Review of You Can Be Mental, Too! Jez Rose

Introduction

"You can be mental too" is perhaps not a great sales pitch, but "you can do mind-reading tricks that don`t actually involve any mind-reading too" is perhaps not quite so punchy.

This DVD features Jez Rose, who wishes to astound us with his mind-reading tricks, in a Derren Brown style. But unlike the evil witch Brown, he also wants to share his secrets with you, and this DVD features a "how the trick is done" section. Several mind reading tricks are presented, and then they are deconstructed by Rose so that you too can have a go. A novel idea.

Video

A 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, but an NTSC one. An odd choice for a UK based performer, but perhaps he is hoping to sell more discs to the US and other markets. It all looks reasonably good, but you can tell it was shot on a very low budget. It`s just Jez in a random room, with some students milling around. Then for the deconstruction bits, it`s just Jez in room in a house.

These low production values do give a "poor man`s Derren Brown" feeling to things.

Audio

Just a PCM stereo soundtrack. Didn`t they go out with the ark? It all sounds ok, but again it just belies the low budget roots of the disc.

Features

No real extras, although there is a text based screen explaining another trick. It was slightly hard to read, being lots of small text squashed onto the screen, in NTSC. I was reading it on a 32" TV, from my usual viewing distance, which has never caused problems before.

Conclusion

Hmm, a tricky one this. I was a bit sceptical about this DVD, but it was interesting to watch, although the most interesting bit is the deconstruction of the "mind tricks".

However, once you`ve seen how it`s done, you don`t need the DVD any more if you have anything approaching a reasonable memory, as you`ll soon remember the tricks and how to astound your friends.

And that`s probably where it falls down, since there`s only around 35 minutes of content, it`s not very slick, and you`ll soon get bored of it (again, I think we`ve been spoilt by the high production values of devil child Derren "my mum & dad couldn`t spell Darren" Brown).

Ok, some of the money goes to charity (the Jez Rose foundation), but for 19.99 you`d expect more. A whole lot more. Like a 3 disc mega set with a book.

An interesting novelty, but can`t see it selling loads in its current form.