DVD Review: Daniel Garcia Project #2

Daniel Garcia continues to publish first rate effects in his Project #2. The effects are varied and intriguing and include Garcia’s take on shadow coins and haunted pack, and there’s a stunning sandwich effect. You heard it right, a stunning card sandwich effect. Close-up aficionados are likely to find something to like here.

Only Four is a matrix/shadow coins effect which, as the name implies, uses only four coins and two hands. You’ll need a close-up pad to perform this one and have to watch some angles. But the choreography is solid as is the misdirection.

Scatter is reminiscent of Harry Anderson’s “Mish Mash Card.” a close-up card trick that doesn’t use a deck of cards. You show a sheet of paper that has various playing cards chaotically depicted on it and the spectator selects one. You tear up the sheet and throw pieces away until you are down to one piece. Amazingly, the torn piece displays the spectator’s card. The DVD works in your PC’s drive so you can print your own sheets.

Motion is a great haunted deck routine that requires no gaffs and no preparation. The deck mysteriously cuts itself while in your hands as the selected card is slowly revealed. Garcia offers two phases. I recently reviewed Alan Rorrison’s non-gimmicked Haunted Deck effect, on his Fingers of Fury Vol. 2 DVD , which he called “PolterDeck.” Rorrison’s approach mimics the traditional haunted deck while Garcia’s version offers a mysterious card motion that is distinctly different. I prefer Garcia’s approach.

Bad Habit is a visual routine with a coin and a cigarette box. Here a coin repeatedly penetrates through the cellophane wrapper of a cigarette box. Chi! is Garcia’s version of Karate coin where a spectator signs a coin and you slam your finger through it. The spectator gets to keep the coin as a souvenir. Garcia shows how to make Karate coins out of quarters to give away.

White or Wheat is a stunning sandwich card effect. Two jokers or aces are cleanly placed down onto the table and examined by spectators. A selected card is returned to the deck and left jogged out. The jogged card is pushed flush into the deck and the selected card is shown to be between the jokers.

This one is daring and good, which are trademarks of Daniel Garcia. For this effect, Garcia teaches a bold and deceptive control called the “Ego Slip” that quickly switches the selected card for one that’s out-jogged in the middle and brings it to the top of the deck. It’s bold, but looks great in Garcia’s hands. It reminds me a bit of the Buck Twin’s Discrepancy Dribble Control (D.D.C.).

With all of the magic DVDs on the market these days, it’s getting hard to find discs with distinctive routines and fresh approaches. However, both are found here on Daniel Garcia’s latest.

-Wayne N. Kawamoto

MSRP: (US) $35

Dealers can purchase from Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.