and shake in Applebees. For my age, $250 is great for a show, keep them coming